For Jean Rimbach and Kathleen Carroll of the Bergen Record for their series on waste and fraud in New Jersey preschools, this time from the Casey Center on Children and Families. The series had picked up other awards earlier.
Hartford Courant reporter Hilary Waldman produced a fascinating, compelling story in yesterday's paper that was based on a....research study! But the story about a study of the effects of putting mental health consultants in pre-kindergarten classrooms was anything but dry. The spine of it was the story of a three-year-old boy named Terrence who was described by his teachers as a "human tornado," wreaking fear and destruction in the classroom. His teachers sought help and a state-funded program supplied a consultant, who helped them develop strategies for how to help Terrence learn to adjust socially.
The details in the story, the national context, the clear explanation of how the research was conducted and the human drama it captured--all were impressive. The article shows how richly visiting classrooms and making connections with real teachers, kids and their parents pays off journalistically. Journalism such as this will always find an audience no matter the "platform"--print or digital.
It's a long journey from kindergarten to high school graduation and even longer to adulthood. Those of us who think a lot about how kids get off to a good start on life's road sometimes forget about the bumpiness and dead-end exits along the way. Starting off in the right direction with a smooth-running vehicle full of gas does not mean one is assured of arriving at his destination safe and sound. Three good stories over the weekend are good reminders that, as important as it is to give kids a proper start, it doesn't necessarily assure them of a smooth ride through school or life.
Erin Einhorn and Carrie Melago of the New York Daily News worked backwards from interviewing a young man about to graduate from a New York high school who is headed to Carnegie Mellon to major in physics. They tracked down his kindergarten teacher, still in the classroom, and she led them to the class of children identified as gifted that she taught in 1994. Their story shows that pregnancy, violence, family instability, large, impersonal schools, uncaring teachers and many other unforeseen bumps in the road can make 
the ride rocky even for kindergarteners who are bright and ready for school. One girl who overcame the violent deaths of both of her parents to make it to graduation with the help of an iron-willed grandmother had this to say: "You have to have family support," she said. "You have to have a good relationship with teachers. You have to have motivation within yourself. ...And you have to have hope." Part three of the series is here.
Dale Mezzacappa, the veteran education writer for the Philly Inquirer who took a buyout sometime back, returned with a terrific profile of a class of 112 6th graders who had been guaranteed a college education by a rich Connecticut investor. George Weiss spent millions, mentored them, gave them tutoring, jobs and contacts and more. Now, 20 years later, Mezzacappa fills us in on where they ended up--and the news is mixed. Less than two-thirds of them graduated high school (twice the rate of other poor African Americans in Philadelphia from that year) and 20 earned bachelor's degrees.
Sara Rimer of the New York Times had a front-page profile that looked at the friendship of two very different girls, who became one another's support system through high school. Their friendship helped them get to graduation with good
grades and glowing recommendations--despite trials rivaling those of Job. Again, the point's the same: a great preschool experience is certainly a good start--a full tank of gas in a car that runs, as it were. But teachers, friends, resilience, luck, opportunities, family stability and so much more are required along the way.
(By the way, all three have audio, slide shows and other stories that add to the printed stories. At the NY Times site you can watch the commencement address given by Queen, one of the two girls Rimer profiles.)
Over the past three years Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has steadily increased his state's spending on high-quality pre-kindergarten classes. Last week the governor addressed a group of editorial writers who gathered at Teachers College in New York City for a two-day seminar 
sponsored by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media that dealt with early education issues. Pre-k advocates talk a lot about the studies that tout the long-term returns for investing in pre-kindergarten. But Bredesen, who has a degree in physics from Harvard, said those studies were not what persuaded him to push pre-k. What did the trick, he told the editorialists, was conversations with teachers around his state.
I went around the state and I talked to teachers and I asked them, "If you had one more dollar to spend on education, how would you spend it." When you forced people to pick one thing, it's amazing how many pick pre-kindergarten. It seems like there's a broad consensus.Bredesen also said he found it believable that high-quality pre-k programs would help more children be reading by the third grade. Finally, he said, it was a matter of fairness. "Some kids are extraordinarily well-prepared when they start school. You meet other kids who don't know their real names, only their nicknames, they don't know their primary colors, and you just say to yourself, 'it's not fair.' "
Rather than plunge into a universal pre-k program all at once and launch poor quality programs with the intent to improve them later, Bredesen decided to establish high-quality programs and roll them out slowly. The Tennessee program employs only certified teachers, keeps class sizes small, and uses only approved curricula. Surprisingly, Bredesen said, the biggest political fight had to be fought over quality. Day care centers and private pre-k programs did not employ certified teachers or pay decent salaries and so they saw the state program as a "threat to their livelihood."
Bredesen said that he hopes that any parent in Tennessee who wants to send their child to a state-funded pre-kindergarten will be able to do so. Right now, he said, the state is about 40% of the way there. But he said it was a "realistic goal" that can be reached in about three and a half years.
More about the seminar over the next few days.
The Hechinger Institute, in collaboration with the National Conference of Editorial Writers, gathered 30 or so editorial writers from around the country June 29-30 to discuss early education issues, emphasizing, in particular, the effects of poverty on children. Three of those who attended have already written commentaries, spinning off in different directions. The latest came from Kay Semion of the Daytona Beach News-Journal, who Download file">chided her state's leaders for cynically offering up a sub-standard pre-k program in response to the plea of voters for a high quality, universal program.
Earlier, Mary Ellen Schoonmaker wrote a lovely column in the Bergen (New Jersey) Record that drew on comments from a wonderful young pre-school teacher we had at the seminar as a speaker. And Linda Valdez in the Arizona Republic focused on the comments of New York developer and philanthropist Daniel Rose, who exhorted the writers to refer to high-quality pre-kindergarten as an investment, not an expense. Valdez referred to Rose as a "triple shot of espresso" for his rousing talk.
Alyssa Haywoode of the Boston Globe attended the Hechinger Institute/NCEW seminar both as a participant and as a presenter--she's written numerous pro-pre-k editorials over the past year. This 
editorial came out in the Globe the other day. She takes a look at Hilary Clinton's proposal for a federal investment in pre-k--the most detailed of any of the candidates--and finds it wanting. Rarely do journalists focus on the possible federal role in supporting early education. The Globe did.
Nicole Christian wrote a compelling editorial in the Detroit Free Press this past weekend, arguing that even though strong evidence for the effectiveness of high quality pre-kindergarten eminated from the state, the state's political leaders have not built on that legacy. She acknowledges that the state is struggling economically, as the auto industry tries to avoid complete collapse. But she says state political leaders could set what she calls a "committed, consistent political tone" in favor of expanding pre-kindergarten. Such a tone would inspire corporate and foundation leaders to get on board and create momentum. That's the strategy used in a number of other states that are now ahead of Michigan, which has sacrificed its early lead in the area.
Out in Spokane, Gary Crooks wrote an editorial in the Spokesman Review making the case that Idaho, one of 11 states that do not invest in pre-kindergarten programs, ought to learn a lesson from other states. He cites the case of Oklahoma, another conservative, relatively poor state that has made a commitment to preschool and the results it is getting, The editorial concludes by saying "let's hope the legislature can close their own learning gap."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Eleanor Chute wrote up an elegant little study paid for by PNC Financial Services Group. The basis for the study was a national survey of parents and teachers, asking them what they thought were the most important aspects of school readiness and how well they thought kids these days were to start kindergarten. Teachers thought being able to listen and follow directions and play well with others (also a trait of those who succeed in newsrooms!) were roughly twice as important as more academic skills, in terms of predicting future success. But elementary school teachers thought that very few children were well-prepared academically or socially. You can find more on the study here. PNC is paying for other research as well. More details on that, here.
PNC, based in Pittsburgh, has been a leading corporate advocate favoring bigger investments in pre-kindergarten. The company was one of the sponsors of a big 2006 conference of economists and corporate leaders in New York that drew a lot of media coverage. It's also putting its money behind the effort, planning on investing $100 million in an initiative it calls PNC Grow Up Great.
Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to (subscription required) label the national trend toward expanded public spending on pre-kindergarten for what it is: "one of the most significant expansions in public education in the 90 years since World War I, when kindergarten first became standard in American schools." The Journal's front page article Thursday did what the paper does so nicely: allow a reader who hasn't been following a developing trend to drop in and get a good sense of who the players are, why they're doing what they're doing, the obstacles, and controversies, and what lies ahead. The story notes, for example, that not everyone is on board with the push for "universal" public preschool. Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, for example, warns about overdoing preschool and says that "scarce resources should be directed to the problem areas." Mr. Murdoch, don't mess with success, ok?
Full disclosure: the Journal article describes the important role The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Trusts' director of education, Susan Urahn, have played in fueling the national movement to expand public spending on preschool. The article also mentions that the Hechinger Institute is a grantee, and that our role is to help journalists become knowledgeable about the issues surrounding pre-k. As I always say, though, we're not advocates for anything other than good journalism about education.
The last time Arthur Reynolds of the University of Minnesota et. al. reported on the long-term effects of the Chicago Child-Parent Center programs the former preschoolers in the study were in their teens. That was in 2001 and the study results got good play in the New York Times and elsewhere, admitting the CPCs into the (small) pantheon of pre-kindergarten programs documented to be successful by tracking the lives of the children they served into their adulthood. An update on how the Chicago group being studied, now about 24 years old, is out this month, appearing in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. (Media can gain access to the study as well as two related articles here.) The study finds that a representative sample of those who attended the centers in the mid-1980s are on average better educated; more likely to have health insurance; less likely to have been arrested, convicted, and jailed on felony charges; and less likely to suffer from depression.
The study has gotten a little attention from a few newspapers and bloggers and has been linked to by other research and advocacy groups interested in equity, education, and early childhood. But the study has a number of interesting findings and also raises some questions which merit follow-up by general interest journalists.
Cohort studies such as this one (others most notable were of the Abecedarian Project in North Carolina and the Perry/High Scope Preschool in Ypsilanti, MI) provide powerful evidence of the value of high quality preschool because they can estimate the long-term economic benefits--to individuals and to society--from early investments. In terms of policy implications, though, the Chicago program is the most important. One reason is that the parent centers are in public schools, they're not super-expensive boutique programs, and they're still operating today (although with some features eliminated). The centers serve three and four year olds, focus on improving language and math skills using a semi-structured curriculum; send teachers into homes to work with parents and require parents to participate in training activities; and include medical screening and meals.
Some of the points that merit further reporting:
1. Boys got a whole lot more out of the program than girls did. In fact, boys' gains in high school graduation accounted for most of the group's gain. About 64% of the boys who attended preschool graduated from high school, compared to a graduation rate of 48% for the comparison group. About 79% of the girls who attended preschool graduated from high school, compared to 78% for those who did not. So, if society were trying to maximize its investment, only boys would attend preschool. That is absurd, of course, so sometimes economic efficiency is trumped by social justice and political reality.
2. The group that attended preschool, may or may not have attended full-day kindergarten, and participated in an afterschool program did better than the comparison group, which was enrolled in full-day kindergarten. In many states, the expansion of preschool is competing for funds and political favor with a strong national movement for full-day kindergarten. This study suggests that the money is better spent on preschool and an afterschool program that targets the needs of disadvantaged kids. A separate analysis on the effects of an afterschool program alone found that it contributed little.
3. Even though the program was offered in the public schools, all of the children were poor and most were African American. The published article cautions against using the study to justify public spending on universally available programs, because they're unlikely to have the same effects.
4. There are no silver bullets: it's true that there were gains, some of them quite large percentage-wise. But, as an accompanying article by James Forman Jr., a D.C. lawyer who founded an alternative charter school in Washington, D.C. said, the study group was still struggling. Nearly 30% did not graduate from high school and only 15% attended college. Sure, the college attendance figure is 50% higher than for those who did not attend preschool but it's hardly a result to be satisfied with. The crime reduction was significant, too. But, still, about one in five of those who attended preschool had served time in jail, 16% had been found guilty of a felony, and arrests for violence were just as high among those who had attended preschool as for those who had not.
"Social scientists can, and should, debate the relative efficacy of different interventions in combatting poverty and its associated ills," Forman writes. "But anybody who claims that reform one aspect of our broken social services infrastructure will, all by itself, make a profound difference is selling snake oil."
As I say, more questions to ask and stories to do. The story on boys, in particular, would be quite provocative and interesting.
The Washington Post's Maria Glod used Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's decision to downsize his "universal" pre-k program to a targeted one as a news hook for a solid roundup of what's going on with the expansion of publicly funded preschool nationally. The article, which ran on A-1, had a glimpse of a good classroom, regional specifics, national sweep, details of Kaine's new approach, research, and quoted the strongest voices on both sides of the "universal" vs. "targeted" debate.
All in all, a fine example of going beyond a news development to provide readers with a useful context in which to understand that event. It wasn't necessary to go into it in this story, but one aspect of it made me think about what the next story on this might be for the Post.
Kaine says he decided to scale back on his idea because he was advised to "take the existing network and focus on the goals of increasing access and increasing quality" rather than start a new program from scratch. That's inevitable when a state expands its spending on preschool. It's not as if three and four year olds are not already going somewhere. But Kaine also may have been responding to pressure, because it is often existing private providers that lobby the hardest against expanding public spending, for fear that they'll be forced out of business by the competition. But Kaine's public-private approach creates another challenge. The state has to figure out how to push existing low-quality programs to improve. That's a hard job. Money helps but, as in New Jersey, public money poured into private centers sometimes leads to more money in the pockets of operators without any improvement in quality. Kaine suggests a rating system that parents will be able to use in choosing a preschool, in effect trying to tap market forces to maintain quality. The fact is, though, parents usually want their young children as close by as possible so the market forces are going to be weaker than they would be if true competition were unleashed. Kaine's right that it's the quality of programs not necessarily who provides them that's most important. But it's harder to ensure that quality in the private sector.
Staci Hupp of the Dallas Morning News did a comprehensive job of examining a new certification system for public and private preschools in Texas. She included many different voices, including parents and skeptical preschool operators.
But based on what I could find out about the certification system, the story makes it seem a bit more scientific than it probably is. Centers apply for certification and then submit information about the center's teachers and learning environment. Children from the center are tested in kindergarten and their scores, combined with the self-reported information, determines certification. Susan Landry of the Texas State Center for Early Childhood Development, which developed the certification system, is quoted saying it will be able to identify classroom practices which predict kindergarten success. Attributing causation in education is a very, very tricky thing.
Secondly, the story had only a smidgeon of (one graf, down low) context. States are spending more on preschool and so are trying to find ways to measure quality. Head Start has been struggling with accountability for several years now using tests and the tests, which were not useful for centers or anyone else, are likely to go away in the Head Start reauthorization. Several states give letter grades. Also, Florida tests kindergartners and judges the preschools they attended by the results. Most observers think that method is badly flawed.
Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College gave an excellent overview of early childhood education and accountability and assessment at the Hechinger Institute seminar for editorial writers in June. She offered a really nice image, saying that, regarding assessment, early childhood education is moving from caring teachers who wore smocks and carried cards in their pocket to write down loving observations about children to be "highly standardized, highly regulated, and much more consistent." She said she didn't think that was necessarily bad but that it's difficult to do and that the necessary assessment tools do not yet exist. Would have been good to talk to someone like Kagan for this story.
Michael Pound had a nicely done piece in the Beaver County Allegheny Times, which serves communities just west of Pittsburgh, that took a look at both full day kindergarten and the growing public investment in pre-kindergarten. Sounds like full-day and pre-k in the local school districts there meld together well. Elsewhere, of course, those two services are sometimes seen as being in competition for short funds. The recent study of the longterm effectiveness of the Chicago Child Parent Preschool program suggested that full day kindergarten, alone, had little effect if it wasn't paired with pre-k.
Here's a couple letters in response to the frontpager in the WashPost last week on the dilemma of targeted vs. universal pre-k. Both letters argue the universal side. The second letter, from a parent who applied for Head Start but was put on a waiting list, is particularly poignant and illustrates the argument universal advocates make all the time, that the income cutoffs for eligibility in targeted programs are sloppy proxies for need.
In a post on the HuffingtonPost blog Sen. Edward Kennedy describes the key characteristics of the long-delayed Head Start reauthorization bill. He doesn't mention that the bill eliminates the National Reporting System, the test-based accountability system that Head Start advocates hated and many early childhood education and assessment experts said was so badly flawed it was a waste of time. But the National Head Start Association says the demise of the NRS is one of its most important provisions. If President Bush signs the bill or not it's a big story with plenty of localization possibilities. The program itself would be expanded slightly, teachers paid more, and spending on Early Head Start increased. Watch for it.
Jeff Solochek of the St. Petersburg Times started off the new year with a fine example of journalism that mixes perceptive close-in observation of a classroom with a sense of the broader set of policy issues that surround pre-kindergarten. Here's an excerpt that in just a few paragraphs captures the mix of fun and academics that the best teachers achieve.
Hector approaches carrying a peg board where he's fashioned the letter E. He proudly holds it up for [the teacher Brenda] Roberts to see. She offers him praise, and more. What sound does E make, she asks, kicking off an impromptu lesson. Whose name in the class starts with E? After a few more questions comes more encouragement."Thank you, Hector, for making that for me," Roberts says. "I love that E."
No sooner does she turn away than Ruth appears, smacking rhythm sticks together, seeking her moment with the teacher. "What sound are you making?" Roberts, ever smiling, asks. If the noise irritates her, you can't tell.
"Choo-choo train," Ruth responds.
Roberts starts dancing. "You make that sound, girl," she says, making chugging sounds as Ruth happily keeps the beat.
I'd urge reporters to look at that passage carefully. The children are certainly enjoying themselves. They're also learning skills that will prepare them to read. Those who pooh-pooh pre-k by saying "why can't we just let them have a childhood" and those who say "let's teach those kids their ABCs!" should be challenged. Clearly, those goals don't conflict.
The children's advocacy group Children Now has on its Web site a very useful overview of what's known about the effects of interactive media use on 3-5 year olds. Although much remains unknown this clearly written publication sums up what is. For reporters who are considering writing about the controversy over children who are younger and younger using computers, the review of research provides many good experts as sources and also lays out the position of a number of non-profit and professional groups on these issues.
Back in 1995, Walter Gilliam of the Yale Child Study Center published a report documenting the problem of expulsions from preschool. The concept was so eyeopening--we usually associate expulsions with kids like the drug corner kids featured in the fourth season of HBO's brilliant show "The Wire"--it generated lots and lots of headlines. Now Gilliam has put out a new report that focuses on what can be done to help preschool teachers better cope with the needs of disruptive young children. The report, which was supported by the Foundation for Child Development, suggests reducing the size of preschool classes, bringing in mental health professionals as a resource, and giving teachers time for breaks may all be helpful.
Was glad to see that many newspapers picked up on the follow up report. Read stories in The Courant of Hartford by Arielle Levin Becker, the Plain Dealer of Cleveland by Angela Townsend, the Los Angeles Times by Carla Rivera, and Lori Higgins in the Detroit Free Press.
Smart editorial in the Washington Post applauds legislation that would add 125 pre-k classes in the district. But the editorial also, rightfully, urges advocates and city council members to focus 
on quality and choice as well as quantity. D.C. has a higher percentage of its 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool that any jurisdiction. Those children may not be getting much out of the programs, though. The new bill is built to make sure community centers--which often feel threatened by a significant expansion of public spending on preschool--continue to get their share of the pie. It does this by limiting how many of the 125 new classes can be placed in charter schools, which are very popular with D.C. parents, or in regular public schools. The bill also restricts the training of the preschool teachers to the University of the District of Columbia. These are just the right issues for journalists to raise.
I must have been too busy shopping just before Christmas to follow the back-and-forth over the accuracy and fairness of a report in the Dallas Morning News on the early evaluation of a Texas program to raise the quality of Head Start and public and private preschool programs. The newspaper said the evaluation of the first 18 months of the now five-year-old program found that it "has yet to deliver on the investment." That language seems harsh, given that the evaluation report said its design and timing limited its power to make such statements that early in the program. Most of the evaluation had to do with implementation, rather than quality, questions. The evaluators wrote a letter to the Texas Education Agency disavowing the newspaper's conclusion. In fact, the report found that with one year of training provided through the state-funded program teacher performance improved significantly and those who received two years of training improved even more. Although the report acknowledged it was not possible to tell whether overall student performance improved the evaluators did detect gains in three important literacy related skills: rapid letter naming, rapid vocabulary naming, and phonological awareness (an understanding that words can be dissected into discrete sounds).
As journalists, we love rendering judgments, which is an important oress function. But good evaluations are tools for improving programs, as much as they are tools for rendering judgments. It's important that we not overinterpret such work--mistaking recommendations for improvement for fatal flaws. In addition, it's important that we step back and look at what is actually being evaluated. If a report looks at the first 18 months of a program that's operated for almost five years, and if the program today is dramatically different (it served 1,600 students in 03-04 and 27,000 today), caution is warranted.
Editorial writers in Mississippi in recent weeks have been pushing for increased spending on statewide early childhood education, noting that while Mississippi has the highest percentage of working mothers with children, it’s the only Southern state that doesn’t provide state money for pre-kindergarten.
A Jan. 5 editorial in the Clarion-Ledger noted that many pre-K programs in the state are “purely custodial, not educational,’’ and complained that too many children in the state are already behind when they start.
The Clarion-Ledger editorial urged lawmakers to approve the Quality Education Act of 2008, which doesn’t ask for statewide pre-k but calls for a continuation of a pilot program they consider “a modest step toward quality.’’
Like the Clarion Ledger, The Daily Journal of Northeast Mississippi also noted its support for a statewide advocacy organization of 36,000 known as The Parents Campaign which supports a $5 million increase to develop effective learning programs in child care settings and help improve the educational content.
The smaller steps are being considered a year after Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Haley Barbour told the Associated Press that he did not see Mississippi having a statewide, 4-year-old, state-funded pre-kindergarten program in the near future. The Southern Education Foundation, headed up by Lynn Huntley , an ES (EarlyStories) education hero, last year came out strongly in favor of universal pre-kindergarten in Mississippi last year as well.
Mississippi is ranked 48th in the nation in per pupil spending and 48th in student achievement; over 60 percent of Mississippi children are at risk of failing or dropping out of school due to poverty, The Parents Campaign notes on its website.
The editorial writers don’t have to look far to notice other ways Mississippi is falling behind in its approach to early childhood education. Neighboring Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, has announced a plan to triple state spending on pre-kindergarten, and Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, invested $80 million for the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten program during the 2007-08 school year.
(Virginia Governor Tim Kaine during State of the Commonwealth address Jan. 9)
David Harrison of The Roanoke Times did a good job Sunday pointing out the obstacles to expanding pre-kindergarten programs in Virginia.
These are issues well worth exploration by reporters. Harrison found problems filling slots and finding space for pre-kindergarten classes in two areas of Roanoke and Roanoke County, and noted that it meant state money had to be left on the table. The issue is particularly important in Virginia because it comes at a time when Democratic Governor Tim Kaine is pushing to make preschool available to an additional 7,000 children over the next two years, at a cost of $56 million.
In his state of the state address on Jan. 9, Kaine noted that children who attend high quality preschool “are more likely to finish school, find good jobs and are less likely to commit a crime.’’ Kaine has already taken a step back from campaign promises to provide pre-kindergarten for all, after facing skepticism among Republicans in the General Assembly and state budget problems.
Kaine instead said he would focus on the neediest children in the state. Virginia now provides preschool for almost 19,000 Virginia low-income children. But Harrison found that some school districts can’t afford to pay for their share of the costs, or don’t have enough room for all the children who are eligible. Another district has problems getting parents of high-risk 4-year-olds to fill out the paperwork and come to the sites for screening.
Harrison went beyond making a few phone calls and told his readers why pre-kindergarten matters by visiting a classroom, watching what took place and interviewing parents. One father delighted in the fact that his son came home from pre-school and asked to be read to. It’s an example that gives readers a clearer sense of why early childhood education matters to parents rather than simply covering what the politicians have to say.
I admire the way Jay Mathews, the Washington Post's education columnist and reporter, takes on the real stuff of education and does so in a plain-spoken, non-wonky, real-world way that is always interesting. Good example is a column he did focusing on Levin and Belfield's new book (see previous entry). A book on the
economics of education sounds daunting but Jay lays some of the important ideas out quite well. He notes, for example, that Levin and Belfield calculate that providing the equivalent of the Perry Preschool Project from 40 years ago to 100 children would produce an additional 19 high school graduates.
As governors continue to push expanded pre-kindergarten programs, journalists are right to do some reporting and find out what may stand in their way.
That’s what Josh Bean of the Press Register in Alabama did earlier this week, noting that Republican Governor Bob Riley’s plan to expand the state’s highly praised but small pre-kindergarten program may be hampered by a lack of qualified teachers.
Bean’s story noted that the majority of teachers who attend education schools earn degrees that certify them to teach kindergarten through sixth grade instead of the separate early childhood designation they need to become pre-kindergarten teachers.
He also pointed out that Riley’s expansion plan comes at a time when eighteen percent fewer people are graduating from the state’s teacher-training programs than a decade ago. Only 13 percent of the state’s 3,700 annual education graduates earn the early childhood certification they need to teach pre-kindergarten, his story says.
Reporters covering the big push in their states for pre-kindergarten can’t simply report on the big speeches and promises their governors make. They should find out what it will really take to make such expansions work and whenever possible spend time in pre-kindergarten classes to help educate the public about what takes place in them.
Bean’s story notes another obstacle Riley’s plan faces – the public’s lack of understanding. He quotes Marquita Davis, Alabama’s director of the Office of School Readiness. "Many people still think it's baby-sitting.’’
The Associated Press coverage of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's budget announcement highlighted two of his ideas related to early education--a tripling of the state's investment in pre-kindergarten and expanded support for the Alabama Reading Initiative. (You will recall that the reading initiative in Alabama, as in many states, has gotten support from the federal Reading First program, which the Democrats in Congress cut by more than two-thirds.) But Riley is no big government, budget busting Republican. He also wants to cut income taxes to spur the state's economy.
Editorial writers at the Rapid City Journal are pushing for voluntary pre-kindergarten school standards in South Dakota, one of only nine states that doesn’t provide state funding for pre-k.
Pre-kindergarten standards have been a tricky topic for journalists in the state, even though, as the Feb. 13 editorial pointed out, a poll by the advocacy group Voices for Children found that 73 percent of likely South Dakota voters support them.
The editorial favors a measure that would allow the State Department of Education to establish standards for preschool accreditation and staff training. It came out a few weeks after the South Dakota Senate voted 23-11 for the measure known as SB26, which now goes to the House for a vote.
. On the news side, the paper has covered heated sessions on the topic including comments from opponents like Senator Bill Napoli, a Rapid City Republican, 
who said pre-school owners should decide how pre-schools are run and that it is “flat out wrong for the state to get involved in people’s private lives yet again.’’
The editorial disagreed, noting the law “keeps participation in pre-kindergarten programs voluntary and does not intrude on private providers who don’t access public funds,’’ while bringing public accountability to programs that do utilize them.
“Not everyone, including some private daycare businesses, think government should be involved in regulating pre-schools,’’ the editorial notes.
As the debate continues, it will be interesting to see more coverage of pre-classrooms in the state and how the approach to education differs – along with an explanation of what the standards might change.
When Professor Robert Lynch appeared before Congress Tuesday to testify about the economic benefits of pre-kindergarten, 
he hoped it would focus more attention on an issue he believes is dramatically under covered by the press.
“Pre-kindergarten doesn’t get the attention it deserves, although now that there is more activity on the state level, it is starting to get more,’’ said Lynch, an economics professor at Washington College and the author of “Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation, (Economic Policy Institute) 2007.
Lynch detailed why investing in early childhood education is one of the best ways to “improve child well-being, increase the educational achievement and productivity of children and adults, and reduce crime,’’ in testimony before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and education.
He believes press coverage of the issue is “woefully inadequate,’’ and offered a few theories about why.
“Obviously, children don’t have a strong political voice, as they aren’t a voting group,’’ he said. “And I still think there is a general misunderstanding of the importance of investing in children in the early years.’’
Lynch, who has served as a consultant to private businesses, labor unions and government and research organizations, told Congress that children who participate in pre-kindergarten not only end up with higher scores on math and reading achievement tests but have higher employment rates once they enter the labor force “and their incomes are higher, along with the taxes they pay back to society.’’
Lynch’s analysis of the issue is also explained in a briefing he wrote for WestEd, the national nonprofit research and service agency.
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen keeps stumbling into opposition as he pushes voluntary, full-day pre-kindergarten program for all county school systems in the state. On the surface, it would seem to be a natural extension of the state’s high quality program and Bredesen's already acclaimed efforts to expand pre-K.
But not so fast, the Tennessean reports. Bredesen, who invested $80 million for the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten program during the 2007-08 school year, is facing opposition from Republican legislators who say the program’s success is untested and are making their voices be heard as well.
Bredesen wants to earmark another $25 million to pay for 250 new pre-kindergarten classrooms before opening it up to all 4-year-olds in Tennessee. The Tennessean last month reported that Bredesen has been surprised by the opposition of Republican lawmakers and their remarks likening pre-kindergarten to glorified day-care, an argument that has come up in several states. Bredesen is fighting back; last month he met with editors of the Times-News in Northeast Tennesse to defend his education program and budget requests.
The state of Florida has the second-largest pre-kindergarten enrollment in the country, but that doesn’t mean journalists – and the public – should not be asking questions about the quality of the offerings.
The opinion pages of the Daytona News Journal online debated the issue this week, first with a piece by Monesia T. Brown, director of the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.
Brown touted the success of the program in a Florida Voices piece noting that the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten served more than 124,000 children last year.
Two days later, a piece by Roy Miller, president of the Children’s Campaign Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group, noted that “quantity should not be confused with quality.’’
Miller contends that Florida’s pre-kindergarten program lags behind other states in meeting national standards of quality and that 4-year-olds are being expelled at a high frequency. Both pieces provide a roadmap for the kinds of questions reporters should be asking about Florida’s program as it moves forward.
So many questions surround newly sworn-in New York Governor David Paterson that reporters have yet to examine his ability to carry out disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer's universal pre-kindergarten promises.
As recently as September, Spitzer visited schools in Yonkers to tout an additional $79 million his executive budget invested in pre-kindergarten, along with his promise to expand pre-kindergaten access for every child in New York State within four years.
Spitzer resigned last week after being caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a prostitute. On Tuesday, just 24-hours after being sworn into office, Paterson held a press conference to acknowledge infidelity in his own marriage.
When and if the storm surrounding Paterson's admissions subside, attention must focus on New York's $4.7 billion budget deficit and the April 1st budget deadline. Paterson has already proposed to cut $800 million in agency spending in the upcoming fiscal year.
One of the first reporters to notice possible dire consequences for education is Diana Costello of the Journal News in White Plains, who notes that a change in governors comes at a rough time and may derail promises Spitzer made.
Karen Schimke, president and CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, hopes the press will scrutinize problems that have dogged pre-k expansion in New York, from lack of space to access for working parents and the inability of school districts to plan and implement pre-k programs.
"Bring on the questions," says Schimke, who is a great resource for journalists on early childhood education in New York. "Sixty to seventy parents of kids in New York State have mothers who work. What about full day programs? The research is very clear – a half day is better than none, but full day is best of all."
Like many education advocates in New York, Schimke is patiently waiting for the next round of questions -- and hopes they will focus on issues that really matter to New Yorkers.
The word “rigor,’’ is one of the new buzz words in education, used to describe everything from stringent new graduation standards many states are adopting to advanced placement courses that give college credit to high school students. Lately, the word has crept into the pre-k lexicon with little explanation.
In Washington D.C., for example, pre-kindergarten is about to get a lot more rigorous, according to a Washington Post article.
And…what exactly does that mean?
Earlier this week, the article points out, the D.C. Council committee unanimously approved legislation that would “increase the rigor of the curriculum for early childhood education throughout the city.’’ A quick google search found the term creeping into the pre-k conversation throughout the U.S.
The Post article did a fine job of describing some of the hurdles to expanding pre-kindergarten in the District of Columbia, where about 12,000 children are enrolled and another 2,000 or so are not being served. However, it did not question, examine or explain what a “more rigorous.’’ program would look like.
Shakespeare instead of sand box play? Early SAT preparation? Pre-pre-calculus? Degree requirements for teachers? The question really should be, does the program reflect high standards? And what does that mean? What is the student teacher ratio, for example? Is there a curriculum? What are kids expected to know and do?
Journalists – and the public – should challenge words that don’t say a lot. The next time a pre-k program promises to be “rigorous,’’ find out what it means.
Reporters covering pre-kindergarten often find obstacles to expansion programs, from budget cuts to lack of space that prevents all children who want a spot from getting one. Carrie Melago of the New York Daily News found another barrier this week, imposed by the New York City Department of Education: Language.
Nearly one third of the more than 1.1 million students in New York City public schools are immigrants and the proportion is rising steadily. Some 42% of New York City public school students reported speaking a language at home other than English last year.
Yet when directories and applications for a new, centrally managed pre-kindergarten process that requires parents to rank their top choices went out this week, they were posted online in English only. The action upset advocates for immigrants who worry that parents who can’t get the information won’t register their children for pre-kindergarten.
The New York City Department of Education promised to make the documents available in eight languages by next week: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. They also said their translation unit can help parents in the meantime.
It's nice to see reporters picking up on findings by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, which released a report last week describing which states are meeting benchmarks. But it would be even better to see some follow-up that helps the public -- and policy makers -- understand why some states are lagging far behind and what the findings mean.
The San Antonio Express News carried a piece the day the NIEER report was released, noting that while the preschool program in Texas serves more 4-year-olds than any in the nation, the state "has a long way to go when it comes to quality.''
The piece had good background and perspective about pre-kindergarten in Texas, which enrolled about 170,313 4-year-olds last year, more than any other state-funded program in the nation.
It also pointed out that Texas and seven other states met just four of the 10 quality standards laid out by NIEER, including failure to limit its class sizes.
Remaining questions: Just how large are these class sizes and what number is optimal? If the quality is poor, who is to blame? Does it mean the teachers don't have the training they need, or are the facilities a problem?
Is there proper equipment and room to play? Is the atmosphere chaotic? Is there a curriculum or are expectations established about what children are doing and learning? Is any learning going on? Are there any high quality programs worth looking at for examples?
At a time when public investment in pre-kindergarten is growing, it's critical for reporters to visit classrooms, ask questions -- and give the public a glimpse of what is happening inside them.
In Texas, the need for follow-up is critical because the Texas Education Agency and the State Center for Early Childhood Development are in the midst of revising pre-k guidelines for the first time since their adoption in 1999, as Lindsay Kastner pointed out last week in the Express News.
The other day I urged reporters to ask careful questions about the quality of a pre-kindergarten, and to go beyond simply repeating findings on a report. Last week, a story came up in Tulsa, Oklahoma that truly begged the quality question.
The Tulsa Tribune reported that a pre-k site was shuttered after three pre-kindergarten kids wandered off and ended up at a Sonic Drive-In about two blocks south of the YWCA. 
(The ones that got away?)
To her credit, Tulsa World reporter Shannon Muchmore followed up the story, obtaining inspection reports from the Department of Human Services that showed the YWCA site had no recent violations.
So how did the three little ones manage to scamper off? According to Muchmore's story,
two YWCA employees, a certified teacher and an assistant teacher, were watching 20 children at the time. That's within the DHS-recommended ratio of one caretaker per 15 children.
The site is shuttered while the investigation continues. An explanation is called for, especially because Oklahoma has been considered a pre-k leader, according to Pre-K Now, the public education and advocacy organization.
How do you measure the quality of a pre-kindergarten environment where kids can run out the door, only to be found several blocks away?
NY1 focused yesterday on the plight of one school that offers half-day prekindergarten classes for its neighborhood, but lacks the funding to expand the program into full time (all day) pre-K services. The article nicely touches on the major issue facing the pre-K programs in NYS – funding. While in 1997 the universal pre-K program was heralded for its expansion,inventiveness and rally cry to provide Pre-K to all of NYS children, by the 2001 budget, funding had dried up significantly and the programs were stalled. According to a 2004 census, there were over 400,000 4 year olds in NYC, but only 48,000 were in a pre-K program, and the majority of those children were in half day pre-K.
It's good to see more personal stories on the lack of pre-k and its effect on the community, and this will hopefully lead to more questions...and more action.
Charles B. Reed, who oversees 46,000 faculty and staff and 450,000 students on 23 California campuses, weighed in on the future of the littlest Californians in an op-ed piece that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.
Reed has his hands full managing young adults at the country's largest senior system of public higher education. His plea, though, was aimed on giving a better beginning to those he hopes will become future students. Reed noted that solid pre-kindergarten programs can pay long term dividends in the years to come -- and that only about half of eligible, low-income, preschool-age children in California receive a publicly subsidized pre-K start.
Reed noted two recent reports on this issue worthing taking a look at: the first from the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence and a second was convened by
The report found that the achievement gap in the K-12 years begins when kids first enter kindergarten class -- and that those who start behind, stay behind. "Without a strong beginning, these children can only grasp at an elusive dream,'' Reed writes.
The Jackson Clarion Ledger published an editorial last week urging better funding for pre-kindergarten, noting that Mississippi is one of only 11 states without a state funded program.
The responses posted at the end of the editorial made it clear how much opposition remains in the state, ranked 48th in the nation in per pupil spending and 48th in student achievement.
“Government baby-sitting,’’ one individual wrote. “Early childhood indoctrination for the socialist USA. Get them on the big yellow buses to send them to the fascist-run propaganda factories ASAP. Sorry, send your children. Leave mine alone.’’
Such remarks should be worrisome to pre-kindergarten advocates in the state, where Republican Governor Haley Barbour has resisted funding expansions like nearby Tennessee.
Advocates who support the Quality Act of 2008 are now hopeful that lawmakers in the large rural state will include $5 million in the budget to improve existing centers. Money would be earmked for three programs approved in 2006 but never funded: an early childhood grant program, a child-care resource and referral effort, and a “quality step system,” which would pay bonuses to providers who meet higher-than-minimum standards, according to an article in this week's Education Week.
One person who responded to the editorial wanted to know what other states that fund pre-kindergarten are actually getting for their tax dollars. Another complained that the state can’t “get it right,’’ with its K-12 students.
The opinions expressed freely are a window into an issue that merits thorough coverage and exploration.
Sara Mead at Early Ed Watch posted on this before I could get to it: A German, Friedrich Fröbel, created the first kindergarten (literally children's garden) in 1840 to honor the 100th anniversary of Gutenberg's discovery of movable type. Oddly, though, as Mike Estrel recounted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal this week, Fröbel wanted young children to grow up in nature, 
"cordoned off from letters and numbers." In Germany today parents are again trying to offer their children the chance to play, worried that kindergarten has become too academically oriented. So, they're sending them to what are called waldkindergärten, or "forest kindergartens" to splash about in the mud, dig for worms, examine lizards, and other activities that characterized
Photo from the Wall Street Journal/Mike Estrel
playtime before the Screen Age of computers, TVs, game consoles etc.
Here are some great quotes:
Iwao Uehara, a professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture, says he has been trying to set up such a school in Japan, but the project is struggling. Until there's evidence that Waldkindergärten graduates end up attending "famous universities," it's going to be a tough sell, he says.
Among the nature-based activities, children learn how to handle a real saw. "A plastic saw is no good," says Ms. [Marsha] Johnson. (Johnson set up a "forest kindergarten" in Portland, Oregon, the Journal reported.) "You might as well give them a plastic life." The worst that has happened thus far to the children is the occasional bee sting, she says.
I tried to find anything written about the school in Portland via Google but was unsuccessful.
By the way, the first public kindergarten in the U.S. was established in 1872 in St. Louis. Wikipedia's history is here.
It's been interesting watching the coverage of the fight for pre-kindergarten funding emerge in two very different states, where advocates -- and taxpayers -- are keeping a close eye on the outcomes.
An editorial in The Tuscaloosa News noted Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's push for an additional $20 million for the Alabama's voluntary pre-kindergarten program, which would allow the state to triple the number of 4-year-olds in the program by 2001.
Earlier this month Riley asked 1,000 pre-kindergarten advocates in the state to walk up to the State House, find their representatives and senartors "and tell them to vote for this budget because pre-K is so crucial to the future of our state.''
Up in Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick came to office full of promises for an ambitious pre-kindergarten program, economic realities have hit home and derailed much of his education agenda. The Boston Globe pointed out last week that the House is likely to scale back some of Patrick's spending initiatives, including an additional 892 pre-kindergarten classrooms. Patrick no longer is making a big push.
Patrick told reporters the economy has hampered his ability to expand spending, and that there is "no point getting frustrated about the economic times.''
I bumped into Steve Barnett, the co-director of the National Institute on Early Education Research, at the Education Writers Association conference in Chicago over the weekend. As we were being jostled by a scrum of p.r. folks, I asked him what he'd thought of the coverage of NIEER's 2007 State of Preschool yearbook. He said the report didn't get much attention from national outlets but that it was the hook for a lot of local stories. Catching up on the coverage I'd missed while on the road this morning I found a perfect example of what Barnett meant. The television station WYMT in Hazard, Kentucky used the report as the news hook for a visit to a preschool in Perry County, Kentucky. Reporter Heather Hale didn't quote any statistics or academic types. Nor did she talk about how much Kentucky actually spends. But the visuals and a couple brief interviews nicely illustrated high quality pre-k.
A Denver Post editorial last week noted that the universal pre-k program approved by the city's voters in 2006 is only serving 695 children and has prompted a new civic effort to speed expansion. The editorial notes that one reason for the slow growth is that the programs funded by the measure are required to be high quality. While the editorial says that's a problem, others might well disagree and call it a virtue.
A few days later a Rocky Mountain News editorial added the fact that the program is only spending about a third of the amount that was intended. The Rocky opposed the measure in 2006 but it says that it is rooting for its success. Given that the program was authorized only 
18 months ago the Rocky said it needs to be given more time. But, the editorial said, if the program isn't running at full or near-full speed a year from now there would be reason to complain.
Here's the Post's news story, pegged to a new $1 million ad campaign to boost awareness. The Rocky published a much more useful story--including details about the program that might actually help parents--here. But neither
Linda Mcconnell / Special To The Rocky
reporter actually ventured into classrooms to explore the issue of quality or give readers a sense of what children are getting.
The program should be serving more students soon. In March it was announced that 1,100 families had applied during a six-week enrollment period and that 100 more centers had become certified to serve them.
While heading out of Chicago Saturday I saw that the early Sunday edition (at the L.A. Times we called this the "bulldog" edition) had a big front page spread delving into scientific, political, and economic issues related to how best to invest in early childhood education. It was an excellent piece that focused on how early some form of early education outside the home should begin. Brain research was cited but the piece also explored the competing interests and tradeoffs involved in early education policy. It was comprehensive, nuanced, authoritative, and balanced. Readers would come away knowing the parameters of key debates on early ed. Journalists should look to it as a model.
Governors who push for pre-kindergarten funding in the face of budget woes won't always get public applause, but they certainly will get adulation from pre-kindergarten advocates. That's what happened last week to Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who recently told reporters the economy his hampered his ability to expand spending.
But Patrick managed to propose triple funding for prekindergarten education, asking for $22.1 million in next year's budget, earning him accolades from PreK Now. His proposal would boost access for 14,320 3-and 4-year-olds if approved by the Legislature.
In Tennessee, however, it's a different story for Governor Phil Bredesen who has also been something of a darling among pre-kindergarten advocates for expanding programs and extolling the virtues of early education. This week, Bredesen acknowledged how difficult funding for pre-kindergarten will be at a time when the state is faced with a $500 million budget shortfall.
Bredesen told parents, teachers and others that the program is resented by opponents as "publicly funded babysitting,'' and added that there are real difficulties getting General Assembly approval.
Stories about parents camping out on streets overnight to get their children into a quality pre-kindergarten program are easy targets for the media. It’s not hard to get quotes from exhausted and annoyed adults who have slept outside for several nights in search of a coveted spot in a quality program for their progeny.
That's exactly what reporters for 11 HD News in Atlanta Atlanta Journal Constitution did last week. The photos really bring this story home.
The hope, desperation and anger on those Georgia sidewalks and in the campers and RV's parked nearby speaks volumes about the value of a solid educational beginning for young children and the need for a better system of signing up. In Atlanta, parents sign their kids up on a first-come first-serve basis for pre-k, and camping out to be first is an accepted practice.
Atlanta’s Superintendent of Schools Beverly Hall apparently disapproves of it and had sent out a letter schools discouraging it. But it came too late for the parents who had spent the night on the sidewalk to be the first on line, only to have police barricades blocking them from entering the school.
The process is an education itself. But is it the right kind of education?
The Utne Reader's Science and Technology blog links has a fascinating video interview with Elizabeth Spelke, who heads a team of Harvard 
researchers studying the development of language and social awareness in babies. The video was produced by The Telegraph newspaper in London, which published an in-depth story on this line of research. Here's a nugget: babies from the very youngest age show preference for people who speak with the same accent as their parents, for people their own gender, and for people their own race.
The City Paper in Nashville produced an insightful analysis of the Tennessee budget realities that forced Gov. Bredesen to give up on his plans to keep expanding the state's pre-k program. The move shows shows the seriousness of the state's financial problems, said Rep. Les Winningham (D-Huntsville), the chairman of the House Education Committee. “Obviously, he had a goal of continual expansion of pre-K,” Winningham said. “And we have to know and recognize that when he actually pulls back on an investment in that, that the situation financially is pretty serious.”
Jeff Solochek's blog The Gradebook in St. Petersburg says a state auditor's report suggests revising the method by which schools participating in the Voluntary Pre-K program are evaluated to 
take better account of the gains children make. But linking to this entry also let's me run this photo from the blog, which shows the 2007 "graduating" class of the Li'l Camper's Academy.
Some of the most interesting work I've read about early childhood comes from Ross Thompson , a professor at the University of California, Davis. I heard him give a fascinating talk once about the importance of the mother child relationship for early learning.
This week, Education Week published a story about a new study indicating that the quality of the relationship between preschool teachers and students may be even more important to their learning than credentials, class size and other factors.
For reporters covering pre-school, the relationship question is worth pursuing, but tough to quantify. There may be certain clues, though, and all require close powers of observation and some background knowledge. The study provides yet another rationale for visiting pre-school classrooms to help shine some light on what happens inside -- and why it matters.
It's worth reading the study, which was released in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development. Authors include Robert Pianta, dean of education at the University of Virginia, who developed an assessment tool that measures 10 different aspects of teaching and is being used across the U.S. to train pre-school teachers. Some initial conclusions and useful observations can be found in the press release.
The information is a good starting point for classroom visits and questions to ask -- all of which will lead to higher quality journalism.
Ann Doss Helms of the Charlotte Observer posed some interesting questions in a Sunday story on Bright Beginnings, a pre-kindergarten program in Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools with a big promise -- to transform the lives of at-risk children and help them succeed later on.
Her story found the $23 million a year program has not kept its promises and that the school system cannot say what its academic impact has been. The Chief accountability officer of the district told Doss Helms that analyzing the success of the pioneer class -- now high school freshmen -- isn't on their radar, at a time when long-term research on the impact of public pre-kindergarten is lagging. A sidebar to the story shows how little data a researcher hired to analyze the program has received.
As states and governors consider investing public funds in pre-kindergarten, it's critical for journalists to follow-up the way the Doss Helms has done and hold the programs and public officials accountable. The questions her story poses -- including what factors determine and shape a student's success, and what influence a strong pre-kindergarten program might have -- must be part of the public dialogue.
(Wiped out by kindergarten?)
Children who don't get a chance to attend pre-kindergarten may have their first experience with school when they enter public school for government-funded kindergarten.
Pressure is growing to make such programs a full-day in areas where they are not, better to give children the academic start they need and mesh with the schedules of working parents who in many cases have already had their children in school all day.
In the upscale Massachusetts town of Lexington, parents have agreed to pay an additional $1,025 in student fees for a full day program, according to a story in the Lexington Minuteman, picked up in Sara Meade's Early Ed Watch blog.
In Arizona, a full-day kindergarten program that began three years ago with just 11,000 students grew to more than 86,000 students in 2007.
In the West Des Moines school district in Iowa, the number of full-day kindergarten classes will nearly double next year, according to the Des Moines Register . The article noted that parents prefered an all-day option, but never got into the debate that sometimes occurs among parents considering such programs.
The comments that appeared on the end of the story made it clear that all-day kindergarten still feels like a stretch to some parents, who worry about their children staying awake.
"They don't offer naps anymore,'' one parent lamented.
Reporters interested in learning more about the benefits of all-day programs might check out fact sheets about their states, such as this one compiled by the Minneapolis Foundation.
There's also a report on full-day programs by the National Institute for Early Education Research.
Most states have websites or organizations devoted to detailing facts about full day kindergarten, such as Strategies for Children in Massachusetts, and similar fact sheets for many states that have or are continuing to debate this issue.
And always, there is a concerned parent to interview who worries about naptime.
While some states are pushing for all day kindergarten, Texas and Florida are jump-starting pre-school, trying out children as young as 2 and 3-years-old with the help of a $6 million grant from the University of Texas.
A piece by Staci Hupp in the Dallas Morning News noted that pre-school is "moving to the potty-training set,'' and took a look at a new project coming to Dallas that aims at training child-care workers to connect with children early to help boost their success in school later on.
Dallas is home to a fast growing Hispanic population with children younger than 5 making up the largest age group. The city also has a disproportionate population of poor children who are more likely to start pre-school developmentally behind and the hope is that starting children younger by building their vocabularies and school routines will only help them give them a better academic start.
It will be interesting for reporters to visit these early start programs and talk to some of the caregivers and teachers. What kind of structures and curriculum are in place, and how is the program being evaluated and measured? What are the expectations, and what are the hoped for -- and achieved -- outcomes? Is anyone measuring progress once they do start school, and if so, how? What constitutes success for the potty-training set?
(Early reading or book eating?)
A story in The Sun about a class of pre-kindergarten students in Oklahoma who are "already reading,'' caught my eye this week, in part because I'm always on the look out for ways in which we are pressuring children to hurry up and master skills.
Turns out, while some of these four-year-olds are finishing beginner books, most are simply memorizing a sentence or two, according to the article.The story is sweet, and filled with quotes praising the administrators and teachers for being supportive and creative and for pushing the students. What it doesn't do is examine a longstanding debate about the appropriate age to teach reading.
There are plenty of people who do not believe formal learning should start for children until they are seven, including Lilian Katz,, a professor of education at Illinois University
Katz last year addressed an international conference on nursery school at Oxford University in England, and told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian that teaching children to read and write too early can dent their interest in books later on.
In Sweden, children do not star formal instruction until six or seven. I know one thing from my own experience. For the first few years, any book I put in front of my children ended up in the same place -- their mouth. I do think the issue how reading is taught, what books are introduced and what the right age to get kids started is a fascinating one, especially at a time when public school children are taking standardized tests earlier -- and more often.
An editorial in the Charlotte Observer followed up on the excellent reporting by Ann Doss Helms earlier this month on Bright Beginnings, a program aimed at helping at-risk children succeed later on by giving them preparation for kindergarten and helping them learn to read.
School officials in Charlotte-Mecklenberg told the paper that tracking the children in the program so they could analyze its long term impact had not been on their radar screen.
It should be, noted the editorial, pointing out that any data gathered could shed light on how pre-kindergarten programs can help close the achievement gap -- and illuminate the value of public investment in pre-kindergarten.
It falls to the press sometimes to make such arguments on behalf of the public. At a time when public investment in pre-kindergarten has moved front and center, the public needs details of what works -- and what doesn't.
Information, the editorial noted, is power.
(Locked out of pre-school in New York City?)
New Yorkers of means have long been willing to subject their tykes to interviews, tests, and endless tours to secure a spot in prime private programs like the 92nd Street Y, where tuition for 4- and 5-year-olds is $23,000 this year.
Lately, a few new obstacles have been thrown into the mix for those who don't posess the money,connections and savvy for private programs.
Those seeking a saner route -- such as securing a spot in a public pre-kindergaten for an equally coveted spot in a kindergarten with a gifted and talented program -- may find themselves out of luck.
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein last year said he hoped to equalize opportunities for gifted kindergartners by expanding and improving the testing process for admissions.
And it has expanded -- almost 24,000 kindergarten and first-graders took such examps this year compared to about 8,000 last year, according to a story in the New York Sun, which has been closely following his efforts.
The Sun revealed that Klein will now allow parents to opt out of kindergarten testing that would have cost the city about $1.5 million, at a time when schools are facing steep budget cuts and the city is experiencing a $99 million budget deficit.
Opponents who hated the testing program and argued that such tests were both inaccurate and potentially damaging cheered, but elsewhere in the city there is more admissions angst..
Parents trying to get their toddlers a spot in a public city pre-kindergarten are also running into roadblocks, according to Insideschools.org, a project of Advocates for Children of New York, which has been tracking problems and complaints.
Rejection letters are already out -- and being disputed by parents whose children have been shut out, even of their neighborhood programs where older siblings attend.
City school officials are apparently investigating all complaints.
(The bus may take off without siblings in NYC)
A quick follow-up to New York City's pre-kindergarten woes: Turns out the New York City Department of Education got confused about who had siblings in the same school this year, and now must straighten out complaints from parents whose children were denied a pre-kindergarten spot in the school their older child already attends.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein had announced earlier this year he was overhauling pre-kindergarten admission in the city, promising to replace what he called a "confusing, unfair and difficult to navigate,'' process with something simpler.
Instead, he's got a lot of angry parents, calls for a probe from Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and a whole lot of four-year-olds with no place to go next fall, according to stories in both the New York Daily News and the New York Times.
Some 20,000 parents applied for about 23,000 pre-kindergarten slots in the city and an untold number got rejection letters saying no slots were available. Many went to those with brothers and sisters in the programs -- who, according to the new system, were supposed to be given priority under the new system.
The Department of Education has now agreed to review some 9,000 applications -- and appears to be blaming the problem on mistakes parents made filling out forms or listing two different addresses.
A simpler process?
(Montana excells in beauty, lags in pre-kindergarten programs)
Sara Mead of New America Foundation did a great job of highlighting two states in the news politically, but way behind in early childhood education. Both South Dakota and Montana, which held primaries this week, do not have any state pre-kindergarten program, nor do they have full-day kindergarten, she notes in her blog: Early Education Watch.
South Dakota's efforts bear watching as well; in February, a Zogby poll released by South Dakota Voices for Children found that 73 percent of voters in the state support a stalled plan to create standards and accountability for pre-kindergarten programs. The program Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is also pushing South Dakota to fund pre-kindergarten.
One reason these western and largely rural states are so interesting to keep an eye on is the attitudes of residents -- and politicians -- who oppose pre-kindergarten. And it is precisely why continued journalism -- and education -- about what pre-kindergarten can do matters so much.
(With pre-kindergarten in jeopardy, more Tennessee children may be learning at home)
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen had the best of intentions when he laid out ambitious plans to expand pre-kindergarten in the state, but the $25 million program has come to a halt. His plan would have created 250 more classrooms and serve another 5,000 children, according to The Tennessean .
The article quotes disappointed educators and pre-kindergarten advocates, but it's also filled with angry commentary from readers that once again bring home a real obstacle to pre-kindergarten: a public that doesn't trust such programs or understand why pre-kindergarten should be paid for with government funds.
The remarks at the end of Natalia Mielczarek's article show what a long way there is to go toward gaining public understanding and support for quality early childhood education in some areas.
One posting actually suggested with sarcasm that children be taken from their parents after birth and turned back over at 22; another boasted about doing "everything in my power to keep my daughter out of any school or education program that is ran and funded by the government,'' while still another noted that the reason children are falling behind is because "our parents are waiting for someone else to teach their children.''
The Roanoke Times in Virginia published a piece this week by education analysts Robert Holland and Don Soifer that links to a paper they published analyzing federal pre-kindergarten programs, available at the website of the Lexington Institute , a conservative think tank.
Their argument comes at a time when Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is having trouble finding support for his plan to offer tax-funded preschool to all of the state's 4-year-olds, calling it "a large tab for scant investments.''
While most advocates for pre-kindergarten vehemently disagree with this view, reporters covering the pre-kindergarten story need to be familiar with arguments both for and against public investment in such programs as they pursue stories and keep on eye on both local and national legislation.
The Virginia story has been worth watching because Kaine has been unable to fulfill an ambitious campaign promise for universal pre-kindergarten access. He's instead shifted to trying to double the number of underprivileged 4-year-olds who might be eligible. Kaine is among the governors who have started out with big expansion dreams for pre-kindergarten, only to face economic and budget realities in their states.
(Pre-kindergarten might keep kids -- and their parents -- in Maine)
The Kennebec Journal in Maine picked up an interesting pre-kindergarten trend this week, with a surprising finding. At a time when student enrollment is on decline in this northern New England state, more children are signing up for pre-kindergarten.
The enterprising story by Keith Edwards found that the number of students in a new pre-kindergarten program in Augusta is growing, good news in a state where the school-age population is on decline overall, according to numbers from the Brookings Institution . The worrisome numbers have forced schools to consider closing and consolidating at a time when there are 13,000 fewer students in Maine schools than a decade ago. The decline is fueled by the lack of growth industry in the state, where so many rural towns are no longer home to robust lumber, dairy and other industries.
It took some reporting on Edward's part to discover the new enrollment growth, and to note that a new free public pre-kindergarten program could be a contributing factor. According a principal quoted in the story, such programs can help families connect with schools and decide they want to stay in a school system where their child is receiving attention and encouragement and early on feels like part of a community.
(Different cities are trying new things to get kids ready for school)
I came across two very different stories about pre-kindergarten today, both illustrations of good intentions -- getting children ready for school. One illustrated a program that is working well, the other highlighted once again the tremendous problems New York City is having just getting kids registered.
St. Louis is offering a mini-program that teaches children to stand in line, raise hands and recognize numbers and letters. The story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch noted that some students need a little more help making the transition to school, and the month-long programs some school districts offer can give them a great start by the time they arrive in the fall.
I couldn't help note the contrast with a New York Daily News story that once again highlighted the mess New York City finds itself in, after using a new selection process to fill 15,000 pre-kindergarten seats.
The story showed the real impact this misguided process is having on children and families, who can no longer get a spot in neighborhood schools just steps from their home in many cases. Across the city, siblings are shut out and even families and students who registered on team and followed all the proper registration steps must tell their children they cannot go to pre-school next year after all -- even when the building is next door.
(Poll shows public favors public pre-kindergarten investment)
Candidates take note: Americans want publicly funded pre-kindergarten and believe in a federal role for it, according to a bipartisan poll from Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc. and American Viewpoint. Nearly 7 in 10 voters said they wanted more federal support for state-funded pre-kindergarten. Highlights of the poll can be viewed here:
The poll released on Tuesday surveyed 800 registered voters and another 200 swing voters, and found strong support for federal investment in pre-kindergarten particularly among such voters in the South, where governors like Phil Bredesen of Tennessee have been struggling to finance ambitious pre-kindergarten agendas.
The findings were hailed as good news by Pre-K Now, the Washington D.C. based group leading the movement for high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four-year-olds in the U.S.
The results should serve as a reminder to journalists that pre-kindergarten is well worth covering as both an education and a political story. Simply reporting the results, however, is not enough. The findings should be a starting point for visiting high quality pre-kindergartens to see what is working, and for asking follow up questions about how graduates fare.
(An unintended irony in New York City: Fewer pre-kindergarten and gifted opportunities; unfilled seats)
Buried at the end of the fascinating New York Times analysis of a new policy that has effectively shut some of the city's poorest children out of gifted kindergarten programs is fundamental question about equity and access: How fair is it to test four-year-olds and make educational decisions for them based on those scores?
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's initial idea of screening all kindergartens has met with fierce opposition, including from Deborah Stipek, the dean of Stanford University's education school. She believes such testing only increases inequities.
Klein has since backed away from the idea due to budget cuts. Bu the concept remains on the mind of parents in New York City who have been furious with the Department of Education's attempts to centralize pre-school admissions. Already, that's led to several children being shut out of pre-school altogether and of siblings -- including twins -- being split up into different schools throughout the city, in many cases far from their neighborhood.
Savvy New York parents -- being New Yorkers, of course, where parenting can be a competitive sport -- would likely find a way to prepare for such tests, notes one participant on Insideschools.org, which is keeping careful track of the kindergarten issue.
"In a competitive world parents who have the access and the means will do whatever it takes to give their kids an edge--whether that means buying kits that teach skills similar to those tested .... having the child tutored, or even purchasing copies of the testing instruments themselves,'' the blog participant noted.
That same edge was not available to the many children who did not make the cut-off scores the Department of Education established for this year's programs.
(Editorial writers in Mississippi are concerned about poverty and the lack of pre-K)
Editorial writers in Mississippi are continuing to notice and push for improvement in the state's dismal showing in important child development areas.
An editorial in the Mississippi Press noted the state's 50th overall rank in a the Kids Count study conducted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation , and pointed out that the state is one of the last to begin focusing on the critical early years of a child's education.
It's important for editorial writers to stay on top of efforts in Mississippi, where the states neediest children are served by Head Start but where there is no state funding for pre-kindergarten, even as neighboring states boost new programs and spending initiatives. Pre-K Now has kept an eye on Mississippi's laggard status as "the only southern state in the Pre-K Wilderness.''
Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has been no fan of publicly funded pre-kindergarten, noting that he does not see it happening in the state's future. Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the country, and efforts to improve programs for young children have hit setbacks this spring, notes Sara Meade of Early Ed Watch.
(The debate, and questions over California pre-school quality remains)
The children most likely to benefit from pre-kindergarten in California are the ones who are not enrolled, according to a new study by the RAND corporation that found the quality of preschool in the state is inconsistent.
The report by the Santa Monica-based think tank, notes Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee, should be viewed as "the latest development in California's long-running political debate over the relatively poor academic performance of its K-12 students and whether more elaborate pre-school programs, especially those centered on children from poor and/or immigrant families, would generate better elementary, junior high and high school results.''
Interestingly, the study found participation is based primarily on the socioeconomic standing of the family, and that children from more higher income families were no more likely to experience high quality early learning environments than children from poorer backgrounds.
The Rand Corporation had previously wrote a report documenting the value of preschool education by concluding such programs would generate an estimated $2 to $4 in benefits to California society for every $1 spent, as the authors outlined in a letter to the Los Angeles Times.
The study comes two years after voters in California rejected a ballot initiative that would have funded voluntary preschool for every 4-year-old in the state through a $2.8 billion annual tax increase on high income earners -- and shows the debate over how best to provide early childhood education in the state is far from over -- and still well worth the attention of journalists.
(New study shows Oklahoma's public pre-kindergarten to be effective)
Two interesting and very different studies have emerged this week on pre-kindergarten quality and effectiveness, including a surprisingly critical finding from Georgia,the first state to offer universal pre-kindergarten.
The state once hailed as a model, it seems, no longer leads the the nation in enrollment, high-quality standards or per-pupil spending, according the report by the Southern Education Foundation, picked up in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Pre-school access in the state is limited by a new population growth, including an influx of new immigrants.Georgia's per-pupil expenditure now ranks 22 against 38 other state-funded pre-kindergarten programs, the report notes, leaving lots of unanswered follow-up questions for journalists.
A study of 3,500 children in Oklahoma, meanwhile, found that pre-kindergarten programs set children up for later success in school, by strengthening reading, writing and math skills. The study published in the journal Science also found the state's pre-kindergarten program to have relatively high standards, pay and benefits to well-qualified teachers.
Participation in Tulsa's public pre-school program increased cognitive development significantly, along with pre-reading, writing and math skills, the study found. Children who participated in Head Start also improved their cognitive skills, though less dramatically.
William T. Gormley, lead author of the study, is the co-director of the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. (CROCUS) at Georgetown University. He believes a strong preschool program can lessen "negative effects,'' of family and environmental risk factors. Copies of the report are available at the AAAS Office of Public Programs at 202-326-6440 or
scipak@aaas.org.
Oklahoma has been an interesting state to watch because more of its 4-year-olds attend public pre-school than in any other state. Other studies have also found that Oklahoma's program improves children's language, literacy and mathematical skills; including a December, 2006 report from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University.
Following up on the attention paid to the new Bill Gormley study of the effects of the state's $7,000 per year prekindergarten program I came across this ABC television report from May. It shows the power of television when done well. I particularly liked the video of a kindergartner who had attended pre-k writing letters (steady, clear, nicely formed) while, on a split screen, a kindergartner who had not gone to pre-k tried to do the same. (wobbly lines, some unrecognizable letters, slower).
The ABC report quoted candidate Obama saying he supported pre-k because it would return $10 for every dollar invested. I've now come across economic returns estimates of between $2.36 and $17 for each dollar invested. (See Clive Belfield's report as well as this oneby Steve Aos at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy.)
Not sure where Obama's number comes from but what's important is that each of these studies makes different assumptions, uses different methodologies for evaluating costs and savings, and covers different time periods. Point is that even the lowest estimate shows a better than one-to-one return. That return has to be evaluated against the returns from other social interventions, some of which are highly targeted and others, such as public schooling in general, that are universal.
Early childhood expert Jeanne-Brooks Gunn of National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College offers new research on program effectiveness)
As ambitious state-funded pre-kindergarten programs are stalled or halted by fiscal woes, early childhood education experts gathered with government officials and business leaders from 14 states last week to learn more about child development and gain a deeper understanding of children's learning, behavior and health from top experts.
Such partnerships are a positive development at a time when budget uncertainties are halting plans for pre-kindergarten expansion in states like Virginia and Tennessee.
The conference -- sponsored by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University -- included findings of A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy.
Discussions included an overview of the impact of early experience on brain development and lessons learned from public-private partnerships. A gold mine of research and reports presented at the conference are well worth the time of journalists and others interested in early education policy, including papers that look at early childhood program effectiveness by, among others, Jeanne-Brooks Gunn of the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College.
A story about the conference can be found in Education Week .
(Kindergarten students who have had some preparation have a big advantage in Ohio)
Edith Starzyk of the The Plain Dealer in Cleveland did the kind of story on Monday that really helps illuminate why and how pre-kindergarten can make a difference -- and why the public should care.
Starzyk compared the kindergarten readiness of students in the Bay Village district -- where eight of 10 students shows up with the skills needed to start reading -- with those who are coming from Cleveland's public schools. In a series of interviews, she found the poor quality of child-cCare centers in the city poses obstacles for city students, as does the lack of pre-kindergarten.
Some 70 percent of students in the more affluent Bay Village district have attended preschool, an opportunity not as readily available in Cleveland -- although Starzyk did an excellent job of explaining how and why that is changing, and who is behind the push for improvement.
She also pointed out that success in kindergarten rises for children who have attended high-quailty pre-school -- an important point to bring home in communities where there is some skepticism about spending public money on such programs.
Kindergarten students in some areas learning Chinese, Arabic and other 'critical' languages)
As a time when some states offer no publicly funded pre-school progams, some kindergartners are getting the chance to learn Chinese, Arabic and Japanese. An Associated Press story widely picked up this week descriped a Fairfax. Virginia classroom where students were playing "Jeopardy,'' using clues in Chinese.
The langugae classes are part of a $114 million effort known as the National Security Language Initiative aimed at increasing the number of Americans learning languages such as Russian, Hindi and Farsi, in addition to Arabic and Chinese -- languages deemed critical to U.S. security and foreign policy interests.
The initiative recognizes that deficits in U.S. foreign langauge learning "negatively affect our national security, diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence communities and cultural understanding.''
Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has noted the classes often serve another purpose: some of the Arabic language classes offered in Washington D.C. area schools were filled with students whose families came from countries where Arabic was the most common language -- and wanted to improve their reading and writing in their native language.
The Associated Press, piece, meanwhile, did a nice job of showing how quickly young children pick up languages -- and how much they enjoy it. Journalists who live in areas where such classes are offered should consider asking to sit in on a class and find out which languages are most popular -- and why -- and who is registering to take them.
(Budget cuts can lead families toward crowded, ad-hoc quality child care options)
A story in today's Newsday did a great job of illustrating how painful New York State's budget cuts are for the working poor, who depend in many cases on subsidized day care so they can hold onto their jobs.
Reporter Michael Amon found a particularly telling anecdote: a single mother who earns just $300 a week as an animal caretaker at a shelter and will no longer get assistance with the $150 in child care costs for her 6-year-old daughter. The key quote?
"It seems like it would be easier for me to just quit my job and go on welfare, because I can't afford the day care,'' a mother in the story tells Amon.
The situation Amon described is one increasing numbers of families across the U.S. are finding themselves in, as fuel and food costs rise and state budgets are slashed. While the program in Suffolk County is the only one to freeze the program as a result of $51 million in state child care fund reductions, many others across the state are being forced to make reductions.
Reporters covering early childhood issues and state budgets alike should find people to illustrate the impact of reductions and cuts on both the state and federal levels.
Such stories - especially if they come with an explanation of why cuts were made, and what the consequences are for families who seek alternative, and often substandard child care -- are important to help the public understand what happens to our youngest children during tough times.
The Patriot Ledger of Quincy earlier this year did a great job in a three-part series of explaining how and why parents make such decisions and balance finances around child care in Massachusetts -- and how and why they, and the programs they choose, often fall short.
(In New Hampshire, the Long Wait for Kindergarten Continues)
At a time when some states are pushing for publicly funded pre-kindergarten and promoting its value, New Hampshire is struggling to get a new requirement of public kindergarten for all off the ground. The state has been locked in an interesting battle over who should pay for kindergarten, which the state legislature included as a requirement for all schools in their definition of an adequate education that was adopted last year.
An Associated Press piece this week noted that that Gov. John Lynch extended the deadline for starting programs and agreed to provide financial help to the towns trying to start such programs.
There are fascinating stories to be told behind this kindergarten battle in New Hampshire, the only state in the U.S. that does not offer public kindergarten in all of its school districts. The state whose motto is "Live Free or Die,'' -- and whose residents often reject any programs that will raise taxes -- is also home to a fast growing population of young families who have moved to southern New Hampshire from the Boston area in search of more affordable housing and a better lifestyle. Many are shocked to learn they must home school their children for kindergarten or find private day care options.
National Public Radio did a terrific job in 2005 of describing the disbelief and anger of many parents who showed up to their local elementary school to register their children -- only to learn there is no kindergarten.
The law signed last week extending the deadline and giving communities without kindergarten another year to offer programs means more delays-- and more families with fewer options for giving their child the best start in school.
(If presential hopeful Barack Obama had his way, schools would teach two languages in kindergarten)
Last week, an Associated Press story widely picked up about a Virginia school teaching Chinese in kindergarten caught my eye, and piqued my interest in President George Bush's National Security Language initiative aimed at teaching the youngest students foreign languages he deemed critical to U.S. security.
Spanish was not among those languages. But Presidential candidate Barack Obama believes it should be, and he's ignited something of a debate on blogs and other media after suggesting last week that every U.S. child should be bilingual.
Obama noted the importance of teaching languages earlier in school, and pointed out that being bilingual can be "a powerful tool to get a job.'' He noted that young children learn foreign languages far easier and acknowledged his own shame that he doesn't speak a language. Almost instantly, he found himself under attack by conservative media and right-leaning blogs along with groups advocating English as the official U.S. language.
Obama defended himself against the criticism earlier this week, but the debate over what languages should be taught when and who should decide has ignited further discussion and debate all week that is instructive -- and reveals how controversial the teaching of languages can be in the U.S.
Education Week has an interesting forum, asking how vital is it for schools and districts to provide opportunities to study another language?
(presidential candidates views on public funding for pre-kindergarten disappointingly vague)
While Presidential candidate Barack Obama offered his perspective on learning more than one language at an early age last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was readying his speech before the NAACP convention, which he delivered on Thursday.
Not one mention of his views on pre-kindergarten, a disappointment to advocates and duly noted and commented upon by Sara Mead in Early Education Watch. Mainly, McCain used his speech to make clear his support for school vouchers in largely minority and underperforming school systems -- an idea Obama is adamantly against.
"For all the best efforts of teachers and administrators, the worst problems of our public school system are often found in black communities," he told nearly 3,000 members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gathered at its 99th annual convention, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Both candidates have yet to full flesh out their views on early childhood education; Obama has said he'd put billions of dollars into early childhood education to make sure minorities and poor youth "are getting the help they need,'' and wants to increase Head Start funding, but specifics are yet to come.
Mead has her own ideas about some early childhood proposals should believes McCain might support; she's also taken a good look at Obama's.
(Sara Mead of the New America Foundation and Albert Wat of pre-k Now speak to reporters in New York City last weekend at Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media)
Journalists who write about education often find themselves bogged down in coverage of multiple school districts, and don't have the time or inclination to pay attention to early childhood education. They are making a mistake, two experts on pre-kindergarten told reporters who attended a Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media seminar aimed at helping reporters new to the education beat last weekend.
"Pre-k is where all the action is right now,'' said Sara Mead, whose own blog about the policies that impact young children is filled with resources and story ideas. Mead noted that 36 states have increased spending on pre-kindergarten and gave pointers on what to watch for in the coming election, along with ways the candidates might support an early education agenda.. Mead spoke about what to look for when visiting a pre-kindergarten classroom, and noted that what happens in such classrooms merits the attention of journalists because it "matters a lot and really resonates for parents,'' and for the public.
Albert Wat of Pre-K Now also offered tips and advice about covering early childhood education, and invited journalists to sign-up for a daily news clip service and monthly research roundup on the pre-k now website. He also presented a helpful powerpoint presentation aimed at providing reporters with a detailed look at pre-kindergarten trends.
(Siblings shut out of pre-k can now attend the same school as their big brothers and sisters)
It's been a long haul for New York City parents whose children have been shut out of pre-kindergarten -- in many cases, from the same schools their older siblings attend. That's led to months of anxiety, soul searching, protests and letter writing campaigns. It's also led to a resolution, according to the New York Daily News.
Daily News staff writer Carrie Melago, who has done a fine job keeping tabs on this difficult story, reported today that the New York City Department of Education has decided to honor its commitment to place siblings in the same school where parents wanted them to be. It's going to be costly for the city -- they'll have to spend $1.4 million on additional paraprofessionals to staff what will now be larger pre-kindergarten classes of up to 20 kids.
The DOE's policy calls for giving preference to highly coveted pre-kindergarten seats to those with siblings in the same school. For unknown reasons, that did not happen in many cases. The kids who were accepted for the spots that were supposed to be earmarked for siblings will not be sent packing -- they will just be in larger classes, but with additional staff.
In a city where the average price of renting a two-bedroom was $5,265 in March (caveat: that figure is for Manhattan, not the other four boroughs, and is in a doorman building) and where parents scramble to identify and find places for their children in decent public schools, the pre-k mess added even more worries. Private pre-kindergarten in the city can cost upwards of $23,000 a year.. The admissions process can involve securing letters of recommendations for toddlers, long waits just to get applications and multiple interviews.
In New York, It helped to have the press keep the pressure on education officials by asking repeatedly how the issue would be resolved.
(The trends in child well-being are well worth watching, as they reflect larger social and economic changes.
While studies are often just a starting point for journalists, it was surprising to find so little coverage of the new Duke University ">study of children's well-being underwritten by the Foundation for Child Development.
The study, released at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. last week, found that progress in American children's quality of life has stalled after an eight-year upward trend -- and that a worsening economy is likely to negatively affect U. S. children for years to come. Areas to watch range from infant mortality rates to publicly financed childcare and health and education programs.
One interesting finding -- the eight year upward improvement trend may have been related to a post 9/11 sense of common purpose in the country. Another important -- and somewhat frightening -- trend to watch will be the many ways an economic downturn may worsen conditions for children.
The study is an excellent starting point, and hopefully will spur coverage and original reporting about these trends throughout the U.S. One mention came in a Houston Chronicle blog item. The study raises critical questions and introduces data that should be localized by journalists.
At the very least, much of the data can be incorporated into important stories on everything from birth rates and infant mortality to pre-school enrollment -- which, by the way, improved according to the report.
(Pre-k battles in South Dakota, Mississippi worth watching and reporting on)>
It's nice to see journalists staying on top of the often contentious and difficult battles taking place in southern states and places like South Dakota that don't have state funded pre-kindergartens or standards for what preschool should look like. These battles are important to follow because they shed light on the priorities of legislators, educators and the public and can spur lots of follow-up stories.
The Argus Leader in South Dakota is covering a school-aid lawsuit at a time when state standards for preschool have failed twice, in two legislative sessions. South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds is pushing for preschool standards and certification guidelines for teachers that opponents have feared would turn into a mandatory statewide pre-kindergarten program, according to the Argus Leader.
In Mississippi, Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds has been pitching pre-kindergarten legislation and is running into continued opposition from lawmakers who believe getting children ready for school is a job for parents, not educators. The Associated Press followed that story this week, and it turned out that lawmakers decided to approve $3 million for the State Department of Human Services to help pay for childcare education programs.
That represents important news for Mississippi, traditionally lagging in education measures and now the only state in the south without state-funded pre-kindergarten. Mississippi is standing out at a time when other southern states are pushing for increased public spending.
(Praise, Caution for Alabama's Pre-kindergarten expansion)
An editorial in the Montgomer Advertiser on Sunday hit the right note of praise and skepticism regarding Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's plan to expand a pre-kindergarten program that is considered one of the best in quality, but that simply isn't reaching enough children.
Riley's expansion will bring the number of children served up to 3,384, but as the editorial points out, that's far less than the state needs. The editorial told the public of the importance of quality, including low student-to-teacher ratios, highly qualified teachers and a program that evaluates the academic, social and basic health needs of children.
At a time when so many states are expanding their programs, it's important for the local press to stay on top of all new developments, and not simply praise or criticize politicians for their efforts to expand pre-kindergarten.
Journalists must understand both the fiscal challenges their state faces along with what makes an effective pre-kindergarten program, how many children it will reach and what the obstacles to success and expansion are. There are legislative reports and several sites that help define what a quality pre-kindergarten looks like that are worth consulting for broader perspective.
This editorial showed homework was done.
(Efforts to improve the lives of children gaining traction in Maine)
The Times Record of Maine put a number of trends together this week in an article that looked at efforts to improve the lives of children in a state where child care providers rank 596th out of 647 detailed occupations, where 40 percent of the youngest children remain unserved by formal child care programs and where the percentage of children living in low-income families has doubled over the last 10 years.
These kinds of articles play an important role in helping the public understand the importance of early childhood education and how and why the state is lagging. The article pointed to a number of ways state officials and others are concerned about Maine's children.
Their concerns and their collective ideas and input helped lead to the creation of a new bill, "An Act to Invest in Maine's Young Children.''.
The Times Record story is ripe with possibility for follow-up; for example, it notes that early childhood providers in the state often shy away from getting more education themselves because of the high cost and lack of financial incentive. Then there are questions about the state's screening process and problems it has identifying students who are at risk or have disabilities. It would be nice to get the voices of childcare workers, teachers and parents in future articles to help give the public an even better feel for these issues.
Stories about the insanity of Manhattan parents who become distraught when there aren't enough $30,000 a year kindergarten spots for their offspring always make good headlines and copy. I certainly did my share of them over the years as a reporter covering New York City, and The New York Times weighed in on the trials of the under-5 set today.
But I wish just once a reporter would take the time to truly explain WHY public education options are shunned (class size? teacher quality? facilities? student population? after school programs?) and why-- and if -- the private schools provide a better education. What curriculum do they use? How qualified are their teachers and what kind of training did they receive? How are children evaluated? Are methods for teaching reading and math much different than what is offered in public school, and if so how?
There are some obvious advantages that private schools like the Mandell School, highlighted in the Times for its efforts to expand; have -- for example, a ratio of five teachers for each student, impossible to achieve in a public school
The story says the school focuses on "teaching to each student's strength and weaknesses,''' although there was no explanation of how that might work.
One reference point the Times managed to include -- the private school competitive chaos impacts only a very small percentage of parents in a city where some 1.1 million students attend pubilc school vs. 150,000 in private. But these stories would be so much better if tthey are more than a glance at the concerns of the wealthiest Manhattanites.
Why not use the opportunity to ask some probing questions about what makes private education so much different than public school? If there is such a rush to expand private school in the city, a question is begged -- what choices exist in the public school system that are driving this trend at a time when Wall Street revenues and bonuses are falling? Are all the reforms promised by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein disappointing parents, or are many scared off by stories of how hard it was to get into a public pre-kindergarten this year?
My excellent colleague-in -blogging at the New America Foundation had the same reaction that I did yesterday about the plight of elite parents in New York City in search of private schools -- as in "oh, no, not again,'' after reading the story displayed so prominently in the New York Times
However, Sara Mead took it a step further, offering some tremendous resources to help reporters find more meaningful stories about pre-kindergarten.Here are some from her Early Education Watch blog.
I do have to say one thing in defense of the New York Times story: it was likely gobbled up by the small population of nervous private school wannabe parents, and likely seen elsewhere in the country as one of those "aren't New Yorkers crazy'' pieces.
Such stories are annoying to those who know they stray far from the issues and obstacles that deeply impact a much wider population struggling with finding quality child care and early education options, but they are enormously popular. Here's a link to a piece I wrote in 2004 for Bloomberg News, that ran in the Seattle Times and all over the world. Not exactly hard-hitting investigative journalism, but you know what my editors wanted? More stories like it, because by internal measures such pieces were among the most popular and well read of the year. (I must have written three or four similar pieces)
Of course, back then there weren't as many bloggers ready to jump in with sarcastic commentary aimed at shaming journalists and reminding them of their critical role -- to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
There's plenty of room to do so on the pre-kindergarten front, and Mead's resources are a great starting point. That's not to say headlines won't fly around the world when New York City's private kindergarten tuition top $35,000 annually, which will likely happen by 2010.
The Washington Post picked up on an important trend that journalists covering pre-kindergarten issues ought to be aware of and to follow closely. The growing Hispanic population will continue to change the nature of and makeup of schools.In three suburban counties outside of Washington D.C. the number of children ages 4 and younger who are minorities has reached 60 percent, according to Census Bureau figures used by The Post.
Not all of the immigrants are Hispanics, but the growth of that population will force school systems to accommodate larger numbers of immigrant students whose parents do not speak English at home.
Some important follow-up questions and stories remain. Are school systems hiring much larger numbers of English as-a-second language teachers and does that include pre-kindergarten and kindergarten? What are their qualifications and is there a shortage? Are language barriers creating other issues for these children and for schools, especially with increased testing under No Child Left Behind? What other plans do local school systems have to meet and follow the needs of this changing population? Are they measuring an achievement gap between white and Hispanic students and consulting research that shows pre-kindergarten can reduce such gaps?
News of population shifts and trends is a great starting point for a host of important stories and follow-up.
(They may like the same snacks at U.S. children, but British kindergartens may be more prepared academically, reporter finds)
Associated Press education reporter Nancy Zuckerbrod had to ask herself a very important question this month as she prepared to move her kindergarten age daughter to London, one that has implications for the way U.S. pre-schoolers learn.
Was the year Zuckerbrod's daughter spent mastering monkey bars and drawing planets in her Washington D.C. area pre-school doomed to leave her behind compared with her peers in London, who were expected to master fractions, telling time, counting in 5's up to 50 and more academic tasks? And if so, what did that say about the quality of pre-school in the U.S. compared with early education in England?
One important point Zuckerbrod raised: U.S. fourth-graders were not found lagging behind England on recent international reading studies . So what distinguishes the way the two countries teach early education and how different are the goals? Zuckerbrod, who decided against the teacher's suggestion of leaving her daughter behind for another year, now has a front row seat to answer some of these questions first hand. It will be interesting to see any follow-up that includes research, data and some questioning of the different approaches.
The pressure is on to draw attention to pre-kindergarten issues at upcoming conventions
Looks like early childhood education -- something advocates fear has not been on the radar for presidential candidates -- may get some attention at the upcoming conventions after all.
Congressional Quarterly is hosting an event on the topic at the Democratic convention in Denver on August 28. Known as a bruncheon, the event will allow convention attendees to hear more about an issue some feel has been left out of the campaign debate, or at the very least obscured by other issues.
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Democrat Barack Obama has called for an expansion of Early Head Start and Head Start; while Republican John McCain has said little about where he stands on pre-kindergarten issues, although he has vowed to "place parents and children at the center of the education process by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children.''
Sara Mead of Early Education Watch has kept a close eye on both, and said she's encouraged by a draft of the Democratic platform that has a section focused entirely on early childhood issues. She's also weighed in with several suggestions for McCain's education agenda.
Pre-K Now, meanwhile, is pushing to remind presidential candidates "of their responsibilities to our kids,'' by asking anyone on their list to sign their message -- or send one of their own in advance of the Democratic and Republican conventions
(With convention approaching editorial writers want to hear more specifics on education)
As the presidential nominating conventions approach, editorial writers and others are taking note and wondering why education is remaining so far in the background. Today's Washington Post gave credit to Democrat Barack Obama for paying a bit more attention to the topic, including an emphasis on early childhood education . It also credited Republican John McCain for outlining more of his views to the public in his acceptance speech before the National Association of Colored People.
But the editorial asked a question on the minds of educators, advocates and citizens everywhere -- where are specifics, and where are proposals for sweeping change? And why isn't the public hearing more of them?
Eduwonk weighed in today with a bit of advice from guest blogger Richard Whitmire of USA Today, an editorial writer who also contributes to Education Election , which is monitoring coverage of the candidates on education issues.
And blogger Alexander Russo, meanwhile, who writes the This Week in Education blog, has reminded interested parties to keep an eye on Ed Challenge for a Change , which will be convening a forum at the Democratic Convention in Denver to highlight their own push for a new Democratic agenda around education issues.
Winnie Hu's story in the New York Times over the weekend highlighted a barrier to universal pre-kindergarten that's not often discussed: reluctance of local school districts to participate. The front-page story reported that a third of the states nearly 700 school districts do not have programs and that only 38% of the state's 4-year-olds are being served.
School district leaders quoted said state funding, which according to the National Institute on Early Education Research yearbook amounts to only about $3,500 per pupil, is inadequate. Space is a problem. Contracting with private providers to offer the services requires administrators to oversee the programs---a cost that would come out of the district budget.
But the piece also highlighted another issue that's gotten little attention from journalists: many affluent parents think school district pre-k programs are remedial and will do little to help their kids. As the superintendent in the affluent Bronxville district in Westchester County said, parents there prefer to send their kids to private programs. A map 
of the counties around New York City showed that about half the district's on Long Island applied, about a third in Westchester, and only a few in Dutchess County (a horsey county to the north) and none in Putnam County (just north of Westchester.)
Journalists in other states where district's apply for state pre-k funds, such as Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois and New Jersey, might well find similar patterns.
Roaming around the WWW in search of links to the Reason Foundation Wall Street Journal commentary I came across a Kindergarten, Pre-Kindergarten, and Head Start thread on a blog that was new to me: "Jerry Moore's School Talk" Jerry seems to compile full-text news coverage on a wide variety of education topics on the blog, without comment.
One of the articles he posts is an Aug. 29 Wall Street Journal piece 
on a British study that attributes significant advantages in early grades math performance to having attended preschool. The study is also interesting in that it attempts to isolate the
relative impact of various influences on children, such as a mother's education, father's education and so on. Interesting stuff.
Washington Post Reporter Michael Alison Chandler weighed in on the "pre-k as good investment" angle, after attending a forum of education advocates in Fairfax County, on the topic. Virginia is working on a new formula for matching grants that would help the county expand its pre-kindergarten offerings.
This might have been just another local story on pre-kindergarten, but Chandler added the kind of background and context that instantly improves journalism about pre-kindergarten. She noted, for example, that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine had to pare down his pre-kindergarten campaign promises due to a budget shortfall that could reach $1 billion. Chandler included statistics on how many children in the country are in a child-care setting and also noted that 32 states including Virginia have increased spending on pre-kindergarten despite the tough economic times. With a worsening economy, it's important for reporters to quantify both the need for pre-kindergarten in areas they cover as well as funding methods and costs to the taxpayer.
Linda Jacobson has a story in this week's Education Week highlighting new research on a problem that rarely gets mentioned: chronic absenteeism in early elementary school. The study by the National Center for Children in Poverty here at Columbia University shows a correlation between missing school starting in kindergarten 
and poor academic achievement throughout elementary school and into middle school. The study, "Present, Engaged, and Accounted For," is not yet up at the NCCP Web site. But here's a page on that site that collects the center's earlier work on absenteeism.
This study tees up a number of good September stories for journalists. I recall seeing a newspaper story or a research study a few years ago that reported on a phenomenon I'd never thought about before: elementary school children who drift into school days or even weeks late. (I tried to locate it on the Web but couldn't. If I recall right, it was datelined CHICAGO) Parents stressed by poverty, drugs, alcohol, their own youth, language differences, or frequently changing residences may not see getting kids off to a good start on the first day of school as such a high priority. This would be a perfect time to get out to some elementary schools in urban or poor rural communities and ask to see how the enrollment numbers changed during the first month. Then ask to see the attendance numbers. Follow up some interviews of teachers, the principal, parents and ask the district superintendent what is being done to reduce the problem. The new study provides the perfect hook.
Paul Tough and his book called "Whatever it Takes" on the Harlem Children's Zone is popping up everywhere these days. Who says there's no market for thoughtful, in depth reporting about education?
Here's a piece on the HCZ's "Baby College" that Paul did for Ira Glass' "This American Life." It is one of two pieces on a show titled "Going Big." The title comes from HCZ founder Geoffrey Canada's idea that he would need to "go big" to give Harlem's children a chance to have a life better than their parents. In this piece, Canada explains his insight that middle class parents had picked up important lessons about parenting from research on cognition and child development that most poor parents, themselves children of poverty, often have not. The voices of parents in this piece--especially the young couple who are at the center of it--tell the story so well. You can also download the podcast.
Paul also is blogging at Slate.
Who Should Be Eligible For Pre-Kindergarten? Tune in to Hechinger Webinar November 12 at 1:30 p.m. EDT
The troubled economy is taking its toll on the middle class in many ways, including the cost of pre-kindergarten for the many who are not eligible for publicly funded programs.
On November 12 at 1:30 p.m. the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media will hold a seminar to discuss who should be eligible for such programs -- all children or just the most disadvantaged?
Doug Besharov, American Enterprise Institute
Speakers will include Albert Wat of Pre-K Now, who is working on a major report on what the organization calls the "middle class squeeze." The report – which will be released during the webinar -- will analyze the financial challenge many families face in accessing and paying for high quality pre-kindergarten education and include case examples of actual families across the country.
Participating journalists will have an exclusive chance to speak with Wat, and hear expert 
commentary and ask questions of Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute and William Gormley of Georgetown University.
Reporters can sign up on line here
William Gormley, Georgetown University
A good place to read more on the topic comes in Jay Mathews' Washington Post piece this week.
Meredith Kolodner of the New York Daily News did a nice job on Sunday describing the staggering cost of child care in New York City and the lack of viable choices for working mothers as the economy struggles.
Kolodner profiled a young, college-educated mother who finds herself number 32,909 on the list of city residents who qualify for child-care vouchers that would help defray some of her child care costs, which are more than the $622 a month she pays in rent.
The story noted that only one-third of city families who qualify for federal and state aid for child care are able to get it, pointing out that such aid has dropped by $50 million since 2004.
To be eligible for a voucher in New York City, a family of four must have an income of no more than $47,000. Kolodner notes that child care costs for two young children in the city are $23,000 or more. She also found a family who earns $95,000 a year but can only afford paid child care -- $2,000 a month -- for one of their sons. A relative cares for the other.
It isn't hard to find examples in any community of the difficulty working and middle class families face. What are their child care options? What are the cut-offs for receiving vouchers or any kind of subsidized care? Are the waiting lists growing longer?
In Fairfax, Virginia, for example, a family of four with an annual income up to 275 percent of the poverty level, or $56,784 can qualify for state vouchers to help pay child care costs, according to a Washington Post article last year.
What, if anything, are states and cities doing to meet the demand? What has been the impact on early childhood centers and pre-school providers?
These are all important questions for journalists to ask and answer in these tough times.
Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts announced a lot of grand education plans when he was elected in 2006, including free community college for all and an ambitious agenda to expand pre-kindergarten. This week, as the Boston Globe noted, his education secretary Paul Reville acknowledged the state's $1.4 billion budget gap means the governor will have to pull back on many of these initiatives, including his planned expansion of universal preschool and full-day kindergarten.
Further complicating his agenda is a ballot initiative before Massachusetts voters next week that would eliminate the state income tax and mean further cuts, according to USA Today
The budget crisis prompted op-ed piece by Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute. The center "seeks more school choice for parents and an accountable system of public education for all students,'' and the piece pushes other alternatives it believes would be less costly.
As the economic crisis continues to unfold, reporters should take a closer look at other educational initiatives their states may be trying to see if they are truly less costly. Is interest in such initiatives growing as a result? What is the educational value? What are the obstacles?
Education reforms may be limited by tough economic times, but several state officials are putting their weight behind recommendations contained in The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and its “Tough Times, Tough Choices,’’ report.
Journalists from anywhere in the U.S. can call in between 10 and 11 a.m. on Thursday morning, Oct. 30 at 800-954-1051 to take part in a conversation that will include governors, state education commissioners and other policy leaders from a range of states. The press conference comes at a time when many states, including New Yorkand New Jersey, are seeking federal help to prevent devastating budget cuts.
The report, first released in December 2006, urged drastic changes to the U.S. education system and warned that it is way behind other countries. The report also recommended that states put in place a system of high quality early childhood education for all four-year-olds and for all low-income three-year-olds.
The call will provide journalists with an opportunity to ask about states and their commitment to pre-kindergarten programs in tough economic times. With many governors already scaling back planned expansion, what comes next? The report initially recommended a system of high quality early childhood education for all four-year olds and for all low-income three year olds.
The press conference itself takes place at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. at 529 14th Street N.W., Washington, D.C.
Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy and co-chair of implemention, says states who take the recommendations seriously can build “internationally competitive education systems…their students will be competing with the best anywhere in the world.’’
It’s not clear yet which aspects of the report will be adopted, but so far, Utah, Massachusetts and New Hampshire are committed to building support for the new agenda, Tucker says.
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein may have sounded all the right notes when he pushed to provide equal access to gifted programs for all city children and revamped testing criteria for the sought-after program.
Instead, the number of children entering the city's gifted classes dropped by half this year -- and were less diverse than they were a year earlier, according to the stories in both the New York Times and the New York Daily News.
Data released by the New York City Department of Education show the number of white students in citywide gifted programs jumped from 18 percent in 2007-08 to 52 percent in 2008-09 -- exactly the opposite of what the new policy was supposed to accomplish.
Klein defended the city's efforts, nothing that his program led to more outreach and more testing of students, although he did not specifically say what he would do next. Journalists covering this story should press for answers.
What happened in the nation's largest school district shows how important it is for journalists to ask for data and follow-up. The data the Department of Education released -- and the New York Times analysis of it -- clearly shows a program that failed and is a reminder of how numbers tell a story.
Had the press failed to follow-up -- and simply reported the Department of Education's rhetoric and promises -- the public might not have learned that nearly half the year's new gifted students are white. That's a significant unintended consequence of a program intended to equalize access to gifted minority students in a system where just 17 percent of the kindergarten and first grade students are white.
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Headlines proclaiming cutbacks in pre-kindergarten expansions and other education programs are common in these tough times, as are editorials questioning the extent states can afford them. An example of the new cautionary tone appeared in the Topeka-Capital Journal in Kansas earlier this month.
Journalists who are covering the story of strapped state legislatures are reporting on governors like Deval Patrick, who is scaling back early childhood education reforms in Massachusetts. There's no shortage of examples, including Stateline.org's Legislative Year in Review , which comes at a time when some states are considering asking the federal government for loans.
It's important to note that in the midst of all the bad economic news, many state legislatures are continuing to make pre-kindergarten a priority. Pre-K Now released a report last month noting that net state investments in pre-k will increase by more than $309 million nationally, to $5.2 billion in the next fiscal year.
The report is a good resource for journalists as the story of the economic downturn and its impact on education spending continues to unfold on the eve of the presidential election.
As U.S. voters go to the polls and anxiously await the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election, Learning Matters , the production company covering education issues, is offering some expert advice to the next leader.
While education has not been top of the agenda in this historic campaign, Learning Matters posed a question to expert educators, parents, students and policy makers: What must the next president do to fix our country's education system?
There are some fascinating answer available at a click, ranging from Teachers College early childhood professor Sharon Lynn Kagan to author and scholar Mike Rose of the UCLA Graduate School of Education.
For more clarification on where Senators John McCain and Barack Obama stand on education you can also listen to the Oct. 21 debate between his education advisors or read the transcript..
A new era is about to begin, and as usual, Sara Mead at Early Education Watch is keeping on eye on the post-election developments in early childhood education. While it will be months before newly elected President Barack Obama details how he will carry out his early childhood pledges, it's important for journalists to be reminded of what he said -- all the better to watch what he does.
Mead points out where Obama has stood on education issues in her post today. Education Week also took note of the education agenda ahead, while Alexander Russo of This Week in Education weighed in with a round-up of commentary on what the new president faces.
Closer to home, New York Times writer Lisa Belkin, who writes a new blog called "The Mother Lode,'' for the New York Times, focused on the dilema parents faced this week -- whether or not to allow their kids to stay awake and witness history.
It remains to be seen how educators coped with all the nodding heads and blinking eyes post-election day. I keep picturing a classroom filled with sleeping children.
As President-elect Barack Obama gets ready to visit the White House today, he's getting no shortage of advice. some of it on an Education Week blog about fulfilling the promise of his early education proposals. Bruce Fuller, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, weighs in as well, reminding Obama that increasing access to quality pre-schools for poor families is a strategic long-term investment.
Of course, when it comes to the education of their own two elementary-school aged daughters, the Obama family is also getting lots advice. Jay Mathews of the Washington Post took a look at some of the options and found a compelling public elementary school near the White House where the principal noted she would be more than willing to make room for two mid-year transfers from the Midwest. While choosing a public school would be a powerfully symbolic gesture, the Obamas are also said to be considering the private Georgetown Day, where tuition tops $25,000 annually for elementary school students.
Continue reading "Some Urging Obama to Put Pre-School First on Ed Agenda" »
An Associated Press story this weekend pointed out a major problem working parents are facing in a tough economy: Finding affordable child care. It's a topic that will be explored, along with tough choices about pre-school, during a webinar the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media is holding on Wednesday, November 12 at 1:30 p.m on Albert Wat's upcoming Pre-K Now report "The Pre-K Pinch: Early Education and the Middle Class."
The Associated Press story focused on one early childhood center in the Midwest where parents facing job losses are pulling their children out, but similiar scenarios are playing out all over the U.S. as workers are laid off.
Pre-K Now will release a report during the webinar that will analyze the financial challenge many families face in accessing and paying for high quality pre-kindergarten education. The report includes case examples of actual families across the country who will be available to comment following the release. Journalists can sign up here
High quality pre-kindergarten has become something of an elusive luxury for middle class parents, caught between rising prices, the housing crisis and stagnating wages, according to report released by Pre-K Now during a Hechinger Institute Webinar on Wednesday.
The report provides a great starting point for rich and worthwhile stories journalists should be telling about the hard choices middle class American families are making as they struggle to pay mortgages and credit card debt and worry about holding onto their jobs.
Families earning too much to qualify for state-funded programs but not enough for higher quality private schools in some cases are choosing substandard care or keeping their children out of pre-kindergarten altogether, said the report’s author Albert Wat, a policy analyst for Pre-K Now.
Middle-class families and their children need and would benefit from voluntary, high-quality pre-k indergarten programs funded by their states but they often don't have access to them, notes the report, which calls for states and the federal government to expand such programs. Wat found that the average middle class family of four, living in a state with a public pre-k program, spent about 29% of their income on pre-kindergarten for their two children.
"Middle class families are feeling increasingly pessimistic about their financial situationn,'' Wat noted during the webinar, which will be available on the Hechinger Institute's website.
The webinar also offered views from William Gormley of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, the author of a study on the benefits of Oklahoma's early childhood programs. Gormley's study found students experienced substantial gains and that the negative effects of family and environmental risk factors can be lessened by a strong preschool program.
Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute, , pointed out that emphasizing the needs of the middle class can divert attention from the most needy children in the U.S. He said the federal government help poor children by strengthening federal Head Start programs.
The report comes at a time when 80 percent of Americans believe it is more difficult to maintain their standard of living than it was five years ago, and some twenty percent think their children will have a lower standard of living than they do.
Rising expenses and declining incomes are leaving more Americans in debt, although many still earn too much to qualify for state-funded pre-k programs.
The report's recommendations include a phase-in plan to expand pre-k to all children, using factors other than family income to define eligibility, creating full-day programs to meet the needs of working families and extending eligibility for voluntary pre-k to three year-olds.
An editorial in the Anchorage Daily News took Governor Sarah Palin to task for missing a statewide conference on the future of Alaska's educational system last week. Palin, the former Republican candidate for Vice President, skipped the conference to speak in Miami about the future of the Republican Party. The editorial urged her to come home and start focusing on the needs of the state.
While Palin gave her talk about national issues, her home state was in the midst of charting the future of its educational system. For the record, Alaska is one of only 12 states that has no state-funded education system for pre-kindergarten students. One of the goals that came out of last week's education summit included a committment to offer state-funded preschool to every three, four and five-year-old in Alaska. A plan to evaluate pre-school programs to make sure they are adequately preparing children for school also emerged as a goal during the conference Palin missed.
The goals are just a starting point and still need to be adopted, possibly refined and publicized. Some will also require funding that may not be available. It isn't clear where Palin stands on any of them.
On the stump as a vice-presidential candidate, Palin, the mother of an infant with Down syndrome, made some proposals about the education of children with special needs. Without giving specifics, she also noted that education "is near and dear to my heart.''
I'm really sorry I missed a talk at New York's 92nd Street Y by child psychologist Michael Thompson last week, because I would have enjoyed the chance to see preschool teachers squatting on the floor and pretending to be cave men. The scene was described in an Associated Press story carried by USA Today.
Before a packed audience of early childhood educators, Thompson made an impassioned plea for more play-time, taking up a cause endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics two years ago. Somewhere along the line, he noted, play-time has slipped off the agenda for U.S. children, resulting in eight to 12 fewer hours of free play per week since the 1980s.
Thompson told the crowd that play has been replaced by video games (a form of play kids I know would vigorously defend if given the chance), television and an emphasis on formal learning in preschool, along with pressure from parents to push their children into more structured activities.
Fretta Reitzes, director of the Goldman Center for Youth & Family at the Y, told the crowd it is up to preschool teachers to lead by example. It's probably why the conference included pre-school teachers drumming and pretending to be cave-dwellers.
I'm all for play, but I found it amusing that a conference advocating more of it took place in a building that houses what might be among the most competitive -- and expensive -- nursery schools on the planet. Spots at the 92nd Street's program are so hard to come by that parents start speed-dialing the number the day after Labor Day just to get an application.
They are so coveted that stock analyst Jack B. Grubman told a friend in an e-mail message that Citigroup Chairman Sanford I. Weill, his boss at the time, helped him get slots for his twin children after he recommended investors buy AT&T stock, according to a New York Times story in 2002.
For the record, tuition at the Y this year is $23,000 for 4 and 5-year-olds or $18,780 for 3-year-olds who attend three hours a day. That's awfully pricey play.
Without knowing all that background, I might simply have been able to enjoy an evening with early childhood educators pushing fantasy play and recess instead of phonics and banging on musical instruments.
Journalists don't always have time time to visit preschools while covering the weightier academic battles in their districts, but this story reminded me of some really excellent questions to ask. Just how much time is devoted to play these days in an age of accountability? Is play for play's sake okay anymore?
Turns out a puppet named Twiggle the Turtle has an important lesson to teach us about how preschoolers learn: Social skills matter.
An Associated Press story this week described the results of a study by Karen Bierman at Penn State, who took at a look at Head Start programs in Pennsylvania. The study concluded that weekly social skills lessons and sessions with puppets like Twiggle can teach young children specific problem solving skills and improve both vocabulary and behavior.
I particularly liked the story's use of examples to bring the study alive. A description of Twiggle's emotional reaction after a friend knocked over his block tower, for instance, helped illustrate the unpredictable nature of 4-year-olds. As part of a conflict resolution lesson, an older, wiser turtle puppet urged Twiggle to go inside his shell after having his blocks knocked down -- and then to take a deep breath and talk about his feelings.
The teachers then urged the students to cross their arms to be like Twiggle in his shell, which, according to Bierman, became a habit more helpful than the old "use your words,'' approach.
The study -- funded by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies -- divided about 350 students from 44 Head Start classrooms. About half of the four-year-olds were in classrooms that added puppets and problem solving skills sessions.
The study is another reminder of the need for reporters to go and visit preschool classrooms and find out what is being taught -- and why. It comes at a time when educators are under pressure to show that preschools provide a strong academic foundation. As Bierman noted in the article, though, a focus on the just-the-facts in preschool will miss "the engine that's going to drive the desire and motivation for learning."
Score one for Twiggle.
Protests and a police presence at a kindergarten Thanksgiving celebration?
While recent research is shining a spotlight on the value of role play in early childhood education, a California community found itself so divided over a time honored tradition of having kindergarten students dress up as Pilgrims and Native Americans this week that the students got a different kind of lesson entirely.
The costumes first came under attack in the college community of Claremont, after a parent complained they "demeaning and dehumanizing,'' according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
Seems even play has political and racial implications, and the school decided to take the objections of a parent seriously and ban the costumes. Parents who disagreed protested and sent their children to school in Pilgrim hats and other garb nonetheless.
All of it led to a spirited protest and the presence of police at the school.
The clash left the superintendent claiming he was threatened and other parents angered at school officials for bowing, as they put it, to political correctness.
Lessons learned, anyone?
So, with headlines about the nation's economic problems dominating the front page, what are some early education stories that might get on the front page?
In no particular order:
1. Are companies that now provide child care at the job site reducing their support? Charging families more? Closing programs altogether?
2. How are private programs faring? Are families asking for financial help to offset tuition for programs in churches, synagogues, and for-profit programs?
3. With more workers cobbling together two or even three part-time jobs, who is watching the children?
4. Young children need stability in their lives. Are programs seeing more families move in and out as their family circumstances change?
5. Are center directors seeing evidence of the recession in the children they serve? More need for winter clothes? More hunger?
6. Are state-funded programs seeing more demand for their services, as families who previously could afford private preschools seek cheaper alternatives?
7. How are the children being cared for while their laid-off parents look for work?
Keep the human angle in mind. Every time you see a story about budget cuts, think about people and how they may be affected.
Sam Dillon's front-page piece in today's New York Times offers education journalists a guide to the early care and education stories that will bear watching in the coming year and also a list of some of the key experts and resource people.
Over the past few weeks I've talked to a number of Washington education folks involved in the transition and they all have told me that, whatever the economic situation, President-elect Obama's plans to invest in early education will very likely go forward. If the federal government does become a significant source of funding for preschool, it would redefine the relationship between the federal government and parents and families.
A little more on the sources in the article:
Barbara Bowman happens to be the mother of Valerie Jarrett, a key Obama adviser. She also is a legendary figure in the field of early childhood education. She was one of three founders of the Erikson Institute, the nation's premier graduate school for child development, was a 2005 winner of the McGraw Prize and today is the head of the Chicago Public Schools' Office of Early Education. Chicago superintendent of schools Arne Duncan, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Education, no doubt learned a lot from Dr. Bowman and now will be charged with helping carry out the president's agenda on that issue which, by the way, Duncan had a big hand in developing.
Cornelia Grumman, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune editorial writer, heads up the First Five Years Fund. The fund is dedicated to promoting investments in expanding early learning services for children birth to age 5. She keeps close track of what's going on nationally on these issues.
Libby Doggett, the executive director of Pre-K Now, will be a good source on how the federal efforts connect with what states are doing in preschool. Pre-K Now advocates for universal pre-kindergarten.
Bruce Fuller of the University of California, Berkeley is a good source as well. Fuller will voice concerns about using public funds to make preschool available to all, regardless of income. This will be something to watch in the administration's specific proposals. Most state programs now are targeted to the poor.
Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College is a leading policy expert on early education who has studied pre-kindergarten quality extensively. Look for a paper from her on how the federal government can invest in high quality programs out soon from the Center on Education Policy.
Kelly Smith of the Forum in North Dakota did an excellent job of setting the stage for what could be an unprecedented push for pre-kindergarten in North Dakota. The issue is important in this rural state because it comes at a time when 90 percent of the students are now enrolled in full-day kindergarten, and educators are expressing worries they will be at a disadvantage if they haven't had some form of schooling before. It's not clear if that argument will sway lawmakers, but it certainly sets up an interesting story idea.
What are kindergarten teachers seeing in the students who arrive with no classroom experience? How can they see and measure a lack of preparation and does it impede student progress on other important early learning skills?
North Dakota is one of only eight in the U.S. that does not fund any pre-kindergarten and lawmakers and others in the state are once again pushing for change. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven recommended in his budget a plan to spend $3.5 million reimbursing school districts for half-day, two-day-a-week preschool programs, which would help about 7,000 of the state's 4-year-olds. As the state weighs other priorities, it will be interesting to watch what happens to the governor's pre-kindergarten plans.
The story Donna St. George of the Washington Post wrote just before Christmas serves as a powerful reminder about ways parents are sacrificing their children's education and safety in this troubled economy.
St. George found more children are being left home alone because their parents can no longer afford child care, and documented a spike in complaints about unregulated and informal day-care providers that operate illegally.
The trend St. George reported in the Washington D.C. region and surrounding suburbs is one every journalist who covers early childhood issues can examine in the communities they cover. Good sources include social service commissioners and child care operators who might report a new rise in vacancies among parents who can no longer afford to pay. St. George found more examples of children left alone from housing code enforcers who in one case found a kindergarten student hiding in a closet.
Families of all income levels are experiencing difficulty,as Albert Wat points out in "The Pre-K Pinch,'' an excellent resource for journalists.
St. George followed up with yet another powerful story a few days later: child welfare workers are also seeing a marked increase in child abuse and neglect cases in the worsening economy.
The Akron Beacon Journal took an in-depth look this week at a possible solution to really bad behavior in early childhood. Meltdowns, screaming fits, hitting and all kinds of irrational toddler behavior can change the classroom dynamic and undermine everything a teacher is trying to do.
The story by John Higgins focused on a possible solution: a pilot program that places a behavioral specialist in the preschool to help the staff learning coping techniques. Higgins also did a good job at describing the despair of parents whose children have trouble adjusting to preschool settings.
One caregiver Higgins interviewed described getting three or four calls a week from parents whose children have been kicked out of multiple pre-school settings and don't know where to turn.
The story Higgins described is one reporters in any state can find without much digging. Children in state-funded preschools are more than three times as likely to be expelled as children in grades kindergarten through 12, according to a 2005 study by the Yale Child Study Center. A follow-up study was released last year.
Stories about out-of-control kids make good copy, but taking it further and focusing on ways of dealing with the problem -- as Higgins' story did -- are just as important. Are teachers getting enough support? Are child psychologists and behavioral specialists able to change behaviors? What works? If nothing is done, are the kids who have been kicked out of multiple pre-schools creating problems once they get to kindergarten and first-grade?
The presidential pre-school watch can officially begin.
The eyes of advocates, educators and many others are now upon President-elect Barack Obama's choice for education secretary as he initiates an early childhood agenda.
Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan made it clear that preschool expansion is among his priorities at a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
Duncan said he wants to build on the successes of Head Start and Early Head Start and that he believes investment in early childhood is needed because "too many children show up at kindergarten already behind."
Before Duncan faced the Senate, the New America Foundation posed some excellent policy questions that will be useful for journalists to watch closely in the coming months.
The Senate hearing was hardly a grilling; Duncan received a warm reception and lots of applause throughout the hearing -- where his own pre-schooler read and drew.
EarlyStories has been keeping a close eye on how small children are faring in the worsening economy, and applauding the efforts of journalists who report on the connection. A story in the Detroit News took note of how auto industry woes and rising unemployment are hurting child care providers in a state where the jobless rate has reached 9.6 percent. -- the highest monthly rate since 1992.
Child care centers in Michigan are cutting staff and reducing payroll hours and more children are remaining at home or in scattered child care arrangements that threaten their sense of security and could lead to emotional problems down the road, the story notes.
Other journalists, including Donna St. George of the Washington Post, have discovered troubling trends such as the large numbers of children who have been pulled out of child care arrangements and left to fend for themselves at home. It's an example of a sad and frightening education trend that has society-wide implications.
The tough times provide an opportunity for education journalists to connect the work they do with the broader economic troubles their communities are facing, including the youngest and most vulnerable.
With all the learning and socialization that needs to take place in kindergarten, it's hard to imagine a school district getting caught up in a struggle over how long a child's hair can be. It's even harder to imagine a child being ordered to learn in isolation because of his hair.
Yet that's exactly what happened in rural Needville Texas, according to a story in the Houston Chronicle, The paper has been following the case of a five-year-old American Indian boy who was kept out of class for several months because of the length of his hair.
The school district maintained the boy had violated the school's dress code, which forbids boys from wearing their hair long. The boy was told he could wear his hair in one long braid tucked into his shirt, but when he arrived wearing two braids outside his shirt he was ordered to attend classes in isolation.
It took the involvement of a federal judge to rule that the Needville School District had violated state law and the U.S. Constitution by punishing the boy for his religious beliefs. The boy's father maintained that the part-Apache Indian child considered his long hair sacred, and held to a tradition of not cutting it except during major life events.
The case drew the interest of the American Civil Liberties Union after the boy was suspended for not complying with a school's dress code policy that required short hair. The boy's parents had sent him to school in braids. The ACLU lauded the judge's decision.
It's refreshing to see newspapers stay on top of the many ways the economic downturn hurts small children and their families. In ailing Michigan, the Heritage newspapers reported some startling data from the annual Kids Count survey in the Michigan Data Book, finding that poverty affects one out of every four children in a state hit hard by auto industry layoffs.
The report, produced by the Michigan League for Human Services, found "stark disparities for minorities in Michigan threaten the well being of large numbers of young children and their families.''
EarlyStories would like to see journalists go beyond reporting the depressing but not surprising numbers and talk to some of the families about how they are coping. What government efforts, if any, are there? What programs are being cut? Who is hurt? What are nonprofits, also struggling, doing to help?
Are any leaders emerging during these terrible times? Journalists might want to look for inspiration at the story Paul Tough, a New York Times wrote this week in Mother Jones Magazine about the efforts of Geoffrey Canada of Harlem's Children Zone to combat poverty and educate children in a poor New York City neighborhood.
The piece describes the efforts of Canada and Harlem Children's Zone to educate poor parents and children in ways large and small, including a simple trip the Harlem Children Zone aimed at exposing young children to everyday language.
"The point wasn't to learn about nutrition, but rather about language—how to fill an everyday shopping trip with the kind of nonstop chatter that has become second nature to most upper-middle-class parents, full of questions about numbers and colors and letters and names,'' Tough wrote, describing what he saw on the trip with parents to a local supermarket. "That chatter, social scientists have shown, has a huge effect on vocabulary and reading ability.''
Tough's magazine piece looks at an effort to solve some of the most intractable problems of poverty, and grew out of his new book on the Children's Zone.
The supermarket anecdote is great example of the kind of show-don't-tell journalism needed more than ever right now, alongside the data and statistics quantifying the ways children are hurting in tough economic times.
The faltering economy is causing states to pull back on school funding promises, and outraged parents in South Florida are resorting to dramatic tactics -- including a mock funeral on YouTube -- to call attention to their priorities. In the video, children dressed in black place violins, books and soccer balls in a coffin with a headstone reading: "Here lies our dreams.''
According to a Miami Herald article, the parents are trying to send a strong message of protest to officials in the state that ranks 47th in the U.S. in education spending (per $1,000 of personal income) and has endured a nearly 16 percent cut to the education budget.
Florida is hardly the only state where shrinking state tax revenues are threatening education budgets. Planned pre-kindergarten expansions are threatened throughout the U.S; In Maryland alone, state funding for local schools could plunge by $69 million next year, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Early childhood advocates all over Florida are also concerned about more cuts to preschool funding, a Florida Times-Union story notes.
Just about every education journalist in the country will be reporting on this trend over the coming months. It's worth taking a look at how other states are handling their fiscal problems, from headline grabbing protests to potential solutions.
Columnists can freely give their opinions without explanation, but Early Stories would have liked to hear the thinking behind David Brooks' op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he "fervently hope[s]'' that a Head Start expansion is dropped from the stimulus package.
Brooks clearly articulated what he believes is wrong with the $819 billion tax-and-spending bill, but he didn't say why he wants to jettison the $2.1 billion proposed for Head Start, the national program to promote school readiness. The package calls for giving $2.1 billion to allow the longest-running anti-poverty program in the U.S. to serve an additional 110,000 children. The National Head Start Association had hoped for a $4.3 billion boost for both Head Start and Early Head Start.
The NHSA noted that the $2.1 billion "would create new jobs and provide safe, high quality services for children as parents go back to work,'' and would provide help to children and families who most need it.
Early Stories decided to find out what David Brooks' objections to Head Start are, since he omitted them from his piece, and discovered a column from 2005 where he declared "there is little evidence that it actually transforms lives.''
The piece had links to a 2005 study that Brooks used as the basis for his dislike of Head Start.
If Brooks wants Head Start money out of the bill now, he owes us a cogent explanation of why Head Start should not get help in this bill. Others have expressed skepticism of the bill's education spending, but few have addressed Head Start. Sara Mead over at Early Education Watch, meanwhile, has done a good job of analyzing what the provisions could mean for early childhood education.
Early Stories did find some more objections -- not surprisingly -- from Chester Finn Jr. at the Fordham Foundation, whose conservative views may have influenced Brooks: "Forty years of evaluations have demonstrated that Head Start does next to nothing to prepare its young charges....to succeed in kindergarten and beyond,'' Finn noted.
Finn went on to describe what he dislikes about the program, which Brooks now has an obligation to do. The view may not be a popular one during this economic crisis, but it should be explained.
In the past, working parents had to rely heavily on word-of-mouth to learn the reputation of child-care homes and centers. In many instances they still do, but some states are now providing an online record system that in the best cases provide details on problems that can range from discipline to cleanliness and safety measures, according to an article in the Washington Post that looks at what both Maryland and Virginia are doing.
Twenty-two states now post online inspections and complaint records, and Early Stories would love to see newspapers delve into these databases and publish the results, which could go a long way toward helping working parents make the best decisions -- and could push providers to clean up their acts.
The possibility and promise of a new administration and new spending requires reporters to shine a light on which early childhood programs are effective, rather than to simply report the amount of money earmarked for new initiatives. Yale University psychology professor Edward Zigler offers some concrete suggestions that are worth a close read in a thoughtful Education Week piece published on Feb. 5 that looks at spending on Title 1.
The foundation of the government's commitment to closing the achievement gap is now known to all as No Child Left Behind, a cornerstone of the George W. Bush administration.
Zigler, widely regarded as one of the founding “fathers” of Head Start ,has always been a staunch advocate for children and families and a leading researcher of program and policies designed to support children and families. He calls on President Barack Obama and Congress to support a plan that "would enable Title I to evolve from a hodgepodge of efforts into a single program that had performance standards to guide quality and made Title I more accountable. ''
Zigler makes the case that spending on early childhood education is beneficial; "the younger the better,'' he says. He also says spending more federal money on it without a hard look at the results is not the answer.
Zigler wants money set aside to evaluate Title 1, nothing that the program launched in 1965 as part of then-president Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty,'' has turned into a stream of money that allows school administrators to "mount any type of initiative they feel will be beneficial to the academic progress of poor children.''
Zigler raises important questions for journalists to think about as they keep a close eye on new education spending, along with what kinds of questions to ask about how existing programs have -- or have not --worked.
At a time when both print and broadcast media are both cutting back on education coverage, Early Stories was pleasantly surprised to find a local television station intensely covering an important early childhood story that goes beyond a quick take on cute kids. (Although the kids featured are awfully cute.)
Channel 3000 in Madison, Wisconsin has consistently covered a longstanding proposal to create a kindergarten program for 4-year-olds that has been beneficial elsewhere in the state but is costly. Consideration of the proposal comes at a time when the city of Madison -- like municipalities across the U.S. -- is struggling financially. Parents, taxpayers and school officials alike are rightly questioning both the costs and the benefits.
The station has been covering this story intelligently for several years, taking on angles and questions of enormous importance to parents and educators, from what is the right age for kindergarten to how early programs specifically address children's social and emotional needs. There are also links to research and issue papers that detail how the funding would work. The public deserves information and answers -- it's too bad more local television stations don't take them type to give these kinds of issues serious treatment.
It was interesting reading about the town of Hudson, New Hampshire in an Associated Press article that ran in USA Today and many other papers.
The story is about the only town within the 48 states that doesn't offer free public kindergarten, and does not want to unless the state provides more money for it.
Apparently the "Live Free or Die," state is only now beginning to require that its school districts provide public kindergarten.
The town of Hudson has filed a lawsuit seeking to block public kindergarten in its schools, and I was fascinated to find out why. However, the article does not quote anyone who is against kindergarten, instead citing as the reason a constitutional amendment in 1984 to the New Hampshire Constitution requiring that the state pay for any new mandated programs.
Early Stories thinks an opportunity was missed here to introduce research about the importance of full day kindergarten, and to explain the opposition. A little research turned up some more informative stories on the topic: a piece in the Boston Globe last month quoted a Hudson school official balking at kindergarten "as an unfunded state mandate,'' along with the Hudson superintendent calling it "a matter for the voters to decide.''
And, as is often the case, those who are against it cite money. The superintendent noted that in tough economic times, paying for kindergarten "could be a disaster in the making,'' although I did not see any figures for how much it would cost taxpayers and what the school board might have to cut to make room for kindergarten.
I also uncovered a forceful editorial in the Nashua Telegram, urging the Hudson school board "to abandon its ill-conceived court challenge,'' calling it "a foolish waste of the town's time and money.''
The story got picked up all over the U.S. and is worth a follow-up. But I would like to hear more from both sides. It's hard to imagine a town
fighting against free public kindergarten. I'd like to hear some of the voices next time explaining why, along with some education research that explains what children get out of kindergarten and why it's important.
Early Stories has pushed for better journalism on Head Start and for more explanation from early childhood experts who have criticized the program and urged that it not get any more federal money.
On the same day the Senate voted its approval of an $838 billion stimulus plan that provides $1 billion less than originally anticipated for Head Start, U.C. Berkeley professor David L. Kirp weighed in with a defense of the program in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kirp warns that any decision to cut money for Head Start "is a mistake whose reverberations will be felt long after the recession is over."
Kirp, author of "The Sandbox Investment,'' argues that Head Start is indeed an "economic pump-primer,'' and noted that every Head Start dollar "means new jobs for teachers, aides and staff, many of them poor women who are the economic anchors of their communities.''
Early Stories has suggested that it's time for reporters to take a hard look at centers in their own communities. What is the quality of instruction? Are there long waiting lists to get in? How do the children do once they get out? Is anyone tracking their long-term performance?
Still confused over the differing views about Head Start? Further explanation is available over at Early Education Watch ., which takes a look at a number of recent articles on the topics and offers some new ideas as well.
While pondering the role of Head Start in the economic stimulus package, Early Stories has looked at a variety of views and lamented the lack of journalism on this longstanding and often maligned federal program.
We somehow missed an excellent piece in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, a paper whose clock may be sadly running out since the Hearst Corporation announced last month it is putting it up for sale.
The article makes several good points, noting that stimulus funding could create 300,000 more spots for children in child care -- and some 5,530 in Washington state, quoting an analysis by the national Center for Law and Social Policy.
"If you want to get smart people back in the work force, then you have to give them the opportunity to get child care that makes sense," Anna Lemchen, a North Seattle mother of two daughters told the paper.
Head Start, meanwhile, issued a press release urging that the original $2.1 billion earmarked for Head Start be maintained as negotiations continue, noting: "the truth is that up to 60,000 jobs could be created – and that is not even including related construction positions – with the $2.1 billion that Congress has discussed for Head Start and Early Head Start.''
As educators and policy makers sort through the meaning of the slimmed down compromise stimulus, journalists are trying to figure out the meaning in their own communities. How much of what was promised was cut? What will any new money be spent on? Who is setting the priorities?
A few good resources -- beyond speaking to school officials, Head Start operators and other early childhood education providers -- can be found on the Ed Money Watch blog.
Economist Steve Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research has also weighed in, and it's likely that schools of education are watching the developments closely.
Early Stories had a chance to listen to one of the top experts in the U.S. this week,
Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College, Kagan emphasized that what matters about the stimulus spending is the quality of early childhood education it may be providing money for, from child care to pre-kindergarten. The vast majority of existing programs are mediocre, she noted.
"There are very, very few high quality programs and those are the ones that produce the high effects that we tout in the research literature,'' Kagan said.
NIEER has some quality markers. Most states now have early childhood education standards. The National Assn. of Early Childhood Education has its guidelines. So does Head Start. Kagan noted one element of quality that concerns her greatly. Only 36% of Head Start teachers and 30% of child care workers have a bachelor's degree. She also worried that, as these programs expand, the teachers they hire will not have the background and training they need. "Those coming in often are less qualified than those leaving," she said.
Linda K. Wertheimer of the Boston Globe reports that a number of districts in Massachusetts are reconsidering plans for full-day kindergarten classes. Fifty of the state's districts do not offer the classes. Of those that do, more and more are charging parents for the extra time. In fact, the average fee has gone up 10-fold in four years, from about $300 to about $3,000. Massachusetts is one of the most affluent, high-tax, high-spending states in the country, a state whose students score well on both state and national tests. But it charges some parents for full-day kindergarten. This is a puzzle that just doesn't fit together in my head.
For journalists nationally, you should ask whether states are planning to cut back on these classes. We already know states' pre-kindergarten classes are feeling budget pressure. Now it looks like kindergartens are as well.
It was interesting reading the New York Times Sunday story on class size, which presented a variety of views and academic research on how much class size matters and looked at what is happening around the issue in New York and in cash-strapped California. However, there were some critical questions that might have provided more insight. A visit to an overcrowded classroom would help readers see the issue more clearly.
For example, what is it like physically in classrooms that have to squeeze many more desks than can fit? How important are smaller classes in kindergarten and the earliest grades, when students are first exposed to academic work? How do overcrowded classrooms alter relationships? Do all the children who need extra help still manage to get it? Does the teacher feel that he or she is able to teach what the children need to learn? What is the optimum number of children in a classroom for each grade?
While reporting on this topic several years ago, Early Stories visited a kindergarten classroom in the borough of Queens where the teacher noted that the large class size (more than 30 children) was a real struggle in the winter. When it was time to go outside for recess, sixty little hands (and feet) needed help getting gloves and boots on. All the winter gear took up much needed space in the temporary trailer, minimizing movement and putting an end to sitting in circles and playing games like Duck Duck Goose. It was the kind of detail that helped readers understand the true impact of crowding.
The Times story might have pointed out exactly how many students constitute an overcrowded classroom. In cities like New York, the teachers contract spells out limits and the union keeps tabs. While limits vary with grades, type of class and other factors, the United Federation of Teachers every year files demands for arbitration when classes exceed the contractual limits.
The Times story pointed out that New York City has managed to increase class size even while receiving $150 million in state money they pledged would be used to create smaller classes. Department of Education officials provided no good reason for not doing so, beyond vague remarks about trade-off's and "a wrongheaded,'' focus on the number of kids in a classroom. They should not be let off the hook so easily.
There's ample room for follow-up here, and in a school system of more than 1.1 million with over 1500 schools, it shouldn't be hard to schedule a visit to a crowded classroom to observe first hand what is happening. How do parents feel their children are learning in oversized classrooms? How are the kids functioning? What do school officials, from the principal to the teachers say?
If budget cuts are preventing any class size reductions, will any stimulus money go toward that purpose?
Early Stories has long been intrigued by what happens at playtime and recess, and how it impacts learning. One reason for this is our experience visiting New York City schools, where the lack of playgrounds, fields and outdoor space forces school staff to be extremely creative when it comes to recess. We have seen teachers bring out cones, hoops, balls and all sorts of equipment for youngsters who take their breaks on concrete. We've seen role playing and all sorts of imaginative games. And we've also seen small children just standing around while their teachers talk in cluster, which is a lost opportunity.
Turns out, in an age where accountability and test scores rule, recess can be a key way to improve academic performance, according to a study featured in the New York Times.
The lead researcher noted that many schools aren't viewing recess as essential to education. It's a trend that comes after schools across the U.S. have been banning traditional games educators view as dangerous or skipping recess to focus more on on raising test scores
It's always worth checking the latest trends and decisions in recess -- the stories are of great interest to parents and clearly important to the overall quality of a child's education -- and day in school. Reporters who find time to visit schools should not neglect hanging out and watching recess -- that is, if it hasn't been banned or shortened.
Early Stories likes nothing better than coming across good journalism about pre-kindergarten. It's fascinating to read about the struggles many states are having over how -- and if -- to fund early childhood education. It's even better when the stories go beyond rhetoric and politics at a time when state governments are strapped for cash. The best stories help the public understand what quality pre-kindergarten can do, and are supported by research and clear examples.
Few stories manage to do that, however. For example, a story in the Bismarck Tribune included an unexplained quote from a state representative who was arguing against the inclusion in a $110 million education bill of a $1.5 million grant to allow school districts to implement pre-kindergarten.
"I just don't think its right for government to be taking kids away from home at the age of 4," said Rep. Bette Grande, R-Fargo.
And exactly what language in the bill described how the government would accomplish that?
The Fargo Forum also quoted Grande as follows: “Pre-K is another chance for government to reach into the families,” taking children away from their homes at the age of 4.'' Again, no explanation.
So what exactly did she mean by that?
Granted, Grande isn't the most progressive of legislators. She introduced legislation that would require any abortion provider to offer a woman a look at an ultrasound picture of her fetus at least 24 hours before she gets an abortion. She also pushed a bill that would have allowed students to drop classes and demand tuition refunds if they claimed they couldn't understand their instructor.
That doesn't mean she shouldn't be asked to explain.
There are numerous resources available for journalists that describe how and why pre-kindergarten can make a difference in the lives of children. They can compare what is happening in the state they are covering with others.
The old argument about government taking away children -- even if it is a deeply ingrained belief -- must be explained, not just reported.
When a politician announces a number of new initiatives, the stories that follow often end up looking like a laundry list. However,journalists have to do more than allow politicians to spew rhetoric without demanding a full explanation. One good example comes from the speech Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley made this week to the State Board of Education, where he announced a new program for tracking student performance from pre-kindergarten through the end of college.
Early Stories is curious to know how a pre-kindergarten student might be tracked and what exactly the governor meant. For one thing, many states and school systems first enroll students in kindergarten or first grade. And not all have developed evaluation systems for pre-kindergarten that measure such things as cognitive and language abilities, reading and mathematics achievement, health or behavior problems, for example.
How will school systems measure the achievement of pre-kindergarten students and what sorts of tests will they get? Will they be assessed on their ability to recite letters and numbers?
To get a few more answers, Early Stories checked out the text of his speech which implies said that he wants the Board of Education to "develop a comprehensive performance measurement system that tracks student achievement and development from Kindergarten through higher education.''
So, now the questions can begin about what such a system might look like in Maryland, which was ranked number one for having the best schools nationally by Education Week. Who will do the "tracking,'' and what will be tracked? How much will it cost? Will all publicly funded pre-kindergartens be required to track their students?
Early Stories posed some questions this week about how pre-kindergarten students are tracked and assessed, a topic that came up in Maryland Governor O'Malley's education speech. Turns out there are many ways, and one revealing answer came from reading an excellent story by John Higgins of the Akron Beacon Journal.
Higgins examined a pilot program that aims to teach parents ways they can get their children ready for school even before they begin kindergarten. The program, sponsored by the W.K. Kellog Foundation, is successful enough that it will soon be replicated in other cities. The program relies on parent "mentors,'' who visit students in their home before they start school. They also provide advice and support to parents on how to help the children acquire pre-reading and other learning skills.
The program exists in a state where students are falling behind even before they enter kindergarten, based on the results of an Ohio assessment test that measures a child's ability to process and understand language and identify letters, rhymes and sounds. The story noted that those who scored echelon lower (In Akron, some 24 percent) tended to need special help when they get to school with everything from holding and gripping a pencil or crayon to interacting with other children. Such skills develop better with guidance and encouragement.
Data from the University of Akron's Institute for Health and Social Policy tracked the children in the program, known as SPARK, and found significant improvement on the same kindergarten assessment tests after they had completed the program.
The effort is not funded by taxpayers, but that did not stop irate readers from posting comments at the bottom of Higgins' story, complaining about the idea of giving parents guidance to help get them ready for school.
What happens to the children ultimately, the story noted, will depend on how involved parents remain with their children's education -- long after kindergarten.
In the days and weeks to come, details of President Barack Obama's stimulus package will begin to emerge. His budget is now a public document. Enterprising journalists from Ohio to Arkansas are beginning to report on how much money their states will get for pre-kindergarten, Head Start and other early childhood programs.
Early Stories firmly believes the reporting should not stop after that. Who will get the contracts and the jobs? How can the public be assured the new programs will be high quality? What types of programs will states and school districts offer and what does the research say about which are best? Who will make decisions and how will the decisions be made? Will opponents and others attempt to steer the money toward different types of programs? Will political connections play a role?
More excellent questions are posed by Sara Mead at Early Education Watch, who keeps a close eye on both the money and the larger policy implications.
It's not enough, in the recession economy, to simply report on how much money each state will get. The number is just a starting point for the many important stories waiting to be told.
As details of President Barack Obama's stimulus package trickle down to the states, journalists who dig into the emerging story are finding the new spending may not solve entrenched financial problems of districts struggling with deep budget cuts and already sending out layoff notices to teachers. Larry Abramson of National Public Radio spoke to superintendents in Florida, Michigan and California and found enormous concern. Many journalists are find themselves writing about new spending and budget cuts simultaneously.
Education Week noted the lack of specific numbers in the plan, and a variety of other concerns and questions are being asked. Richard Lee Colvin of EarlyStories raises good questions for journalists to ask as well in the latest edition of Education Next . Will the money reshape and reform the landscape of public education for years to come, he asks?
The New York Times Sam Dillon is also doing an excellent job keeping track of the many interest groups watching every move Education Secretary Arne Duncan is making around the stimulus money. Pre-K Now is closely watching the early childhood proposals and Duncan's budget.
EarlyStories applauds journalists for looking into the connection between education and the economy, and it's natural that the New York Times would want to see how private schools and the parents who pay for them are faring. What new financial struggles might be emerging for the many formerly flush Wall Streeters and other now hurting professionals who once lined up eagerly to pay more than $30,000 a year for kindergarten?
Unfortunately, the lengthy article contained almost no description of how private school differs from public school (described as "unthinkable,'' in one particularly memorable passage). Private school is viewed as as "a marker of educational values, religious identity, social standing or class aspirations."
It's possible that such stories make fascinating reading, but at the same time EarlyStories expects a lot more. It's not exactly news that some families can no longer afford hefty tuitions, even if it may be comforting to pick up the newspaper and read about the money woes of others. What parents and the public really want to know is why the education at private schools merits such soul searching and angst, to the point where one unnamed (naturally) parent declared that her decision to choose private school amounted to "financial suicide.''
How big are class sizes at private schools compared with their public counterparts? (sometimes half as big). Are the teachers trained any differently? Are they hand-picked by the principal? Is their quality (a well known key to effectiveness) higher and if so, how is it measured? Is it the fields, facilities, sports and arts programs that draw parents to private school? Are new charter schools and other efforts to provide competition having any impact on private school enrollment? Also, what are the private school children learning, especially at a younger grade, that makes the education superior (if in fact it does) or at least so coveted?
Why not visit a public and private school kindergarten and ask to see the curriculum. How is it different? How do assessments differ? Can the backgrounds of the teachers be compared? Private school teachers often don't need to be certified and the schools can hire young, recent college graduates who don't have master's degrees. What kind of support and training do private school teachers get and how do they differ? How do parents view the quality of the education in both settings?
To the Times credit, the story did point out that of the more than three million families with at least one child in private school, almost two million of them have a household income of less than $100,000. Some are struggling just as mightily with tuition bills of less than $4,000.
Still, private school should not be seen entirely as a class entitlement issue, particularly as the recession economy blurs the lines. It's far more important to thoroughly compare and evaluate how such schools differ from public offerings. Cash-strapped families really want to know what their dollars are buying.
The social class issue, however, cannot be ignored. When asked about the financial struggles of parents and the additional requests for aid, George Davison, the headmaster of the Grace Church School, told the Times: “We’ll say, ‘You can’t really go to Vail this year and ask for financial aid.....And they look surprised and say, ‘But we already paid for the tickets!’ ”
Will long promised public preschool expansions survive the recession? That's one of the questions John Mooney of the New York Times posed and attempted to answer in an excellent piece that ran in the regional section. The story is a model for journalists who should be looking closely at planned expansions to see if they are in peril.
At a time when President Barack Obama is pushing preschool and early childhood education as part of his $787 billion stimulus plan, cash-strapped state officials are waiting to see how much money they will get and how they can use it. New Jersey is among the 38 states that provide public programs and already serves more than a quarter of all its eligible students. Under an ambitious expansion, the state had planned to provide all day-programs for low-income 3-and 4-year-olds by the fall, but it's unclear if they can proceed.
Other states planning pre-kindergarten expansions may also be scaling back, and are unlikely to ask for more taxpayer funding. The National Institute for Early Education Research has been keeping track, as has Pre-K Now . In addition to closely watching and examing state budgets when they are released, there is no substitute for visiting pre-kindergarten classes, like Mooney did. Visits will help journalists explain any progress teachers and parents see in the children, and provide a chance to observe what kinds of learning activities are taking place.
It's also worth noting, courtesy of the excellent Early Education Watch blog, that even programs that offer big gains for young children have been cut out of school budgets. Chicago's Child Parent Centers, for example, are now serving fewer than half of the original numbers of children, notes Lisa Guernsey of Early Education Watch.
Sometimes, it takes a video to explain why after school programs matter so much. This clip comes courtesy of TASC , or The After School Corporation, which works in New York and across the U.S. to "enhance the quality, availability and sustainability of comprehensive, daily after-school programs.''
The adorable video is filled with drawings from children in after school programs, and includes a rendition of New York City officials, including Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as Spiderman:
(Clockwise from top left corner, Joel Klein, NYC Commissioner of Youth and Community Development Jeanne Mullgrav, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Mayor Michael Bloomberg)
The video It was shown to an audience that came to honor financier and philanthropist George Soros in New York City earlier this week. It brought home how important such programs are for working parents -- and how much they truly mean to children who would otherwise have nothing to do and in many cases no supervision after school.
As education journalists examine President Barack Obama's stimulus plan it's important not to leave out what happens when class is out. After school programs are known to provide academic, emotional and social support for at-risk students, and provide a lifeline for working parents. Obama has said he wants to double spending on the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, "to serve one million more children."
The new promises and pledges come at a time when after school programs, from art to music to sports, are being cut in school disticts throughout the U.S., a story many newspapers are already following.
Journalists should visit after school programs, where children could be engaged in learning new sports, playing music, or creating art. They will learn quickly that some are better than others. Some schools and districts offer programs that are nothing more than babysitting and extra work for teachers, while others provide real instruction in skills from music to robotics. It's important to ask who is monitoring and evaluating the programs.
There are also many different kinds of different funding streams for programs. which often run in partnerships with foundations and nonprofits like TASC, founded in 1998 by Soros and the Open Society Institute (OSI) . Their $125 million investment helped build a network of daily after-school programs for New York City public school children that served 140,000 children last year.
The stimulus money may provide districts with more opportunities to expand existing programs, if deemed a priority. Who will get the contracts and who will insure that programs are high quality? What else might be cut to make way for after school programs? As existing programs are slashed, what is happening to the children who once depended upon them? Are more children being left home alone, a trend that Donna St. George of the Washington Post documented?
As Georgia mulls spending stimulus money, an advocate weighs in to try to keep the focus on the state's children, whom she says stand the most to gain.
Lauren Waits, policy director for Voices for Georgia’s Children, examined in a piece for the Daily Citizen how the stimulus money might be spent to directly improve the lives of children. Waits describes different ways the money can help, noting that the stimulus would provide Georgia with $82.8 million to subsidize child care for low income working families in a state that has never been able to serve all of its eligible families.
"These new dollars can help eliminate waiting lists for services and expand the eligibility level so more parents can be assured of safe, healthy environments for their children while they go to work,'' Waits wrote. The remarks come at a time when Georgia's Governor Sonny Perdue has said he might turn down hundreds of millions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money because he says it might not be in the state’s long-term interest to accept it.
As President Barack Obama was getting ready to deliver a speech this week that called for a renewed committment to early childhood education, citizens of South Dakota were gathering in their state capital to fight a bill that might have been the first step toward creating a state funded preschool program to serve low-income families.
Those opposing the bill argued that it would "give incentive to alternatives to parenting,'' and noted on their website that "documented studies show... Moms are the #1 educator for early-childhood.'' The site did not point to any specific research to back-up this claim.
South Dakota is one of 12 states that offer no state-funded pre-kindergarten. Bills to change that have faced fierce opposition from groups that compare state-funded programs to "government intrusion on the family.''
It has been interesting watching the steadfast opposition to funding pre-kindergarten in this rural state, even as other are coming around toward viewing early childhood education as a necessary and worthwhile investment.
On Tuesday, a House Committee in Pierre voted 9-6 to kill a measure that proposed a community planning process simply to gauge statewide interest in preschool for children from low-income families.
The opposition in South Dakota comes at a time when Obama is pushing for greater investment in early childhood education, as noted in the Early Ed Watch blog. Lawmakers in the past have tried to lay the groundwork for state funded programs in South Dakota, but have had no luck.
As President Barack Obama pledges to invest in early childhood education, it's important for journalists to keep the focus on the thousands of children across the U.S. who could truly benefit from public pre-kindergarten programs but are not being served.
That's what WYPR radio reporter Joel McCord did this week by spending some time with four-year-old Wyatt Fowler and his mother in Prince George's County, Maryland. You can listen to the program here:
Wyatt's parents don't earn enough to send him to private preschool, but they earn too much to qualify for state or federal subsidies. So his mother is trying to get him ready for kindergarten on her own.
"He's not getting that interaction with other children his age to know how to act in a group of peers, to know how to sit and take direction from another adult besides myself, to be able to know a consistent routine and follow it,'' Donna Flowler told McCord. She also told him that the two years one of her older sons spent in pre-k greatly improved his academic performance.
The stories of individual kids and families really bring home how and why such programs are important. There's lots of coverage of the push for universal pre-k from advocates and lobbyists in Maryland, which offers a state-funded program for at-risk four-year-olds.
There's a big expansion push now, a universal pre-k bill in the General Assembly that comes at a time when the state -- like many others in the U.S, -- is experiencing a budget crisis.
There's plenty of coverage about the state's finances, but not enough stories about children like Wyatt, who was playing at his mom's knee instead of learning to identify letters, sing songs and play early math games with children his own age.
I hope ABC News doesn't try to pass off its Friday night special, co-produced with the Reason Foundation, as journalism. One of the segments of the ABC special is on universal preschool, which the libertarian Reason Foundation opposes, loudly and often. That's fine. We like a plurality of views in America. Otherwise, how could Rush and the many far-right ideologues dominate talk radio? But how does a legitimate news organization, assuming that ABC News still is one, co-produce a report with a foundation like Reason that has been one of leading voices battling universal preschool?
The ABC report is based on videos produced by Reason.tv, which is an arm of the Reason Foundation. The videos are part of what Reason.tv calls "The 
Drew Carey Project." Yes, Drew Carey the comedian. I guess that if Al Franken can be a U.S. Senator, Drew Carey can be a cranky commentator. The main voice in the video is Reason's Lisa Snell.
Here are the reasons Snell and others give for opposing universal preschool:
1. Family day care providers will be put out of business. The person who makes this argument runs a family day care and says that she doesn't have time to get a bachelor's degree.
2. Universal standards, that would come with universal funding, would cause children to "lose out on the magic that is preschool."
3. Non-profit operators would lose out, because they couldn't compete with free, high quality preschool.
4. Choice and competition has given us successful day care operations and preschools and the government support would upset the preschool free market.
5. As she's argued many times, Snell says that if universal preschool worked so well then Oklahoma, which has one of the most successful such programs, would have higher school level test scores.
6. She also says that, if government funding were good for education, then the K-12 system would be more successful. That it is not, in her view, means that government spending will ruin preschool too.
It's a hodgepodge of ideas that celebrate unregulated markets, privatization, competition and so on. Haven't we been trying those ideas for the last 30 years? Early childhood education sector is probably the sector that has embraced these ideas the most. And one would have to be slavishly ideological to argue that it's worked out well so far. Much of the child care in this country is so bad that it's actually harmful to kids. Many family preschools are run by people with little or no formal education. Kids spend lots of time watching TV. Many state-funded preschools offer very poor quality as well. And, despite the bad quality, parents don't have a choice. They have to work. They need to have a safe place for their children. They hope that it is at least somewhat educational. Some private preschools are great, of course. So are some child care centers. But there aren't enough of them and middle-income families often can't afford them.
Edward Zigler, the Yale eminence grise of preschool and childcare, speaks in the Drew Carey video in favor of providing high quality preschool. He says studies find that the average quality of day care in the U.S. is between poor and mediocre. He says that getting kids ready for school is the nation's biggest challenge. He doesn't disagree that many public school need to improve. But he doesn't think that excuse should be used to refuse to help children get ready to succeed academically.
In the interests of full disclosure, the Pew Charitable Trusts, which supports universal preschool, has been a supporter of the Hechinger Institute. The Hechinger Institute does not endorse universal preschool. It does endorse, however, high quality journalism. And this is not journalism. And ABC News, and Stossel, shouldn't claim that it is.
Visit any preschool and you are likely to hear lots of praise and encouragement from teachers. The children, pleased with themselves, may smile in return.
Turns out, all that praise may not be such a great idea.
In fact, it might be furthering a new generation of narcissists, according to a BBC news report.
Carol Craig, chief executive of the centre for confidence and well-being in Scotland, recently warned educators that they are praising children too much, an idea she said had been imported from the U.S.
Craig told educators at a conference that "an obsession with boosting children's self esteem was encouraging a narcissistic generation who focused on themselves and felt entitled.''
EarlyStories remembers visiting a preschool where the instructor pointed out to parents that merely praising children for, say, drawing a beautiful picture of a castle wasn't terribly helpful. Instead, the praise should be targeted and specific; ie, "I like the way you drew that flag on top of the turret.''
That made some sense at the time. Craig is more about keeping educators on track as educators; they are not, she said recently "surrogate psychologists or mental health professionals.''
EarlyStories became curious about the whole issue of praise in the classroom and decided to see what some U.S. experts have to say. It would be interesting to hear what early childhood educators in the U.S. think of Craig's views.
The Anchorage Daily News published an interesting editorial this week criticizing the state's lagging response to providing publicly funded pre-kindergarten. Alaska is one of only 12 states in the U.S. that does not provide programs for its youngest residents.
The editorial follow a statewide summit on pre-kindergarten in November where educators and advocates pushed for improving Alaska's offerings, and comes as President Barack Obama is touting the importance of early childhood education. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who while stumping as a vice-presidential candidate called education "near and dear to my heart,'' -- did not attend that summit meeting.
Palin's budget proposal did not go as far as advocates had hoped, calling only for a state-funded pilot that would serve about 500 pre-kindergarten children. The state's superintendent has called for federal stimulus funds to be used for new preschools for low-income students, while other educators want Palin to push harder for expansion.
"The state should take advantage of opportunities to fund preschools -- proven to give kids a stronger start,'' the editorial noted. It also pointed out that "well-run preschools can improve the odds children will succeed in school.''
Palin, for her part, has criticized the stimulus package as too large and said it would not be fair to Alaskans "to create expectations about programs that wouldn't be sustainable.''
EarlyStories has for months urged journalists to visit pre-school classrooms and glimpse what is happening (or not happening), especially as states battle over funding cuts and the prospect of economic stimulus money.
So it was gratifying to see a reporter from the Beaumont Enterprise observing the routines of 4 and 5-year-olds at a private pre-k provider, watching how they absorbed "the basics of language and social skills,'' in preparation for starting kindergarten.
The story examines the choices parents in Texas consider when they look at both state-funded and private programs. It also includes good advice about the questions that parents (and, EarlyStories would like to add, journalists) should be asking about providers, which are often subject to agency guidelines. For example, what kind of education do pre-k teachers have? Do they have early childhood experience? Have they been trained and have they taught in pre-k settings? How will children be assessed?
Steve Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, notes in the story that students who attend state pre-k programs are less likely to fail a grade or need special education-type services; he adds that children exposed to a curriculum that forces them to think through their actions and exercise their independence often have fewer behavior problems or aggression issues later on in life.
All of that information is helpful to parents and the public at a time when the cost and benefits of pre-k programs are being weighed closely. But the story might only have been a series of interviews and study summaries without the anecdote describing how young children curled up their faces up and squealed when describing the sour taste of a lemon. Sometimes classroom visits are the only way to bring home points about how and if young children are learning
A recent television report scratched the surface of the many issues journalists ought to start exploring when looking at the planned expansion of the federally funded Early Head Start and Head Start.
The story reported on the lack of qualifications of Head Start teachers in Orange County, Florida and noted that many teachers involved in Orange County's Head Start program may not be qualified. The story also cited recent test scores showing that Head Start students were falling behind others in the state and nation "in all the critical areas that help prepare them for elementary school.''
It did not delve into what will be a critical issue in the coming years as Head Start teachers will be asked to be certified with at least a bachelor's degree. The issue comes at a time when Head Start should face scrutiny by journalists and the public after President Barack Obama pledged an expansion of Early Head Start and Head Start using $5 billion in federal stimulus money.
EarlyStories has noted that few journalists bother to visit Head Start centers and report on their quality or effectiveness. A recent conversation with W. Steve Barnett of NIEER yielded some excellent questions and points journalists might think about when covering Head Start.
Barnett, Co-Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University, suggested that reporters take a look at the extensive research available on Head Start, including a study by Westinghouse Learning Corporation and Ohio University, which concluded that Head Start produced few sustained educational benefits.
The study, Barnett noted, had "numerous methodological flaws and has been roundly criticized.''
Other studies are quite mixed; Barnett said the best long-term studies suggest "modest positive benefits across a wide range of outcomes including mortality and health."
Barnett urges journalists to take a look at the ongoing Head Start Impact Study, a nationally representative randomized trial that he said provides the most rigorous evaluation to date of Head Start’s effects.
Initial results from the study released in 2005 found very modest gains from participating in one year of Head Start, "with the largest impacts on parent reports of their children’s literacy skills and receipt of dental care,'' Barnett said in an email to EarlyStories. He added that while the results may be strong enough to justify the cost of Head Start on purely economic grounds, "even the most generous assessment of the results finds that the impacts on language and mathematics are disappointing and compare poorly to the impacts of other large scale preschool education programs as the programs providing the rationale for Head Start."
Barnett wants to know why the federal government has released no further findings from the study -- a question journalists may want to pose. He added several more good questions. For example, it how much of the Head Start budget is spent at the center level and classroom level and how much goes to particular aspects of the program’s mission such as: education in the classroom, health related services, and services to parents?
The Orange County story did not attempt to answer this questions, but it managed to create a dialogue in the community about what qualifications Head Start teachers -- who in this case earned little more than $13 an hour -- should have. In addition, it raised questions about the value of the program and the quality of what learning is -- or is not -- taking place.
It's hard to imagine a room filled with five and six-year-olds cramming for exams instead of, say, playing charades or building a castle with Legos.
EarlyStories came across this provocative report while scrolling through the excellent Gotham Schools blog. The report presented a pretty grim portrait of kindergarten. Some kindergartens are spending two to three hours a day instructing and testing children in literacy and math and leaving just half an hour or less for play.
“Kindergarten in Crisis,” was released this week by the Alliance for Childhood, a coalition of child development researchers who found that a new shift toward a more academic kindergarten could hurt children in the long run, although it might have a short term boost in test scores.
"The same didactic, test-driven approach is entering preschools,'' the report notes. "But these methods, which are not well grounded in research, are not yielding long-term gains."
The report doesn't advocate simply letting children run around in small circles; it notes that
"when children are given a chance to initiate play and exploratory learning, they become highly skilled in the art of self-education and self-regulation.
While it's not entirely clear what the report means by self-regulation, the findings are a good beginning for any journalist who wants to examine recent trends in kindergarten education. The report is a good starting point for scheduling school visits. Ask how much time is devoted to play, and then stick around and watch. Are teachers involved or simply lurking in the background and doing paperwork while the children are playing? Does the play have any goals or learning components? Exactly how much time is devoted to standardized testing preparation? Do parents and school officials object or endorse the approach?
Play can be a fascinating way to learn, but first journalists need to learn a little more about play.
Long distances and endless stretches of road have always made it challenging for youngsters in rural areas to attend pre-kindergarten, as have the lack of programs that serve them.
Many of the states that don't fund programs are sparse in population, educating children who must travel miles to go to school. A new push is now underway to provide better access to early childhood education for rural students.
Congressman Phil Hare, a Democrat from Illinois, introduced legislation last month to help give states and local school districts a boost by establishing programs and grants to school systems and community-based providers.
It will be interesting to see what the reaction is and how new programs will be funded -- will any stimulus money be involved, for example? Will communities welcome them?
A report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that rural children have the lowest level of enrollment in preschool programs, and noted that programs struggle with a lack of qualified teachers, adequate facilities and transporation. Pre-K Now's paper, "Meeting the Challenge of Rural Pre-K,'' is also a good resource for journalists looking to add context to any local battles. One interesting fact: Of the 2.69 million children between the ages of three and give who lived in rural areas in 2006, only half had access to preschool based in a center. The students from rural areas were 15 percent less likely to begin kindergarten with early literacy skills.
EarlyStories could not help but notice contradictions about education -- and the coverage of it -- in South Carolina this week, at a time when South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has insisted he will not accept about $577 million in stimulus money unless he can use it to pay down state debt. The deadline for accepting the money is this Friday, April 3.
Sanford advocates issuing taxpayer-financed vouchers parents can use to send their children to private schools; he's said he does not want to accept the stimulus money because he believes spending it would lead to increased taxes. His stand has been widely assailed; earlier this week more than a thousand educators and students urged him to take the money and noted that many teachers will lose their jobs if he does not.
The same day protesters gathered at the State House, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was busy explaining to the nation's governors that he wants new data and information about public school performance in exchange for billions in federal aid. Duncan told governors they must improve teacher quality, raise academic standards and intervene in failing schools more effectively to get their share of the money, which will go to public child care centers, public schools and universities.
According to a New York Times story, Duncan then "unleashed a barrage of dismal statistics about the South Carolina schools, noting that only 15 percent of the state’s black students are proficient in math and that the state has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates.
“Those are heartbreaking results; those are children who will never have a chance to compete,” Mr. Duncan said, according to the Times. “For South Carolina to stand on the sidelines and say that the status quo is O.K., that defies logic.”'
Sanford's spokesman told The Times he did not disagree with the portrayal of the schools; the disagreement is with spending money on education will fix the problem.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of early childhood education programs in South Carolina as the fight continues; the state has a long history of funding pre-kindergarten, according to the Pre-K Now state profile.
Education journalists who are busy juggling the many K-12 stories on their beat don't always recognize the importance of what does -- or does not -- come before. That's why it is an excellent idea to listen in next week to the 2008 State of Preschool report from the National Institute for Early Education Research that ranks all 50 states on quality standards, funding and access to state funded programs. This year the report will also look at how state budgets have been effected by the recession, and will consider the likelihood of cuts. Take a look at the yearbook from 2007 for comparison.
Journalists can tune in for a phone briefing about the 2008 report at 2 p.m. on April 6 or attend a news conference on April 8 at 10 a.m. at the Oyster Adams Bilingual School, 2801 Calvert St., NW, Washington, DC. To participate in the conference, contact Jen Fitzgerald at jfitzgerald@nieer.org or Mary Meagher at mmeagher@nieer.org. Registration for the conference call constitutes agreement to honor the embargo of the report until April 8; call-in information will be available upon registering for the call and an embargoed copy of the report will be made available.
Listening to the report is no substitute for something EarlyStories has long advocated -- visiting pre-schools and early childhood centers to see what is -- or is not -- happening. The report may provide an excellent starting point for an overview of some of the key issues at a time when planned expansions may be stalled by the weak economy, and will likely provide some excellent questions to ask as well as some stories well worth pursuing.
EarlyStories has been keeping a close eye on coverage of the stimulus package these days. There's no shortage of news to follow; for example, Head Start and Early Head Start centers will soon get some of the $2.2 billion in promised funding to expand their services.
Yet in Alaska, one of just 11 states with no publicly funded pre-kindergarten, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin is poised to reject almost half of the federal stimulus money available. And this week, the once vice-presidential candidate got some unwanted attention about an early story of a different kind when Palin's teenage daughter's ex-boyfriend boasted that the governor likely knew the teenage couple -- who have a baby -- were sleeping together. The interview -- to be aired on Monday -- came during an appearance on the Tyra Banks Show, not usually a source for EarlyStories.
Just last month, Bristol Palin told Fox News the abstinence preached by her mother "is not realistic at all,'' and said she wished she had waited 10 years before having a child.
So why bring all this up, when the presidential election is long over? For this reason: Alaska's educators and advocacy community are pushing hard at the moment for the state to improve its early childhood offerings, and some were hoping that stimulus money might be used.
Alaska superintendents are lobbying legislators to reverse her decision to reject $172 million for Alaska's schools. Much of the money was designated for poor schools and children with special needs. Some educators had also hoped it would be used to expand pre-kindergarten offerings for low-income children in Anchorage, along with those with special needs.
Palin -- who called education "near and dear to my heart,'' while on the stump with Sen. John McCain - did not attend a summit meeting in Alaska last November on early childhood education, and her budget proposal this year called for only a state-funded pilot program to serve some 500 pre-kindergarten children, nothing more. Alaska has also fared poorly in the way it pays teachers.
Palin also exposed a bit of hypocrisy when did not hold back her criticism of President Barack Obama for his gaffe in "Tonight with Jay Leno,'. Palin, the mother of a special needs baby who once pledged to look out for special needs children, let it be know that was "shocked,'' by what she termed his "...degrading remark about our world's most precious and unique people.''
For the record, Obama compared his bowling score of 120 with being "like Special Olympics,'' and quickly apologized.
Both Democrats and Republicans have disagreed with her decision to turn down stimulus money in tough economic times, as have many Alaskans.
Some supporters have said they admire Palin's courage in turning down money they fear could expand government. It will be interesting to keep an eye on what happens to Alaska's education budget and to any of its limited pre-kindergarten programs as the stimulus story continues to unfold. Journalists should pay close attention, even as the more sensational story of Palin's unmarried daughter, ex-boyfriend and illegitimate grandchild grab the spotlight.
It's worth taking a look at what is happening to promises of pre-k expansion in states beset by economic woes, like hard-hit Michigan. Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has been a champion of education, may now be cutting a program that helped fund early literacy efforts and provided free books to poor families, the Muskegon News reports. The state has a budget gap that may be growing by $100 million a month.
Granholm has been a longtime advocate for early childhood education, proposing $31 million in her 2009 school aid bill to expand early education for children. With the state facing an unprecedented economic crisis, it's not clear what will survive.
The Great Parents/Great Start program brought nearly $90,000 to Muskegon County and is part of a project Grahom started to coordinate public and private efforts, the Muskegon News reports. But funding for the project comes at a time when auto industry woes and growing unemployement are creating a dire situation for the Midwestern state.
It is uncertain how much the federal stimulus package will ease cuts and smooth the way for long sought after education improvements.
The dichotomy between a governor's promises and expansion plans vs. economic reality is one all education journalists should be following, as governors everywhere are forced to roll back lots of earlier promises made during better times. Journalists should look up what these governors said at the time and closely scrutinize some of the programs, promises and priorities, which are now constantly shifting. Are they worth the investment? Would the money better be spent elsewhere?
EarlyStories knows this much about Brooklyn: Certain neighborhoods are known for "stroller gridlock,'' a term that sometimes carries derision from those who cannot cross a street or find a spot in a local restaurant without tripping over the toddler set and their gear. As more and more families in recent years have decided to raise their offspring in New York City, the baby population of Brooklyn has exploded. A somewhat alarming piece in the New York Daily News found that the under five set in the popular Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope has grown by 35 percent since 2000.
It follows that the well educated families who chose this leafy, artsy neighborhood bordering the lovely Prospect Park would naturally want to send
their children to pre-kindergarten, hopefully to one of the better known public schools nearby.
As the neighborhood and its schools continue to grow more popular, the Department of Education in New York City has struggled to find a way for supply to meet demand.
The result? Enormous anxiety and one pre-k where 263 little applicants vied for just 18 spots. Nearby schools had spots for fewer than one in six pre-kindergarten applicants.
There is no question of support for public pre-kindergarten in this neighborhood, where there is also a shortage of spots in private nursery schools. More than 400 families signed a petition requesting an early childhood center, aware that the problem extends to kindergarten, according to the Daily News. Schools in the area are at 93 percent capacity.
The Department of Education told the Daily News they hope to add full-day seats, but were waiting to base decisions "on the availability of space and the demand from parents who apply this year."
EarlyStories understands the need to find space, but clearly the Daily News story -- and the many parents who signed the petition -- document the demand.
EarlyStories has been urging reporters to think hard about dueling trends in pre-kindergarten education as long planned expansions run into hard fiscal realities. The National Institute for Early Education Research has explored the issue in depth. Their annual survey of state-funded programs, released in Washington D.C. on Tuesday is a must read for journalists, especially because it provides state-by-state snapshots. NIEER, based at Rutgers University In New Jersey, has produced an annual report on state preschool programs since 2002.
NIEER found ample evidence of the growth of pre-kindergarten programs, as follows:
• Enrollment increased by more than 108,000 children. More than 1.1 million children attended state-funded preschool education, 973,178 at age 4 alone.
• Thirty-three of the 38 states with state-funded programs increased enrollment.
• Eleven states improved the quality of their preschool programs, based on quality standards developed by NIEER. One fell back.
• State funding for pre-k rose to almost $4.6 billion. Funding for state pre-k from all reported sources exceeded $5.2 billion, an increase of nearly $1 billion (23 percent) over the previous year.
But the report also noted that the economy has taken a toll on expansion, as Sam Dillon of the New York Times noted. Nine states have announced cuts to state-run pre-kindergarten programs while legislatures continue to debate cutting others.
As the debate over the value of spending money on pre-k programs continues, Congress is raising federal funding for preschool while President Barack Obama continues to promise new investment in early childhood education. That means reporters will be monitoring state budget cuts, use of stimulus money to boost early childhood education and long-planned state expansions all at the same time. In this confusing and quickly changing landscape, the NIEER report is an especially helpful tool.
EarlyStories was hoping Florida journalists might pick up on this week's NIEER 2007 report card, which found that Florida's voluntary pre-k program is among the poorest quality in the U.S. The state earned high marks for access, as it is open to every 4-year-old, regardless of income. News about the program is hugely important in Florida's tough economy, where more and more parents are taking advantage of it; some 61 percent of the state's four-year-olds enrolled last year.
The Tampa Tribune noted in a piece this week that Florida educators are worried that the findings did change much over the course of a year. EarlyStories would now like to see journalists spend some time examining Florida's pre-k programs and explaining to the public how to tell the difference between a high and low quality program.
It's not enough to tell us that a program is of poor quality. What are the kids -- and teachers -- doing, or not doing? Are they being prepared for kindergarten? Are they learning letters, numbers and sounds or just playing on a playground? How is quality measured -- what do the standards look like -- and how can parents steer clear of poor programs? What -- if any -- efforts are under way to improve Florida's pre-k's?
The NIEER report should be a starting point for journalists. What are the stories that come next?
Margaret Ramirez of the Chicago Tribune did an admirable job of reporting on the many challenges Latino families face in gaining access to early childhood education.
Ramirez started her story in a place few education reporters have been venturing lately -- a Head Start program, a key place to be at a time when the federal stimulus package is earmarking billions of dollars to grow Head Start programs and as President Barack Obama has expressed concern about the achievement gap that leaves African American and Latino children behind.
The story described how Latino families with young children are less likely to enroll in early childhood education programs, facing barriers from language to transportation to a shortage of slots. And she noted that as a result, Latino children are often lagging in critical math and reading skills once they enter kindergarten.
Ramirez took a look at both the reasons for low attendance among Hispanics in pre-school programs along with the fractured landscape of early childhood education in both Illinois and the U.S. It's the kind of story worth doing in many communities that are home to fast-growing Latino populations. The number of Hispanic students in the nation's public schools nearly doubled from 1990 to 2006, accounting for 60% of the total growth in public school enrollments over that period, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, an excellent source for journalists. And those numbers are likely to continue climbing -- making it all the more important for journalists to find out if schools are ready for the influx.
President Barack Obama, who has been pushing a major investment in early childhood education, provides some more details in an interview with Fortune Magazine about why corporate leaders -- who have been something of a target in the sinking economy -- will advocate for investing in education.
"We cannot ignore the fact that our education system is not adequately preparing our workers for a 21st-century economy," Obama said in an interview with Fortune's Washington editor Nina Easton. "Our businesses cannot compete and win in the global economy without a more effectively trained workforce - especially in areas like math and science. That is why so many corporate leaders are advocating for more effective investments in education - from early-childhood education to cultivating more homegrown engineering talent."
Obama's remarks come at a time when businesses have been active in promoting preschool and early childhood education; some examples include Billionaire oilman George Kaiser, who has put up funds in Tulsa Oklahoma. while rallying other business leaders, to Robert H. Dugger, managing editor of Tudor Investment Corp. in Washington, D.C.
Obama has said early childhood initiatives will help reduce welfare, healthcare costs and crime rates, but how real and substantial will the business community's involvement in education be? It's a question that is well worth asking and following as the Obama administration is poised to push for the largest new federal initiative for young children since 1965. Will corporate leaders follow through -- how large will there investment be, and will they retain an interest in the quality of new programs and initiatives?
The downturn economy is taking a toll on grown-ups, with a confluence of stressful events: rising unemployment, a housing crisis, income cuts and an overall sense of fear that is permeating everyday life. But how are children faring? EarlyStories was reminded why journalists should be paying closer attention, after reading Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times this week.
Herbert didn't speak to any children for his column, nor did he focus on any particular family. He wrote rather broadly and stated some obvious facts that really could be the starting point for taking a closer look at the lives of children in just about any U.S. community: "Official statistics are not yet readily available, but there is little doubt that poverty and family homelessness are rising, that the quality of public education in many communities is deteriorating and that legions of children are losing access to health care as their parents join the vastly expanding ranks of the unemployed," Herbert wrote.
He went on to describe the efforts of a Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who also is a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York. Redlener is headed to Detroit this week with a medically equipped mobile operated by the Children’s Health Fund that will provide free health and dental care to children whose parents cannot afford to pay for care. Just imagine the stories he will hear along the way.
It's important for journalists to delve into the health and well being of children in these tough times, along with covering local school news and pre-k battles. What kinds of stories are teachers hearing? Have requests for free lunch doubled and even tripled? What are schools doing in particularly hard hit communities to help the many newly laid off families along with those that have struggled in poverty for years? And how are children faring? Are they displaying signs of stress, and are schools dealing with more discipline issues, more children coming to school hungry, angry and stressed? Are they looking for these signs and providing any kind of help or assistance?
Journalists who spend time speaking with and listening to children and their families right now will find some terribly sad -- but important-- stories, just waiting to be told. EarlyStories would like to hear them.
It did not take EarlyStories long to predict the reaction to an opinion piece in The Star Press of Indiana, which described how the economically depressed state -- one of 12 that doesn't offer publicly funded pre-kindergarten -- is lagging in student achievement.
"It's obvious public schools need help when less than half of East Central Indiana schools and only half of schools statewide made adequate yearly progress benchmarks," the story notes, adding that early education advocates believe that preschool education is the logical place to start.
Many of the comments posted at the end of the story appear to be written in response to a concept, not to the story itself -- the concept that parents, and not educators, should be responsible for their child's education. "When I was a kid, I did not attend kindergarten,'' said one poster, who described going onto get two master's degrees.
Then the tired old argument comes up again in the comments; parents who cannot afford to stay home with their kids and teach them what they need in early childhood; children learn better without forced socialization, and the rant: "Why do I have to pay for your babystitters with my taxes?''
EarlyStories sees the arguments come up again and again on the comments posted to stories -- usually in states that aren't funding pre-kindergarten. And we offer one suggestion -- more high quality journalism is needed that exposes the public to latest research about the benefits of early childhood education. We also strongly believe journalists should visit early childhood programs to illustrate what is happening in the classroom -- and how effective it is -- or perhaps is not, as not all programs work well.
Fair and balanced journalism with meticulous reporting can help chip away at pre-conceived notions about pre-k, along with the many strong and sometimes ill-informed opinions that creep onto the pages of newspapers. The opinions will still exist, but some may be tempered or shaped through education.
Stories about the insanity of finding the right nursery school spots in New York City have become more than legend; now they are the stuff of movies: Nursery University, a movie about the frenzied nursery school application process in Manhattan, is out in movie theaters this week.
But from the Christian Science Monitor comes yet another harrowing tale, one of Tokyo's nursery schoolers doing worksheets and attending special classes to win a seat in the best primary school.
According to the story, "many parents are ever more relentlessly seeking competitive advantages, especially as the economic downturn makes competition for jobs more intense."
The story quantifies the competition: "For the class entering Tokyo's Keio Gijuku Yochisha elementary school in 2008, for example, there were 2,468 applicants for 144 spots. In recent years, applicant numbers at Keio have steadily increased, up 10 percent over 2006."
And it includes a telling detail: what the mothers wear to the interviews are apparently as critical to getting in as a child's cognitive abilities:
"The school's counsel reaches beyond the merely academic," the story says. "In one corner of a classroom are enlarged photos of "winning" suits mothers wore to elementary school interviews and the names of the schools where their children were accepted. The mothers and children are clad in dark-colored garb, with what look like black Italian handbags and matching shoes. Fukuda says that many families custom order their suits so they won't look identical."
Of course, like many of the stories done about the insane competition for prestigious schools, this one mentions little about what the children actually learn or study once they get in. What's the quality of the education everyone is vying for? How are the teachers trained? What methods are used to get these little children to learn? If the right suit is worn and the kid gets in, what knowledge will they gain and how will that help them later on in life?
While New York City parents fume and fuss to find room for their toddlers in either publicly funded or private pre-kindergarten programs, suburban areas outside of the city are actually wondering where all the little ones have gone. A weekend piece in the New York Times found preschool administrators used to long waiting lists are now instead concerned about dips in enrollment.
“Normally, we have phones ringing off the hook from parents inquiring about the school,” Linda Jo Platt, the director of the Community Nursery School in suburban Westchester County told the New York Times. “This year, the phones have been dead.”
Quiet times for suburban pre-kindergarten program provide a stark contrast to the frenzy in New York City, where the population of children under the age of five is booming as more parents decide to raise city kids. Earlier this month, EarlyStories noted the struggle the New York City Department of Education is can't make the supply of quality public pre-school programs meet the demand. And the movie Nursery University depicts a city of scrambling parents, doing whatever it takes simply to get an application to a coveted private nursery school.
So what is happening in these leafy hamlets outside of Manhattan, and why will spots go unfilled? Parents reading The Times piece and waiting anxiously for a city spot might be tempted to pack up and move to an area where they could secure a spot with little more than a phone call and a checkbook. But, alas, it isn't so easy in this faltering economy, as the Times story noted. The slow real estate market is halting the usual piplline of parents with young children to the suburbs as many cannot sell their city apartments. And with more parents unemployed, parents are seeking scholarship money for full-day childcare programs in increasing numbers, The Times pointed out.
It will be interesting for journalists throughout the U.S. to examine this trend and see how enrollments outside major cities are doing, especially as some states are poised to offer more free slots as they expand public pre-kindergarten programs.
EarlyStories keeps a close watch on the way journalists cover -- or ignore -- early childhood issues. The majority of stories we see tend to focus on funding battles, so it comes as a nice surprise when we come across stories that take us into classrooms. It's especially critical at a time when federal stimulus dollars will funnel $100 billion into early childhood education, public schools and colleges -- the largest one-time amount earmarked for education in U.S. history.
Ryan Blackburn of the Athens Banner Herald in Georgia this week wrote the kind of story that allows the public to get a sense of what is happening inside a pre-kindergarten program and why it might be important. The story included an interview with the teacher describing exactly what students should know by this time of year -- for example, they should be able to recognize small from large and be able to name the things they see in at least 30 pictures.
The small, but nonetheless important detail gives the public a sense of what students should be learning in pre-k, and it describes how the teacher is tracking the progress of each student to decide if they need extra help in a summer program before they start kindergarten.
"In kindergarten, there's less self-directed play, called center time, than pre-K students are accustomed to,'' Carolyn Wolpert, an Early Reading First coordinator, told Blackburn. "There's also more math and science concepts they must learn, so the more chances they get to prepare for the first day of class in the fall the better off they'll be.''
So now the reader can understand what children need to be ready for kindergarten. For another illustration of how critical the early years are, check out Maria Glod's Washington Post story about student performance on on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, showing that nine-year-olds posted the highest scores ever in reading and math in 2008.
But as Sara Mead over at Early Education Watch notes,"the real test is whether the today's 9-year-olds will sustain their pre-k and elementary school learning gains into middle and high school. It's too early to say with any confidence that they will (our middle and high schools do need to improve their performance) but it's also much to early to assume they won't. Educators and policymakers must work to continue to build on the improvements we have made in the preK-3rd years, by expanding access to quality pre-k, full-day kindergarten, and implementing aligned, high-quality curriculum and instructional programs across the preK-3rd continuum..."
That gives journalists a charge: visit these classrooms and find out what the teachers are trying to accomplish. Follow up, and see how the children who attended the programs do when they get to kindergarten, and ask teachers if they have noticed a difference. Ask for studies, and try to find out if school districts are tracking progress -- and if so how. All this will go a long way toward helping the public understand what happens during these critical early years.
Education journalist Emily Alpert of the Voice of San Diego expertly questioned the elements of a new and changing landscape for early childhood funding in a story this week, aimed at helping the public wade through some confusing new developments. It's a story that differs from state to state, but is well worth pursuing.
Alpert wondered how and why early childhood centers are being forced to make major spending cutbacks in a worsening economy, just as they are receiving a new influx of federal stimulus money. As the Obama administration prepares to make a major investment in early childhood education, early childhood providers are experiencing an unprecedented push and pull.
As a result, Alpert wrote, many centers are "in the paradoxical position of juggling expected cuts with investments in better programs and training, benefiting some families and not others. The fates of different preschools and their different programs will vary dramatically depending on where they get their money, and whether they can find ways to tap the stimulus."
In California, pre-school funding is complicated ; other states are in the process of trying to expand their offerings while facing resistance from politicians and taxpayers and deep budget gaps. It can be confusing for journalists and the public to explain cutbacks that are happening just as new money comes in to boost Head Start and other early childhood programs; see Early Ed Watch for a good explanation.
States vary widely when it comes to offering pre-k programs and spending, and the landscape is shifting quickly in the worsening economy. The National Institute for Early Education Research offers excellent profiles of each state, but there's no substitute for visiting centers and speaking to directors the way Alpert did.
From Alpert's story:
"Scott Moore, senior policy adviser for the nonprofit advocacy group Preschool California, summed up the feeling among preschool providers in a word. "Schizophrenic," he said.
Moore told Alpert, in a quote that truly summarizes the conflict and confusion over funding: "It is the strangest time. On the one hand, it is so thrilling to have a president who is passionate about early childhood education. On the other hand you have our state budget crisis, which is real and must be faced. People are scared. It is very difficult to predict how things will end up."
The public should be kept informed of these dueling trends, and that means journalists must keep asking.
Moving to a neighborhood with a fine and reputable public school in New York City can be enormously complicated. Not just because of the cost, although it's difficult to find a decent family sized apartment in Manhattan near a good public school for under $4,000 a month in rent. The real difficulty has become getting in -- and no, we aren't talking about the same old tired competition for the $30,000 plus kindergarten.
We are talking about public schools in neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, TriBeCa and the Upper East Side that have become so popular and coveted that even people who specifically rented or purchased apartments directly across the street from them are finding themselves on waiting lists. Many of these schools are bursting with more than 28 children in a class and some of the buildings house middle school students several floors above.
EarlyStories has been watching and commenting on this trend for months, and the New York Times is really picking up on it now that parents anxiety has morphed into full blown fury. According to the Times, not the first news outlet to report the story, "middle-class vitriol against the school system — and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — is mounting."
All of this comes at a bad time for Bloomberg, who wants state lawmakers to renew mayoral control of the city school system after it expires in two months. In addition, the mayor is seeking an unprecedented third term, staking some of it on his education record and what he says is a turnaround of the largest school system in the U.S.
For more than five years, journalists in New York City have noted the trend of a growing middle class seeking to raise their children in the city instead of fleeing to suburbia. With competition and cost putting private school out of reach for many, it's natural that parents would turn to public schools and seek out those with the best reputations -- which are often in desirable neighborhoods, or have the effect of making a neighborhood desirable.
In the next few weeks, rallies, letter writing campaigns and protests will heat up in New York City and the mayor and Department of Education will be pressured to find spots for these families.
There is likely one group applauding this trend -- suburban realtors with lots of inventory on hand in areas outside Manhattan with fine public schools.
Journalists covering early childhood education may want to check out a national report to be released from Pre-K Now that will be available on Tuesday, May 5th.
The annual report will address how governors from a range of states are planning to fund pre-kindergarten programs. The report will also help journalists see instantly which governors are not pushing to fund voluntary pre-kindergarten programs, and to take a look at how much those who are planning to fund such programs have earmarked.
"Leadership Matters: Governors’ Pre-K Budget Proposals FY10,” is a good tool for helping journalists track how states compare and examine national and state spending trends. It will be available starting at 10 a.m. at www.preknow.org.
EarlyStories urges journalists to see the report as a starting point. There is no substitute for visiting pre-k and other early childhood education programs to help understand and explain to the public what is happening.
As parents in New York City prepare to protest overcrowded schools on the steps of City Hall today, many are grappling with an unpleasant new reality: coveted spots in next year's public pre-kindergarten classes may disappear to make room for more kindergartners, according to the New York Times and Insideschools.org.
Scores of parents are on waiting lists to get into their locally zoned kindergartens, "a product of a kindergarten admissions procedure held earlier in the year, and according to parents and politicians, they also result from an increase in children in neighborhoods flush with new condominiums at a time when the construction of new schools has not kept pace,'' according to the New York Times story.
There is plenty of anger and blame to go around, but EarlyStories can't help but examine the origins of this mess by looking at New York State's committment to pre-kindergarten education. A great way to do that is via the "Leadership Matters,'' report available now on the Pre-K Now website. The report notes that New York Governor David Paterson has decreased the amount of money proposed for universial pre-kindergarten by $49.6 million, and has pushed back a plan to phase in pre-k for all children by 2011 to 2014.
The study found 27 governors had either increased or maintained funding for pre-k, while five -- including Paterson -- proposed cuts; criticism for his position can be found here.
In the meantime, New York City parents are furious at having to choose between fitting pre-kindergarten or kindergarten programs in their neighborhood schools; according to the New York Post, , it's "The Wait of the World,'' to find out if there will be room for their children.
EarlyStories often sees articles proclaiming that pre-kindergarten is the new kindergarten, first grade the new kindergarten. What those catchy but somewhat cliched phrases mean is that early childhood programs are becoming too focused on academics at the expense of play, a key way young children learn. Of course, both are important and necessary -- but the quality of both is equally important.
Taking a look at what experts have to say on these issues is one way to make such stories a little more informative and useful. The Harvard Education letter synethesizes some interesting recent reports by some of the top early childhood experts in its May/June Issue, in a piece entitled "Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing."
On the issue of play, for example, the article points out that skilled adults must be in charge of guiding play for children so that it becomes a learning experience. "It’s a misinterpretation to think that letting students loose for extended periods of time is going to automatically yield learning gains,” Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School at the University of Virginia, is quoted as saying.
There are a number of other useful resources cited, including a report from the Alliance for Childhood describing how kindergartens are spending 2 to 3 hours a day instructing and testing children in literacy and math, with 30 minutes or less for play.
The report is featured prominently in "Kindergarten Cram,'' a piece by Peggy Orenstein in The New York Times Magazine who took the issue further lby visiting kindergartens to ask about homework policies. She was assured (wrong answer in her mind) that five and six-year-olds were assigned it everyday.
EarlyStories would love to see journalism that highlights examples of kindergarten programs that successfully combine ways to play and learn, along with the stories showing that kindergarten has become all work and no play. Surely it is possible -- and desirable -- for early childhood learning to provide the best of both worlds?
It read almost like a throw-away item, just a small story in the Kalamazoo Gazette that described how some visiting educators would get a chance to learn about the local pre-school curriculum in Western Michigan.
But any journalist who wanted to take a deeper look and truly help the public understand what happens in a preschool classroom could use the visits to probe much deeper.The story notes that area preschools and Head Start centers are "phasing in a common curriculum as well as shared training and support programs for teachers."
What does the curriculum look like and how does it instruct teachers to help little minds acquire skills?
The story points out that the curriculum "is designed to develop language and early literacy skills,'' and that it includes "reading, writing and storytelling."
So what does the curriculum look like and how does it instruct teachers to help little minds acquire skills?
Why is this important? At a time when states are strapped for cash and public money for pre-school education must win legislature approval in many cases, the public has to understand and appreciate why pre-school is helpful (or not). For pre-school to be effective, it helps to have a sense of a purposeful curriculum aimed at boosting literacy and getting students ready to achieve in kindergarten and beyond.
Pre-school is sometimes seen as nothing more than organized -- or even unorganized -- play, and it can be resented by taxpayers who no longer have children in education systems. That means journalists must play a part in the debate by getting inside classrooms and programs to explain what is happening -- or, in many cases, to describe missed opportunities.
So it's not enough just to note that educators see the new curriculum as "a real paradigm shift in how we operate," according to Esther Newlin-Haus, project director for Western Michigan University's Early Reading First early-childhood program. Newlin-Haus tells the Kalamazoo Gazette that that the old model of teaching was not working well "to help close the gap in achievement. We need more systematic instruction with vocabulary development, letters and letter sounds in early ages. What we're finding is that if they're systematically taught, they get it."
EarlyStories would now like to see a story that describes what systematic instruction looks like for the three and four-year-old set -- along with follow up research on how it might be working and what happens to graduates when they move on. A new curriculum is just a starting point.
Patrick Riccards at Eduflak, who aims to improve education "through effective communications,'' makes some helpful points that journalists covering the push and pull of pre-kindergarten expansion in a tight economy might consider -- including the very real prospect of cuts to existing programs. "We all know,'' Riccards wrote, "that once cuts come, it gets harder and harder to restore them.''
Journalists likely will be reporting on the cuts, but Riccards raises some important questions to ask in states that are pushing to expand existing programs and initiate new ones, in some cases with the help of federal stimulus money.
"How do we deliver return on investment on early childhood education? How do we make sure we have moved beyond glorified babysitting and are really focusing on instruction and academic and social preparation? How do we ensure that quality preK is measured and assessed for having true quality?" Riccards asks.
A forum held by Early Ed Watch blogger Sara Mead at the New America Foundation last week also attempted to draw conclusions from data available on early learning: it's available on their site.
Universal Pre-K for all? Not so fast, says Chester E Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
At a time when politicians from President Barack Obama to governments are pushing the concept that all American children should receive at least a year of government funded pre-school and being applauded for their position, Finn is urging skepticism in a new book, entitled: "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut."
"For all its surface appeal, universal preschool is an unwise use of tax dollars,'' Finn writes this week in the Washington Post. "In a time of ballooning deficits, expansion of preschool programs would use large sums on behalf of families that don't need this subsidy while not providing nearly enough help to the smaller number of children who need it most. It fails to overhaul expensive but woefully ineffectual efforts such as Head Start.''
Finn's views are likely to be challenged and questioned in the coming weeks -- as they almost always are. Yet it's important for journalists covering pre-kindergarten to be aware of arguments against universal pre-kindergarten when reporting on both the new federal and state push for early childhood education expansion. The story of pre-k should not be told entirely from the viewpoint of advocates and politicians.
As EarlyStories often points out, there is no substitute for visiting existing programs and looking for research on their impact. If none is available, journalists can ask kindergarten and educators in early grades what they've noticed about students who have been enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs vs. those who have not. Also, what are the costs associated with universal pre-k and who is monitoring the quality? Who benefits the most? And given the financial bind many states are in, what will other education programs have to be sacrificed to expand pre-K?
More than half a million children school-aged and younger are suddenly stranded at home due to swine flu concerns, leaving parents who in many cases are already experiencing financial hardship scrambling. On very quick notice, they must find alternative child care settings or leave children home alone because they can't miss work. As the New York Daily News pointed out, parents who work in hourly-wage jobs or who are off the books are hurt the most because they can't easily take time off.
The sudden and mysterious spread of the virus is exposing the lack of back-up care and safety nets for families throughout the U.S. With schools closed amid fear of spreading disease, alternative child care settings aren't easily arranged. In Texas, children were fighting cabin fever earlier this month while their schools were being disinfected.
Some 14,000 New York City children are home this week and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked companies to show some flexibility and allow parents to take time off if they can; he's said that decisions to close schools must be weighed with inconvenience to families.
Texas families have been scrambling as well, with many schools closed for two weeks. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged teachers and parents to continue learning at home, via a series of government websites described here.
The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies compiled resources for families, but the emergency situation many find themselves in now won't be solved by a web site. It's not entirely clear that closing schools will stop the spread of flu, but one thing is clear: once schools are shut down, working parents have to find instant child care solutions for as long as the doors remain shut.
What kind of a difference can high-quality pre-school make in the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged children? This is no small question. EarlyStories poses the concept as a reminder of what journalists must keep in mind at a time when President Barack Obama is pushing an expansion as part of his broader education agenda.
Educator and author Gordon MacInnes lays out lessons on the difference a federal role can make by examining what happened in high-poverty New Jersey school districts that have shown significant improvement by focusing on early literacy. His piece in Education Week describes how borrowing the practices of an intensive early literacy program in pre-school has led to improvements that can be seen all the way through eighth grade.
MacInnes, who devoted four decades to government service and leadership on issues related to education, poverty, and urban living is also realistic about the obstacles of establishing successful pre-school programs. Those obstacles and the political and financial fights are often the focus of media coverage.
"Expanding high-quality preschool opportunities is a much more complicated endeavor than it may at first appear," MacInnes writes. "Two major obstacles are usually overlooked: The leadership in many urban districts does not accept the connection between a quality preschool opportunity and stronger literacy; and early-childhood education is still a stepchild in most universities, state education departments, and district headquarters."
MacInnes' remarks open the door for many questions to be asked of school superintendents, even though journalists who cover K-12 school systems don't tend to focus on pre-school, unless there is a battle involved. Why nost ask superintendents exactly how they view the importance of pre-school and what connection they see to achievement later on? In districts with established programs, is anyone studying how students do later on or tracking the difference in achievement between those who have been in pre-school vs. those who have not?
Finally, if program claims that it has successfully improved early literacy, what is the evidence beyond test scores? What do successful early literacy programs look like in action? What is the curriculum, what books are used and how are the teachers being trained? What are the expectations for the children?
New Jersey journalists are likely to have taken on many of these questions while covering Abbott v. Burke, the nation’s most prescriptive and sweeping state supreme court ruling on school finance. MacInnes served from 2002 to April 2007 as assistant commissioner for Abbott Implementation for the New Jersey Department of Education, so he's clearly familiar with what went wrong and right in the quest to improve academic achievement in the state’s poorest cities.His piece this week poses larger questions that are relevant to coverage of this issue nationally, especially as it becomes a priority in the Obama administration.
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.
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.
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."