Howard Morrison specializes in early childhood education on a variety of topics, including interagency data integration and data use, data governance, data sharing agreements, school readiness, public-private partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and state systems. Currently, Morrison is the technical assistance (TA) specialist for the Preschool Development Grant Birth through 5 Grant (PDG B-5) Technical Assistance Center. Morrison also contributes to the ECDataWorks project as a TA specialist on state engagement and facilitation strategies and by facilitating a national community of practice on using data to respond to emerging needs.

Morrison led the development of three training modules on early childhood systems building for community partnerships for a project with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation. The modules focused on building community partnerships and engaging stakeholders, creating a community plan, and implementing the community plan and sustaining partnerships. Additionally, Morrison also supported North Dakota’s recent efforts with their early childhood integrated data system (ECIDS) by developing use cases and a stakeholder engagement plan.

Before joining SRI, Morrison served as the statewide coordinator in the Early Childhood Education Division of the Texas Education Agency for more than 11 years where he led the early learning work in the statewide longitudinal data system grant and was program manager for the Early Childhood Data System (ECDS) and the ECDataWorks project. He led development and execution of the ECDS application, including development of comprehensive data standards, rule and validation requirements, data submission requirements, report content and use, and training for regional and local program staff. He championed Texas’ ECIDS efforts to create the Texas Ready Communities, Ready Schools, and Ready Students (TXR3) analytic tool to generate custom reports and graphics. Morrison also served as the program manager for the high-quality prekindergarten grant, Texas School Ready program, kindergarten entry assessment, and led statewide implementation of full-day, high-quality prekindergarten. These programs focused on ensuring programs were implementing a high-quality curriculum, a progress monitoring tool, and a family engagement plan, and ensuring teachers received quality professional development and coaching.

Morrison holds a BA in business administration from St. Andrews University.

Key Projects

1. Preschool Development Grant Birth – 5 Technical Assistance (TA) Center
2. ECDataWorks
3. Virginia Early Childhood Foundation – Early childhood systems building for community partnership
4. North Dakota ECIDS