Americans share an expectation that government will serve the common good, creating inescapable pressure for public agencies--especially those that serve young children--to perform well. Yet education and human services agencies continually struggle to respond to the complex conditions in which children are born. How can they address the practical challenges of public administration and give a bright start for all young children? One strategy for fostering effective, responsive government is evidence-based policy and decision making. Just as data and analytics have been used to improve performance in private business, professional sports, and social media, state agencies that serve children and families have been building sophisticated systems to gather and link administrative data for over a decade. States have developed early childhood integrated data systems (ECIDS) to address the challenges. An ECIDS "collects, integrates, maintains, stores, and reports information from early childhood programs across multiple agencies within a state that serve children and families from birth to age 8." Across the country, at least 37 states are working toward developing ECIDS. A handful have operational systems. North Carolina has prioritized work on its system to provide researchers with data aimed at informing policy and practice conversations. Minnesota created a public portal that makes early childhood program data available, and state staff are now working with local practitioners to develop uses for the data. After more than a decade of work across the country in building ECIDS, it is time to match the technical tools with nontechnical capacity building: learning to use evidence to better serve children and families.