The Hechinger Institute was created at Teachers College in 1996 by former Teachers College president Arthur Levine. The Institute honors the legacy of Fred Hechinger, the legendary education editor for the New York Times. We do this by helping journalists produce coverage that is "fair, accurate and insightful." This blog is one of the ways that I, as director of the Institute, will be pursuing that goal. I (and guest bloggers) will be on the lookout for really good stories about all aspects of early education. I'll also be suggesting story ideas for my journalistic colleagues. Pointing out holes in coverage. Taking note of issues that deserve more attention. So, if you see good coverage or not-so-good coverage, please send it along.

Story in the Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio Republicans have introduced a bill that would include in the"core" requirements for getting a high school diploma four years of math, instead of three, and require that science courses be lab-based. Democratic Gov.-elect Ted Strickland, according to the story, "voiced concern about increasing high school requirements before improving education in pre-K and elementary school." Here's the link

I became director of the Hechinger Institute in 2003 after many years writing about education for the Los Angeles Times, Oakland Tribune, and other California newspapers. I joined the Hechinger Institute because I care deeply about education and journalism and journalism about education. I think it's one of the most important beats in any news organization. I'm proud to be in a position to help my colleagues make the most of it.

In Ohio the governor doesn't want to make kids take more high school math until they've had a chance to attend preschool. In Oregon, state Supe Susan Castillo says she supports spending $65 million to bring fullday kindergarten to the schools with the most poor kids. (It'd cost $100 million for fullday K. statewide and she says she supports pre-K too but there's only so much money.) If you want to create more engineers, she writes in The Oregonian, "you need to introduce kids to math and science when they're 5 and 6." It'd be fun for a reporter to go to a kindergarten and write about those "college-prep" math and science lessons. link

Letters in the New York Times today respond to Monday's story about ex-Manhattanite parents putting their kids into private schools. One letter (from Walt Gardner, a former Los Angeles teacher who seems to get a letter in the Times about 20 times a year) says that the critical factor in the quality of schools is not the teaching, the curriculum, the sense of purpose, the quality of the learning environment or anything else that the educators are responsible for. No, the critical factor is the parents and the size of their pocketbooks. So, by that logic, the private schools in Scarsdale and other high-end suburbs will be "better" because the parents who put their kids in the private schools have the money to do so.

Another letter from a parent in Short Hills, N.J. (another high-end suburb) reports that when the writer's daughter was out sick he e-mailed two of her teachers for homework help and one responded immediately electronically and the other called. A good story for the Times and other journalists would look at all the ways that electronic communications are changing (and improving) the interaction between parents and teachers.

Story in the New York Times on Monday here's the linkbemoaned the terrible fate of Manhattan parents who hold their noses and move to the suburbs to put their kids in the public schools and then are disappointed. The story hangs on ambiguous and flimsy statistical evidence and a couple anecdotes that say more about the neuroses of the parents than about educational shortcomings. One parent complains that her first grader engaged in such "half-baked" art projects as gluing spray-painted macaroni on paper. Another complained that her kindergarten-age son was "developing all sorts of bad habits" and thought that school was about playtime. The parent isn't lacking in self-knowledge, however. She noted that she was a "neurotic mess."

The mid-term election results put the proponents of universal pre-kindergarten around the country in a very good mood. Newly elected governors in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, as well as the mayor-elect of the District of Columbia, all campaigned on the promise to support pre-K. In addition, ballot measures in Arizona and Nebraska won. (The local ballot measure in Denver remains undecided.) Pre-K Now, the Washington advocacy group underwritten by The Pew Charitable Trusts to help push universal pre-kindergarten in the states and nationally, says it will keep the pressure on to make sure the governors follow through on their promises. (Full-disclosure: the Pew Trusts underwrite this blog but do not determine the content.)

Journalists can play a role in this. They should be asking governors not only when they'll be following through but also how. A high-quality pre-kindergarten program costs money, real money. About the same per-pupil as kindergarten. Plus there are other questions: Where will the teachers come from? How will they be trained? Will they be required to have a four-year degree and a certification in early childhood? How will state programs incorporate the many, diverse providers of pre-kindergarten and child care already in existence. Lots of questions. Lots of stories.

The word "kindergarten," as just about everyone knows, comes from the German words for "children" and "garden." It was supposed to be a metaphor for a place where young children would develop at their own pace, nurtured by language, play, art, music and laughter. But from Mobile Register reporter Rena Havner comes news that educators in Mobile, Alabama have apparently forgotten the meaning and intent of kindergarten. Starting this year, kindergarten teachers there are required to "grade" their children starting the second week of school in five subjects, using tests or grades on assignments or performance. Here's a quote from the story:

To make an A, students at Mobile's E.R. Dickson Elementary School, for example, must speak in complete sentences during show-and-tell and use descriptive words. Points are lost if the teacher has to prompt the student to speak. "They're not going to make a 100 if I have to say, 'And then what did you do with it?'" said Vivian Schultz, who has been teaching kindergarten for 24 years and has some concerns with the new grading policy. [snip] The result, said Schultz: "Teach, teach; test. Teach, teach; test."

The story (published Nov. 12) quotes teachers and other educators in favor and against. But I'd like to hear what parents think. And what about experts in child development? The story cries out for follows. I'll keep looking for them.

The lead story in the New York Times on Monday reports on a series of studies showing that achievement gaps are not closing much, despite NCLB. The generally gloomy story implies that schools alone cannot be expected to wipe out such gaps. But the story does note that experts think expanding prekindergarten to more kids will help. One such bright spot is Edwin E. Weeks Elementary School in Syracuse where the gap between black and white students has narrowed. The Times story says that the school's principal, Dare Dutter, credited a prekindergarten program and a school health clinic that helped keep poor students from missing class.

The Southern Education Foundation, headed up by Lynn Huntley , an ES (EarlyStories) education hero, came out strongly in favor of universal pre-kindergarten in Mississippi on Monday. This report is one of a series the Foundation is doing on what it will take to improve education in the South. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the nation and stands 49th in per-capita income. According to the SEF, over half the difference in average income between Mississippi and the U.S. as a whole can be explained by the low levels of education in the state. Oh, by the way, Mississippi is the only southern state that spends none of its own public money on pre-kindergarten. (Census data shows, however, that about 52% of Mississippi's 3- and 4-year-olds are in some sort of "school," which ranks the state 14th by that measure.) Still, nearly 10% of Mississippi first graders were held back this year. That's evidence, according to the "Miles To Go Mississippi" report that children are entering school unprepared. The state's education department is asking the Legislature for $10 million to launch a pre-K pilot program. But Republican Gov. Haley Barbour is opposed. He's willing to start a program to give parents advice. But, as the Associated Press reported here, he said recently that "I don’t see us in Mississippi having a statewide, 4-year-old, state-funded pre-kindergarten program anytime in the near future.”

Pleased to see this report got attention from several television stations and the newspapers in Biloxi and Jackson carried the AP story. By the way, journalists who cover education in the South should know that the SEF is a terrific resource for them.

So, what kind of teaching makes a difference? And, by extension, what should journalists who visit pre-kindergartens look for? They should look for instruction to be woven into activities that give children "choices to explore and play." No drill and kill called for. Pianta says what works is:
– explicit instruction in key skills (teaching matters)
– sensitive and emotionally warm interactions (relationships matter)
– feedback (how'm I doing?)
– verbal engagement/stimulation (talk, talk, talk, words, words, words)
– a classroom environment that is not overly structured or regimented. (they're kids!)

Too often journalists fall into the trap of thinking that instruction is boring and borders on child abuse. In fact, learning can be joyful and fun, even for 4- and 5-year-olds. So, let's stop with the false dichotomies between teaching and play.

University of Virginia Prof. Robert Pianta has a piece in the new edition of Education Next that says high quality teaching in pre-kindergarten can close achievement gaps between emotionally troubled children and the children of mothers with little education But Pianta writes that in the schools studied only about a quarter of the four-year-olds in the schools studied are lucky enough to get high quality instruction and emotional support. He also notes that just as in K-12, standard measures of teacher quality -- degrees and experience -- are not reliable proxies for quality and tend not to be consistently related to gains in achievement. So, he writes, classroom performance matters more than credentials and courses taken.

I’ll be interested in seeing how this gets covered. Will the local journalists venture out into the preschools and see how well kids are being served and examine the quality of the programs the tax is supporting? Or, will they simply make calls to those setting up the program, the lawyers challenging the tax on separation of church and state claims, the critics, the advocates and report on the dry talk at the meetings to discuss the program. Stay tuned, as they say. But I wonder how many days it will be before a parent is quoted

The Post ran a bizarre pre-election column saying the city had bigger needs, like an irrigation system and saving a “vulnerable tree canopy.” The columnist argued for expanding preschools already in the public schools, asserted that only the poor should get help, and questioned allowing private individuals to oversee the spending of the tax money. Of course, some might say voters had their say, that those who will be appointed to oversee the program are part of the community too, and that lots of middle class folks struggle to pay for high-quality pre-kindergarten. In fact, pre-kindergarten participation is actually lowest among the middle class.

Maybe it was the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday, but the Denver Post and The Rocky both seemed to be caught flatfooted in their coverage of the narrow passage of Measure 1A this week. The local NBC television station, Channel 9, was way out ahead in getting reaction and analyzing what lies ahead. The measure will raise about $12 million through a local sales tax increase and the money will go for vouchers for preschool tuition, the amount to be determined by family income and the quality of the preschool the children attend

Terrific, agenda-setting piece in the New York Times Sunday magazine on the achievement gap and No Child Left Behind. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to understand, let alone write about, inequality in education and what might be required to reduce it. By an editor at the magazine, Paul Tough, the article explores the ways economic and social class affects children, especially in terms of language development and attitudes toward schooling. The article goes on to effectively argue that schooling must be more effective and focused on helping poor children learn how to learn if the achievement gap is to shrink. Journalistically, the piece trusts readers to be willing to wrestle with the findings of education research in coming to grips with these issues. That’s an accomplishment right there.

By the way, the article also says that high quality early education is essential for closing achievement gaps. This has become a mantra of journalists of late. More attention to what high-quality pre-kindergarten looks like would be welcome too.

Story in Saturday’s NY Times on the state Court of Appeals ruling in the long-running education finance case involving the New York City schools notes the tension between instituting universal pre-kindergarten and spending money for smaller classes or other enhancements to K-12. These tensions come up all the time. But journalists often don’t make the connection or explore the issues involved. On this one, however, the two most important public school voices are on board: both NYC Chancellor Joel Klein and Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers.

I decided to blog on the "unschooling" story because letters appeared in the Times today. A letter writer from Candor, NY repeats the notion that "when a child is ready to read, he will read." When a child is ready to spell properly, he or she will do so. When a child is ready to learn calculus, he or she will do so, same as Galileo. The basic philosophy of the "unschooling" troops seems to be that "government" schools "force" kids to learn, brainwashing them rather than enlightening them. Reminds me of a tour of schools in New Zealand I made while reporting for the Los Angeles Times. I was telling an ed-school prof there that I had come to report on the whole language reading instruction methods so popular down there. "Oh," she said to me in her lovely New Zealand accent, "instruction seems so, I don't know, medieval." Had I been quicker, I would have replied: "Oh, really. I've always thought of instruction as rather Renaissance."

I've been biting my tongue before commenting on the story on the "unschooling" movement that appeared over the weekend in the New York Times. "Unschooling" is a term coined in 1977 by John Holt, author of "Teach Your Own." It means that rather than be taught by adults, kids ought to be free to explore their world at their own pace, discovering knowledge and skills by tripping over them. It's one of those quirky, fringe notions that seems to capture journalists' imaginations. (Maybe because they secretly want to be unleashed from controlling editors!) Stories have appeared in the Kansas City Star, MSNBC, local television stations and elsewhere of late. A typical line in such stories is that kids, left to their own devices, will learn to read when they're "ready," almost by magic. I'd like to suggest that all future stories about unschooling include a line that says: "Learning to speak is natural, and brains are hardwired by millions of years of evolution to do so. But reading is an unnatural act and must be taught."

The schools in Fort Smith, Arkansas are facing an enrollment boom, which has led officials to put together an ambitious building program. At the same time, Supt. Benny Gooden wants to expand the district's pre-kindergarten program. The coverage in the Fort Smith paper notes that "while a pre-K program is not mandated, various studies have shown that children entering kindergarten benefit from a pre-K program especially if they are behind developmentally and socially." I was glad to see the story report the need for pre-K as well as the space crunch more classes creates. I would have liked to ask Mr. Gooden whether the district might not be able to find a way to make use of existing high-quality pre-k programs, already up and running.

By the way, Amy Sherrill, who wrote the article, was a recent attendee at a seminar the Hechinger Institute and the Education Writers Assn. put on in Atlanta for journalists in the south. Pre-K was one of the topics. Benny Gooden was a speaker.

My ranting yesterday about "unschooling" and the coverage of it (see below) led me to snoop around on the web a bit and I learned that the homeschool/unschool crowd is adamantly opposed to publicly funded pre-kindergarten. It shouldn't have been a surprise, I suppose, that the folks who oppose "government" schools would be opponents of public spending on education. (They still pay taxes for schools, even if they don't send their kids there.) But the rhetoric is still stunning. An article in the homeschoolers magazine on the California universal pre-kindergarten initiative that fell short last spring decries what it calls the "war on toddlers." The article claims the national campaign to expand pre-kindergarten is driven by callous parents who feel they're entitled to "free daycare," that its goal is to "manage" Latinos, or to fix the problem of paying for social security by producing workers. The author, a vocal opponent of the California measure, says the government wants to "intern" and "institutionalize" kids to serve the interests of the state.

Sometimes journalists can't see a story in the campaign to increase public spending on pre-kindergarten. "Everyone's for it," they say, and so there's none of the tension and conflict that can give a story juice. I highlight this point of view to show that, indeed, there are opponents and they don't mind playing hardball. But though this language may seem extreme, it's not that different from what you'll hear from the Heritage Foundation or even from some liberals who worry that public spending on preschool has to mean a "one-size-fits-all", "standardized" education. Journalists ought to familiarize themselves with this complex political landscape.

Diane D’Amico of The Press in Atlantic City, New Jersey had a good, comprehensive story (free registration required) on the growing interest in full-day kindergarten in New Jersey a few days back. She gives an overview of the investments New Jersey is making in pre-kindergarten in some school districts (principally those serving large populations of low-income kids.) Diane writes that “The old model of kindergarten as a child's first exposure to school is long gone. Children of working parents may attend day care and preschool practically from birth. A modern kindergarten program includes playtime integrated with a stronger academic component as well as the socialization of learning to work in groups and follow instructions.” For information on what other states are doing or not doing to promote full-day kindergarten you can go to here.

By the way, Diane attended a seminar last May that the Hechinger Institute offered on early education.