Every now and then a high quality editorial appears that helps fully explain the many components of pre-school education and why it is important. At best, editorials take a strong position, provide some background and back up the opinions with lots of background and context. Early Stories came across an excellent editorial in the Star Tribune that described the battle to expand and improve early childhood education in the state of Minnesota.

The editorial noted that the state's children are not doing as well as they should by the time they enter kindergarten, according to a recent report card. "Fewer than half of the 6,310 kindergartners surveyed -- 10 percent of the state total -- were deemed "proficient" and fully ready for school. About two out of five were rated "in process" toward readiness. On two key measures, language/literacy and mathematical thinking, one child in eight was judged "not yet" prepared,'' the editorial noted.

It also pointed to progress -- a preschool voucher pilot project, a law the 2009 Legislature approved and Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed that provides a quality rating system for preschool and child care providers, the promise of $26 million for child care-related services in this state. The editorial concluded that recognizing the importance of early childhood education and finding ways to fund it is key. "Minneapolis and St. Paul schools have recognized something important: Their own success, and that of many of their students, is vitally connected to the quality and availability of preschools. They're backing their resolve with resources."

EarlyStories spends a lot of time urging journalists to go out and visit pre-kindergarten and early childhood programs to see first hand what is, or is not happening. We came across a article that takes this advice even further with some thoughts on why pre-k teachers turn over so rapidly.

Valerie Carver notes the reason is they aren't paid enough -- their average salaries are less than $22,000 a year -- and don't earn enough benefits to deal with the demands of the job.

Some states also require that they hold a bachelor's degree; those who don't will make even less. There are different schools of thoughts and a good deal of research and solid recommendations on this topic for journalists, who should take a good look at what teachers are, or are not doing, when they visit programs -- and ask what kind of credentials they have.

The reason high turnover rates are a concern, Carver notes, "is that preschoolers have poorer outcomes and less stability. Studies show consistently that high turnover lowers the quality of preschool altogether - not good news for these crucial and delicate years."

Journalists who are covering early childhood education these days find themselves watching two distinct trends that often diverge: cutbacks in long-planned pre-kindergarten expansion due to state's economic woes, and a new federal involvement in the lives of children from birth to five. Understanding and covering these dual trends will require some explanation, and that is one reason the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media is hosting a webinar on early childhood education on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama has proposed spending $10 billion annually to support early childhood investments. How will his agenda change the early education landscape from birth to age five, and how does it connect to the larger K-12 world?

Journalists must keep an eye on the unprecedented new federal funding coming to states and districts through stimulus funds, which could drastically re-shape early education programs and policies. What will this mean for communities and at risk children across the U.S.?

Speakers include former Chicago Tribune editorial writer Cornelia Grumman of the First Five Years Fund and Scott Palmer, a partner and co-founder of EducationCounsel LLC, an affiliate of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.

Sign-up on the Hechinger website.

The state of Georgia spent more than $216 million on a program to help low-income children get ready for kindergarten, and yet state auditors cannot find any proof that the program is working, according to a story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The program in question is aimed at “at-risk” children -- a number that applies to about 40,000 of the 78,000 children enrolled in the state's pre-k program and whose families qualify for welfare or other similar programs.

That story raises questions about the audit and its methods in Georgia, which in 1995 became the first state in the country to provide pre-k to all four year olds in the state who want to participate.The story notes that state auditors could not evaluate how effective the program is because it did not track how well the children served in the program performed in kindergarten.

The study follows yet another inconclusive study by Georgia State University researchers in 2005-06, although other studies have described many benefits and Georgia is still considered a leader in early childhood education.

What is happening in these programs? Along with auditors, journalists need to ask questions about the quality of programs in the state. Why aren't children being tracked more efficiently to yield answers and what kind of research is needed to make sure answers are forthcoming? According to Pre-K Now,
Georgia served some 74,000 four-year-olds during the 2008-09 school year. What difference will it make to children now that the state is requiring all teachers to have a child developement associate certificate>? How will programs that serve poor and needy children be evaluated in the future so lawmakers, taxpayers and the general public understand more about how they are working?

Journalists are about to start hearing a lot more of the phrase "The Race to the Top.'' It's important to start examining what this phrase means, because it could start taking on a life of its own the way "No Child Left Behind,'' did and creep into the lexicon of education reporting without explanation.

The term has been used by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to describe $5 billion in the stimulus bill aimed at backing new approaches to improve schools and push states to raise their standards and reward top teachers. According to the Democrats for Education Reform, it represents "a historic opportunity to establish clear reform priorities and to back them up with significant resources to bring change to America's schools.''

So what would it mean for pre-k programs? DFER posted an issue brief this week that is a helpful guide for journalists trying to understand the new federal investment in early childhood education (which is also the subject of a webinar the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media will hold on June 24; sign-up here.)

The brief, written by Sara Mead, who writes the excellent Early Ed Watch blog, calls for states "to enact policities to encourage the creation of pre-k charter schools to deliver high-quality early education to 3-and 4-year-olds,'' and gives several good examples of how such programs would work and what states can do.

This is a relatively new idea and one worth watching and asking about. The brief provides examples of existing programs that get little coverage, including The Accelerated School in Los Angeles, KIPP McDonough 15 in New Orleans, and dozens of charter schools in Washington, D.C. that she believes provide high-quality learning and help improve outcomes for disadvantaged children later on.

Mead also notes an important trend that many journalists who are covering pre-k battles in their states are familiar with. Even though states have more than doubled spending on pre-k since 2002, "the current economic downturn and state budget shortfalls threaten this progress; nine states have already announced cuts to their state pre-k programs and more are likely to do so in the coming weeks,'' the brief notes.

EarlyStories spends a lot of time observing and commenting on the way journalists cover early childhood education. It's a tough area for many who are consumed with the demands of the K-12 beat and may not realize how much the early childhood landscape is changing. That's one reason the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media is hosting a webinar on June 24th. We will explain the main federal programs in early childhood education and describe how the Obama administration hopes to expand and fund them.

We'll ask and try to answer:

· What will an infusion of money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) mean for states and districts, and how will it influence what early education programs and policies look like?
· What sorts of new and developing partnerships between K-12 systems and early childhood care providers are on the horizon as superintendents and school officials clamor for programs they believe will assist their test scores later on? How can journalists assess the quality of such programs?
· How will investing in Early Head Start and Head Start expand access to quality child care for children from working families?
· What kind of training will be offered to early childhood workers and how can journalists assess if it is any good? What kinds of credentials must they attain?
· Is the federal investment sufficient to stave off cuts to existing pre-k programs and to reinvigorate plans for pre-k expansion?

This webinar is scheduled for one hour and is completely free. Apply online

As cash-strapped states continue to debate expanding early childhood programs and struggle to finance them, EarlyStories credits Patrick Riccards of Eduflack with laying out some important questions about quality. For example, is it possible to quantify results, he asks?

Journalists covering these battles would do well to ask such questions at a time when the public is waiting to see if President Barack Obama follows through on his campaign commitment to improve early childhood education through a major federal investment.

The demands of covering a K-12 beat make it easy for journalists to ignore what is or is not happening in early childhood education, although most are covering budget battles and the proposals of governors who have had to scale back promises. Riccards makes the excellent point that it's all too easy for the pre-k programs that exist to escape scrutiny.

"If we expect to transform every child into a successful learner, we also need to implement the quality, accountability, and teacher effectiveness into our preK systems,'' he notes, adding that the public must demand quality and results.

For that to happen, journalists must remember their watchdog role and find time to visit an array of early childhood programs and ask questions about the results. It's an important way of helping the public understand what good programs can -- or cannot -- accomplish.

EarlyStories can't help applauding when a daily newspaper like the Washington Post give prominent play and space to pre-school stories. The public needs the information more than ever, at a time when the Obama administration is poised to make a large federal investment and as states are being forced to scale back expansion plans. It's important for the public to get a glimpse of what happens inside such classrooms, and the Washington Post story this week did a good job of describing the enthusiasm of young learners.

The story noted that state and local governments now spend about $4,600 for every student enrolled in state pre-K, compared with about $12,000 for K-12 programs, and it described how the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in state-funded pre-k nationally jumped from 14 percent in
2002 to 24 percent in 2008. It also took a look at trends in Virgina and in Maryland, and attempted to provide context by touring schools and a Head Start program describing what the children were doing.

EarlyStories often takes the position that journalists should be out visiting pre-schools and Head Start programs to tell the public what is happening. It would also be nice if journalists could find the time to attend the many debates and press conferences on the issues they care about, but unfortunately, as news organizations scale back on staff and coverage, that is not always possible. That's why it's terrific when audio or video are available later on, as they are of a debate hosted last week by the Thomas B. Fordham foundation and live-blogged by Michael Petrilli.

The video discussed the pros and cons of universal preschool, spurred by the new book written by Chester E. Finn Jr, entitled "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut."

So if you couldn't attend the event, you can watch it here and get a good sense of some lively and differing viewpoints. The debate was moderated by Richard Lee Colvin, director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media.

EarlyStories for months has lamented the lack of substantive reporting on Head Start, , the program the United States Department of Health and Human Services started in 1964 that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families.

It's an area few journalists delve into, leaving the public without the benefit of understanding what happens inside Head Start programs. That's why it was refreshing to see a story appear in the Danville News in Danville, Virginia, where a reporter actually attended a Head Start graduation and attempted to find research that addresses the effectiveness of such programs. The Danville program received more than $1 million in federal and state funding and donations for the 2007-08 fiscal year, so it makes sense to find out what kind of impact it is having on the lives of small children.

The reporter tried -- but could not find -- local data about the program. She was also unable to reach the school superintendent to hear more about what happens to the graduates later on and how they perform in elementary school. She did include the results of a national Head Start impact study by the Society for Research in Child Development for the Department of Health and Human Services, which found that "nationally, Head Start reduced the achievement gap by 45 percent in pre-reading skills between Head Start children and the national average for all 3- and 4-year-olds.''

At a time when President Barack Obama's budget allocates $800 million in grants and incentives for states and local districts to invest in early child programs, it's more important than ever for journalists to visit and and ask questions. Interviewing parents and educators and watching the young children in action, along with seeking out research, is an important way of explaining the effectiveness of investing in these programs to the public.

Without even a nod to his new book, an editorial in the The Examiner of San Francisco managed to pick up on many of the arguments Chester E. Finn Jr. has been making in his new book "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut." (Hoover Press, 2009)

The editorial noted that "there is no evidence that expanding the time American children spend in state-run schools will produce any educational benefits at all,'' an assumption that many educators, researchers and pre-kindergarten advocates vehemently disagree with. Journalists who are covering this issue have to challenge such views by finding an array of research and visiting programs and classrooms to see what is -- or is not -- happening.

The editorial notes that President Barack Obama's top domestic goal is government-financed preschool for all 3-and 4-year-olds and concludes that his "Zero to Five'' initiative would most likley "drive small, privately owned preschools out of business in order to create more jobs for NEA members, who will be the real beneficiaries of this latest educational scam.''

The editorial has already produced some nasty disagreement; one comment on the Examiner site complained about misinformation and suggested that all the writer can do "is pound your highchair."

Science Daily reported some interesting results of a study this week that could have important consequences for kindergarten students who are struggling to pay attention. The study that appeared in the June issue of the medical journal "Pediatrics,'' found that children who can't keep up in kindergarten are more likely to do poorly on standardized tests in high school.

"The Impact of Childhood Behavior Problems on Academic Achievement in High School," analyzes data on approximately 700 children from kindergarten until the end of high school.

"In our study, a child's inability to pay attention when they start school had the strongest negative effect on how they performed at the end of high school — regardless of their IQ (intelligence quotient)," lead study author Joshua Breslau, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine and a researcher with the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities, told Science Daily. In a fascinating footnote, much of the research was done by his mother, Dr. Naomi Breslau, who was researching the long-term effects of low birth weight more than 20 years ago. Naomi Breslau conducted a random sample of 1,095 diverse children, with 823 participating in an initial assessment of IQ and classroom behavior as they passed their sixth birthdays; follow-up assessments were conducted at ages 11 and 17, Science Daily reported.

Joshua Breslau noted that addressing attention problems early in life could keep some children from entering "a downward spiral of failure."

The message for parents and teachers? Don't ignore signs of inattentiveness in young children, said study co-author Julie Schweitzer, a UC Davis associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) researcher at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, in an interview with Science Daily.

And what story ideas might the study provide for reporters? EarlyStories can imagine sitting in a kindergarten classroom, observing the explosion of energy and enthusiasm as the children play number and letter games and listen to stories. (That's all still part of most kindergartens, hopefully)

Who is listening attentively and who isn't? Could a reporter draw conclusions and become concerned about a fidgety boy or sleeping girl? Maybe not, but a well trained teacher could (and should). How concerned are teachers about the children who are fading in and out? Do they know the difference between a child who might be just tired out or overexcited on any given day?
And what, if anything, can they do with this information to make sure the child gets the help they need?

Not all studies break news for journalists, but many are worth reading if only to learn more about they mysterious and fascinating ways little minds work in a country where more than half the high school students don't graduate in four years. What happens -- or doesn't happen -- in the early years is enormously important.

New York Magazine's Jeff Coplon laid out in great detail something EarlyStories has noted for months: New York City has a serious kindergarten overcrowding crisis, one the New York City Department of Education did not anticipate or plan for.

Here's an excerpt from Coplon's excellent story...." whole neighborhoods are overrun. On the Upper East Side alone, a thousand extra children are crammed into seven elementary schools. And now hundreds of rising kindergartners had been told that there simply wasn’t room in their zoned schools for the fall...''

How did this happen? Coplon lies out several reasons, most having to do with demography, a post 9/11 baby boom, and the desire on the part of more parents to raise their kids in New York City.

And how are families taking it? “Enrolling kids in kindergarten is like picking up the garbage and making the streets safe,” Clara Hemphill, the founding editor of Insideschools.org,, a site that guides parents through the public school system, told Coplon. “It’s a basic government service that anyone expects.”

Having way too many middle class parents wanting to support the public school system might seem like a "happy problem,'' but Coplon points out the enormous anxiety and anger that has resulted from a severe lack of planning in the Bloomberg administration .

He also notes that overcrowding has been a huge issue in the outer boroughs for years, where parents are often left with "the worst of all worlds; underperforming zoned schools that have no room."

At a time when early childhood advocates are hailing a new federal investment in pre-school education, the economically depressed state of Ohio may be poised to roll back public programs due to state budget cuts.

Journalists covering the story or watching this state will have their work cut out for them, because the picture is confusing and changing quickly. In February, news organizations were reporting that Ohio would receive some $83 million to Headstart and preschool programs.

But just last week, the Associated Press reported the early childhood programs in the state would be cut by $244 million in the two-year budget plan approved by the Ohio House.

Sen. John Carey, Republican chairman of the Finance Committee, told the AP that the state did not get any stimulus money for early childhood education and that the state could not afford them.

So what is happening here? Journalists have to continue to take notice and sort out the fiscal realities from the budget posturing and politics. The Akron Beacon Journal published an editorial earlier this month lamenting cuts that will stall the agenda of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who has pushed for universal all-day kindergarten. and initiated other early childhood initiatives.

The Plain Dealer is following GOP efforts to slice $1 billion from the state's $56 billion budget this week, while early childhood advocates are speaking out against the cuts. Pre-school programs can prevent dropping out in years to come, and help lead to lower arrest rates and higher incomes for years to come, they maintain. As budget negotiations continue this week, the picture may change yet again for early childhood education in the state.

As EarlyStories anticipated, it didn't take long for opposition to Chester Finn's opinions on universal pre-kindergarten to emerge. Finn's op-ed, "Slow the Preschool Bandwagon,'' appeared on May 15 in the Washington Post, introducing some of the arguments against universal pre-k that appear in his new book, "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut.''

Finn, a former assistant secretary of education who is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation,has already generated two letters of objection, and Sara Mead of Early Ed Watch questioned some of his assertions this week as "just plain wrong.''

Finn responded here.

Finn's views are not expected to be popular at a time when politicians and President Barack Obama are pushing government to fund pre-school, but they must be considered by journalists who are exploring pre-k issues and need to understand the arguments against expansion.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said Finn had "inaccurately assessed the effort to secure high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten education,'' noting that it would be wrong to focus such programs only on low-income students.

And W. Steven Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research weighed in, noting that Finn's approach is not one the U.S. can afford at a time when 1 in 10 children are dropping out of high school. "....good state pre-K programs improve the readiness of all students,'' Barnett wrote.