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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sue Shellenbarger, who writes the Work & Family column for the Wall Street Journal reports on new Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing more women staying home to be with their young children. She reports that about-to-be-released data shows that women from all income groups are tending to stay out of the workforce, usually for one to three years. The column notes the case of a mother and father who are teachers in Overland Park, Kansas, and who say that their knowledge about how babies' brains grow was a major factor in the mothers' decision to stop working after their twins, now 2½, and their third child, now 15 months old, were born. At home, Ms. Gunderson says, "I try to make sure everything we do together involves some kind of learning."

A very thoughtful comment on my entry on the Times' magazine piece critiqued it for not giving enough ink to what happens to children from birth on. The writer urged me to read a summary of the 1994 "Starting Points" report from the Carnegie Corp. I did and doing so got my reporterly juices flowing. The report noted that, relative to other developed countries, the U.S. was doing a poor job of providing prenatal care and high quality child care, and was seeing a rise in the number of children living in poverty. The report also said children were growing up with little attention from parents and in single-parent homes, due to divorce and a rise in births to unmarried mothers. The commenter suggested that journalists should be asking: "What Early Intervention Programs have been put into place as a result of
that report? Where are they? What follow-up studies have been done? How has
the Federal Government responded to the report? Is the US still lagging far
behind other industrialized nations in addressing this issue? This is the
true SHAME of our society. Those who analyze test scores never get the
point. The cycle of poverty puts generations at risk before they even enter
this world."

Just in November the government reported that 38% of births are to unwed mothers, an all-time record and twice the percentage it was in the 1980s.

The San Antonio Express-News has a very well-written, thoroughly reported package of stories and graphics on the increasingly academic nature of kindergarten. But, unlike a lot of coverage of this issue, the Express-News' piece delves into both the academic challenges disadvantaged kids face as well as the dilemmas that confront educators who are striving to help them catch up and thrive.

For other journalists interested in exploring this subject, this story offers both a good model and several researchers to turn to: they include Sam Meisels and Frances Stott of the Erikson Institute, Jack Fletcher of the University of Houston, and Dominic Gullo of Queens College, here in New York City. Part of the package is a graphic showing the rate at which various Texas school districts hold back kindergartners. Other journalists could track down this data in the communities they cover and explore the reasons for any disparities they turn up.

The three-part series in the San Antonio Express-News on the transformation of kindergarten is now available here. I like a lot about the series. All of its pieces were meticulously reported and instructive, in the sense that they gave readers insights into the dilemmas and decisions of educators in trying to figure out what's best for kids. It was not sensational in any way but it was interesting and filled with real examples. Different viewpoints were offered but it didn't feel like the "he said-she said" stuff that I often see. I also liked that the reporters talked to a lot of kindergarten teachers who seemed like they were given the freedom to express their professional opinion.

Word to principals and supes who try to "gag" teachers and administrators to prevent them from talking to reporters (OK, that phrasing is probably oh so five years ago, but forgive me, I only hang out on a college campus....) You don't get this kind of coverage that explores the issues you deal with all the time, and that helps parents and policy makers understand those issues, unless you provide access to your classrooms and trust your teachers....

The chorus of governors touting a full day of kindergarten--devoted to learning and not just that silly playing around stuff--continues to grow. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is offering $25 million for districts' startup costs. But Hoosier educators say creating the space for full day kindergarten could cost $200 million statewide. The Indianapolis Star made a good contribution to the public's understanding of the investment required by surveying the facilities needs of the districts in their area, and reporting on how many kids attend fullday kindergarten now. The team of reporters assigned to the story also got into the educational issues. One angle I haven't seen reported elsewhere:

"IPS teachers fight off assumptions that full-day kindergarten amounts to baby-sitting on the state's dime. Kindergartners at School 60 on the Near Northside study continents and oceans on world maps, count money and learn the days of the week....Kindergarten isn't like what it used to be, when they would go to play, socialize, take a nap," Whicker said. "That's history. We have structured curricular time."

I was traveling last week so didn't catch up with the terrific Wall Street Journal (as in funny, terrifying, depressing) story about what they called "BlackBerry Orphans," kids who are neglected as their parents compulsively check email on the devices. The story tells the story of kids trying to put limits on their parents' usage, which extends to the dinner table, while driving, during school plays, and so on.

A few parents say "BlackBerry" is in their toddlers' early vocabulary. Lucas Ellin, a Los Angeles 5-year-old, pretends he has his own, parading around the house with a small toy in his hand while shriking, "Look, Mommy, it's my BlackBerry."

Another story I'd like to see has to do with cell phone usage. When I'm out running in Manhattan or elsewhere I see parents pushing strollers or walking hand-in-hand with their child while talking on their cell phone. The time parents spend with their kids talking to them and answering their questions and discussing all that they are seeing is infinitely valuable for their development and learning. So, when these parents are out with their kids but have their minds elsewhere, they're not really doing much good. Better to let the nanny take the kids and talk to them than you, Mom or Dad, go somewhere with the kids but spend the whole time talking on the cellphone.

The term "readiness" for kindergarten is one that makes me sort of itchy and uncomfortable. I started feeling that way when I read this otherwise innocuous column in a little paper out in Oregon. The column reports that one in five Oregon five-year-olds are "not ready" for kindergarten and that the state ranks 40 out of 50 in terms of the percentage of four-year-olds enrolled in pre-kindergarten. Remember that all kids are ready for learning--their brains (like ours) are hardwired that way. Meanwhile, kindergarten is getting more academic and putting more emphasis on learning. But it doesn't necessarily follow, though, that those coming into kindergarten who are not reading and doing math aren't "ready" for kindergarten. Kindergarten is not like college. Five-year-olds shouldn't have to qualify to get into it and be held back until they're "ready." This stuff worries me because I've seen some charts from researchers that seem to argue that 80% or more of kids aren't "ready" for kindergarten. The standard such data seems to use is that some kids--those who have all the advantages, who have had $15,000 per year pre-school experiences, who have had violin lessons from the age of 3 on--are more advanced at age 5 than others. Therefore, anyone not at the top, top, top of the chart in terms of development is said to be "not ready" for kindergarten. I don't buy it.

The substantive point of my rant is that a great story for journalists would be to talk to kindergarten teachers about what it is that they think makes kids "kindergarten ready." What they're likely to find, and I'm speculating here, is that those who teach kindergarten are thrilled if kids come in being able to sit still in a group, to share, to play with others, to listen, In other words, the social, non-cognitive skills. If the kids know their colors, letters and can hold a pencil that's nice too. Being able to do differential equations and quote Shakespeare? Nice. But not required.

The Washington Post had a frontpager Sunday about the rapid spread of the elementary school version of the International Baccalaureate program. I really like how the story takes the reader inside this program and these classrooms and gives one a very clear sense of the instruction and expectations.

Here's an excerpt:

The program seeks to mold students, from preschool age on, into "transdisciplinary" and bilingual scholars who can deliver a major academic project by fifth grade and then move into deeper studies in secondary schools and beyond. (IB middle schools also exist.) Critics wonder whether it's all a bit much for a student demographic that still receives scratch-and-sniff stickers on written work.

The story quotes a mother, speaking about her husband's motivation for enrolling the kids in IB: "He was like, 'Our kids are going to an Ivy League school, and we need an education that's going to get them on the right track.' "

By the way, I'm collecting statements and references to how preschool will get kids on track for 1. The Ivy League. 2. Science Careers 3. To Become Doctors. Please send in your nominations!

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post starts 2007 in a position he's often in, which is way ahead of the competition. Mathews' notes that on the 100th anniversary of Italian physician Maria Montessori opening her first pre-kindergarten, the philosophy is picking up momentum in the U.S. There are about 5,000 Montessori schools nationwide, about 300 of them public. Mathews says Montessori and John Dewey, the Teachers College colossus, were the two most influential 20th-century promoters of a "progressive," child-centered approach to learning. He says Montessori had a much bigger impact because she started schools.

I take issue with a couple points Mathews' makes. He says that the "unstructured" nature of Montessori classrooms is at odds with the "structured" classrooms common today. And he quotes a scholar who says that Montessori believed that kids learned best when they were active and having fun. The implication, then, is that "structured" classrooms, in other words, classrooms where the teacher plays an important role, cannot be fun nor active. I think journalists should keep in mind that the best teachers, especially in pre-kindergarten, have classrooms that are highly structured and intentional. But structure doesn't have to mean regimentation or boredom. Good teachers use structure--of time use, regular one-on-one interactions and lots of conversation--to support and encourage active learning. John Dewey also believed in active learning. But he said that activity for the sake of activity is worthless. Activities, he said, had to be "educative" to be of value. And that implies activities that are carefully planned and, yes, structured.

"The Pursuit of Happyness," the well-reviewed and successful movie starring Will Smith, is worth seeing. Education is a big theme. Chris Gardner is a smart guy who ends up homeless with his young son while he's trying to become a stock broker. He studies day and night to pass a broker's test. Gardner passed, got the job and went on to start his own bond trading firm and become fabulously successful.

In the movie, Gardner takes his son everyday to what he thinks is a good pre-school. He finds out his son spends most of his time watching television. When he confronts the proprietor, she says he can't expect to get anything more for the amount he's paying. Lots of working folks find themselves confronted by the same agonizing dilemma, knowing that this precious time is being wasted but being unable to afford something better.

The other plot point involving a current education issue has to do with that test. Many folks in the anti-testing crowd argue that a) tests can't measure all that a child knows, b) tests are inherently biased, c) some people aren't good test-takers and so on. In the hard, cruel, pragmatic world of work, however, sometimes a test is a hurdle you have to get over to get a job or promotion (think police officers, fire fighters, CPAs, attorneys, doctors, etc.). Learning to study and to do well on tests is not such a bad skill to learn in school.

Good piece in USA Today on Wednesday about parents who want their kids to start learning many languages when they're as young as two years old. Language, we all know, develops early. And it turns out that kids can learn several languages simultaneously and manage to keep them separate and to speak each of them without an accent. Story tells about a child who is four who is fluent in Japanese and Spanish as well as English. I must say I was just a bit dubious about that claim because the girl is the daughter of the proprietor of school where the child learned those languages. The school starts kids as young as six months in a program called Baby Boot Camp, which combines foreign language with strength training, balance and coordination exercises.

You've heard adults go on and on about how kids today don't know how to just go out and "play." Play dates, TV and video games have seemingly replaced just playing in the dirt, digging up the yard, making mud pies? OK, so city kids don't have yards where they can do this. But kids in Manhattan will soon get the chance. Story on the front page of the NY Times Wednesday described plans to create a new type of playground where kids can dig in the sand, move it around, play with water and here's the bonus...the playground will have adult play consultants to help the kids learn this strange new concept of open-ended play, driven by imagination.

Here's the key quote: “Very little time is spent by kids in playgrounds if they have a choice,” said Roger Hart, who...is the director of the Children’s Environments Research Group at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “They limit the repertoire of play to children’s physical activity,” instead of encouraging the kind of social, sensory, interactive and individual fantasy play that children need, Mr. Hart said.

What's going on the playgrounds at school or in the park? Is play part of the curriculum in elementary school? Or, are those scare stories about recess being cancelled for first graders in favor of "drills" really true?

My friend Joanne Jacobs was kind enough to take note on her blog of yesterday's rant on the column in the NY Times heralding a teacher who brought to her classroom her pet dog as an audience for a reluctant reader. Joanne added something I should have said. By the end of 3rd grade, the boy the teacher was trying to help had progressed to reading picture books on his own. So, as Joanne notes, he's now where he should have been in the fall of first grade.

Apropos of the NYTs frontpager on playgrounds and play, came across a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics saying that the rush-rush, overscheduled, academically stressful lives of children are preventing them from playing. The report says play isn't really playtime. In fact, "free and unstructured play is healthy and essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones as well as helping them manage stress and become resilient." Reminds me of a phrase I heard once: "The work of children is play." In other words, there's lots of learning going on on the playground, in the activity areas of pre-k's, on the floor with Mom and Dad with building blocks.

The new report could be a hook for journalists to go into some pre-k's and kindergartens and see what kids are doing and asking teachers how they deal with playtime. Some might talk about the pressure to make their schools more academic. That would likely to be the case in Mobile, Alabama. Such a story could use the new report as a hook. The report is called "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds" and can be found here.

Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty has a terrific overview of the early childhood policies that research has found to be most effective in narrowing the achievement gap between poor children and their more affluent peers. One crucial element, the center's report says, is what it calls an "intentional curriculum."

The report defines this as a curriculum that is:

content driven, research-based, emphasizes active engagement with children, includes attention to social and regulatory skills, and is responsive to cultural diversity and children just learning English. An intentional curriculum is directive without using drill and kill strategies; it is fun for young children and promotes positive peer and teacher interactions. An intentional curriculum is developmentally appropriate.

Whole report gives a very concise helpful overview of the research on this crucial question. Good one-stop shopping for the press.

New research into the lives of children seems to debunk the widely held idea that parents are harming their children by pressuring them to participate in too many activities. A trio of researchers from Yale, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas found that, in fact, children benefit academically, socially, and developmentally from participating in activities. Joseph L. Mahoney of Yale says we should worry less about the 60 percent of children who participate in activities and more time worrying about the 40 percent of children who do not.
Study can be found here.

Seems to me, this would make a good weekend, Lifestyle section story that goes against the grain of common wisdom. Those highly pressured, stressed out kids who just want to kick back? Actually, they like being busy. (Someday we might see a study that finds that learning doesn't stress young children out either!)

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe wants to spend $40 million more on state pre-school programs and he's looking to a study from the National Institute for Early Education Research to bolster his case. NIEER, which judges the Arkansas Better Chance pre-school program to be a good one, concluded that the program had helped the poor children it serves to make significant gains in vocabulary, math, and what's called "print awareness." In the past, the Arkansas program was funded largely with a 3 cent tax on beer. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee had said that tax had to continue to keep the program going or expand it. Beebe hasn't yet said whether he'll continue to tap the wallets of beer drinkers to give more kids a good start on their educations. By the way, the Committee for Economic Development has a helpful overview of how programs are financed here.

The Record of Bergen County in New Jersey, my home newspaper, has made an extraordinary commitment to education coverage over the past several months. Education stories appear in the paper EVERY DAY, almost always on the front page on Sundays. Today's story is the best takeout I've yet seen on full-day kindergarten. It gives the local picture, the national context, a look at what goes on inside classrooms that's different, and even some research perspective. I know the reporters on the education beat and their editor, Susan DeSantis, are working very hard and feeling exhausted, but their hard work is paying off. The Hechinger Institute has invited Susan to talk about their big education push at a seminar for education editors in San Diego in early March.

This past Sunday the Record had a frontpager on full-day kindergarten. Today the editorial page followed up, arguing the state should make full-day kindergarten universally available. Right now, districts can offer it but the state does not cover the cost.

Education officials in Trenton need to make universal, full-day kindergarten a priority. Kindergarten used to serve as the transition year between home and school. Children would attend for about three hours a day. They would learn to play in groups. They would memorize the alphabet and practice pre-reading skills. These days, that happens in preschool.

Down in Tennessee, on a blog called TennesseeTicket, there is this nice description of children and learning and the role of society:

Children at this young age do not see learning as a “required” activity. They just do it. All one needs to do is provide access to the materials and information, and they set about having fun soaking up the knowledge. It is for this reason that pre-K learning should be seriously considered as a common goal. Yes, there is a strong argument that the primary responsibility of a child’s education lies with the child’s parent(s), but that stance could be (and is) used to argue against public education in general. If we accept that the society, through its state, has an interest in a well-educated populace, then our provisions wisely include measures to address this motherlode of time-sensitive learning capacity.

Bridget Gutierrez, who is writing the Get Schooled blog on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, noted that although kindergarten is offered in public school systems all around Atlanta and the state provides free pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds, a third of children get to first grade without having attended either one. Gutierrez was commenting on legislative proposal to lower age of mandatory education to five.

The Get Schooled blog gets lots and lots of traffic. This entry had 64 comments. Many along the lines of "the government is taking away our children" or "destroying families" and lots of use of the word "indoctrination." Somehow I suspect that those who worry about such things are not exactly spending a lot of time talking to their kids, nurturing them, playing with them.

Edward F. Zigler has been a leading national authority on child development and early learning for more than four decades. He was part of a small group of advisers who created Head Start and then became its first director. Today, as growing numbers of policymakers embrace pre-kindergarten as an important source of education opportunity, Zigler, an active scholar and prolific author at 77, continues to play a central role in shaping the nation's thinking on early learning. When I spoke to him recently for a Q&A that is posted on the Web site of Education Sector he decried the poor quality of much of the child care in this country, gave a strong endorsement for Head Start, argued that pre-kindergarten ought to be universal, offered in regular public schools, and start at age 3.

Showing that he's stilling willing to court controversy, he said that, "The catastrophe for kids, the catastrophe for families, is the big split between child care and education. Education is looked as the state's responsibility. Child care is thought of as a family's responsibility. But we wind up with the kids in our schools. We don't know how to change. The Right Wing will fight anything that makes the lives of mothers and children better."

You can read the entire interview here Download file

I’ve been holding off on commenting on last week’s NY Times’ frontpager that conflated controversies over the implementation of the federal Reading First law with attempts to stoke the flames of the mostly settled “reading wars.” But I’ve kept my powder dry long enough. Alexander Russo, who blogs at “This Week in Education” on the Education Week site, is thrilled that the story made it into the Times because he sees it as vindication that this is the “BIG STORY” he thought it was all along. Russo, who though he lives here in New York sees himself as an inside-the-beltway mover and shaker, got all het up about what he considered to be a big, hot, dripping scandal involving politicians and bureaucrats in a whirlwind of audits, investigations, hearings, and conflicts of interest. That is a story. It’s just not an education story. Whatever the outcome of all of that activity, the central issue is not what’s the science and pedagogy of early reading. The central issue is actually federalism and education and the limits of policy issued from Washington D.C. That’s a topic for a wonkapalooza at a fancy Washington, D.C. hotel or the American Enterprise Institute. And Mike Petrilli over at the Fordham Foundation entered into that discussion just yesterday with this post. But it’s not really something that most parents of children learning to read care too much about.

The New York Times story was set in Madison, Wisconsin, which has long been known in education circles as a redoubt for the true believers in whole language. Whole language emphasizes to students the value of context and intuition in learning to read. So, the story opens with a kid who encounters the word “pea” and reads it as "pumpkin."

By the way, Sharon L. Ramey, the Georgetown University professor who was one of the authors of the child care study, and her husband, Craig T. Ramey, have produced a wealth of research on early childcare education that journalists should consult. Here's one article that is a great, readable summary of a lot of research.

Here is a list of what the Rameys call: Essential Experiences in Early Learning Years:

What are the crucial experiences needed in the early years of life? Does early caretaking or experience really affect brain development? Are these effects important or lasting? In recent scientific articles and books for parents, we have summarized a vast body of scientific evidence in terms of seven types of experiences that are essential to ensure normal brain and behavioral development and school readiness:

1. Encourage exploration.
2. Mentor in basic skills.
3. Celebrate developmental advances.
4. Rehearse and extend new skills.
5. Protect from inappropriate disapproval, teasing, and punishment.
6. Communicate richly and responsively.
7. Guide and limit behavior.

Oh, it's so painful for me to realize, now that I'm middle-aged, how much I missed as a child. Just think how much I could have accomplished, how much happier I'd be, had I been as lucky as 3-year-old Elliott Baines of Guttenberg, N.J. Alexander Russo linked the other day to a story in the Wall Street Journal that reported on the adventurous travel vacations families are taking their young children on to give them enriching experiences. Little Elliott, for example, "has already cleared customs in Israel, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, France and Canada. His parents...say they believe the experiences are shaping Elliot's personality even at this early age. For instance, when Elliot and a group of children were pretending to fly in their gymnastics class, other youngsters said they were going to Florida, while Elliot said he was en route to Paris." All my family ever did was drive one time from Ohio to the East Coast to visit family friends, and we weren't even allowed to stop at the Mystery Spot along the way.

But, seriously, articles such as these are what I like to call "rich porn" and are a staple of the Journal, the Times, Vanity Fair, and other publications aimed at the elite. Those of us who spent our childhood catching tadpoles and playing baseball with kids in the neighborhood instead of flying off to Thailand to ride bikes through the jungle love to be voyeurs observing the lives of people with so much money it skews their judgment of what's important. A little skepticism about whether such trips actually put kids ahead of their peers, and a little context as to how few families actually take such vacations would be nice. But that would make such stories far less entertaining.

Barbara Kantrowitz of Newsweek explored the overselling of baby technology in an article in the April 23rd edition.Here's her lede:

You see them everywhere: harried parents hauling their little ones off to classes in Mandarin, gymnastics or classical violin. At home, they're filling nurseries with "educational" rattles and mobiles. It's all for a worthy goal: making the most of the first three years of life, when critical changes in brain structure determine whether little Madison or Matthew will one day enter the Ivy League. At least that is what a growing number of parents have been led to believe. Sadly, it may all be a waste of time and money.

Newsweek also has an audio chat with Sara Mead on the topic.

Brainy Baby® does acknowledge some of the issues on its web site. The company says its "products always work best when adults use them interactively with their child. When using a DVD, for example, watch it with your child, talk about what you see, and repeat the names of new things, just as you do when reading a book together. Interaction between parent and child is a key ingredient to getting the most out of our Brainy Baby® products.

'The story Tracy Jan published in the Boston Globe about a month ago on the frank and disturbing study of preschools and kindergartens in the city got a lot of attention, as it should have. I've been waiting to find a copy of the full report to link to but so far haven't. I'll keep looking.

According to Jan's story, which was followed up by a hardhitting editorial, the study by the Wellesley Centers for Women found "mediocre instruction, unsanitary classrooms, and dangerous schoolyards." The study also found that the quality of about 70% of the classrooms were not good enough to achieve the goal of closing gaps in kindergarten readiness between white and Asian children and Latino and African-American children.

A couple points from the Globe story to emphasize: The teachers in the classrooms studied all had bachelor's degrees but a fifth of them didn't necessarily have degrees in early childhood education. One school of thought in early childhood education insists on college degrees as a measure of quality. An alternative view is that teachers in preschools need to be highly skilled. It sounds like the same point but it's not. If preschool teachers can gain critical skills and knowledge of how young children learn and how best to help them learn in community college or in a special training program, then what's the purpose of insisting on a bachelor's degree? It's heartbreaking but the researchers found that many of these kids were sitting in their seats in kindergarten and preschool, being lectured to and responding to flash cards. No wonder these preschools aren't helping much.

Another point to emphasize comes from Elizabeth Reilinger, a member of the Boston Schools Committee. She commented that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had pushed to expand preschool too quickly. Is this a problem around the country? Is the pressure so great to expand pre-k spending as quickly as possible causing the creation of poorly funded, poor quality programs that are accomplishing little?

One other observation. Yes, these were the conclusions of researchers. But couldn't journalists have made some of these same observations by visiting a lot of classrooms? A journalist who knew a little bit about how young chldren learn would have noticed that kids were sitting still too long and doing worksheets instead of engaging in purposeful, creative activities that involved a lot of conversation, right? I hope so.

Florida newspapers, television stations and bloggers all reported on the release of the state's so-called accountability system for the mostly private pre-kindergarten programs that get public money. Leslie Postal in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel came closest to calling the state accountability system what it is: a mess. As she points out, the state set an artificial limit of 15% on how many schools can be low-performing. That means, in reality, that 15% of the schools will be labeled substandard no matter how they do and schools that may be weak against an objective set of standards, but not as weak as others, will get a seal of approval. But there are two even bigger problems with the so-called accountability system: 1. It doesn't take into consideration the characteristics of the kids served or the size of gains they made. Not surprisingly, as Postal notes, "low performing" preschools had more poor, disabled, and Spanish-speaking kids. 2. It tests kids in kindergarten and attributes their performance to the preschools. What about the rapid development of kids that age? What about all the other influences in a child's life that are more significant?

Sure, we all want all kids to be the same. But can 540 hours (which is what the state pays for) of relatively low-quality preschool really make it so? Florida's preschool program satisfied only four of 10 quality criteria established by the National Institute of Early Education and Research and the state spends only $2,163 per child on the program (when part-year attendance is taken into consideration.) The effect of this so-called accountability system will be to discourage these private schools from accepting the very kids who need help the most.

The CBS affiliate in Tallahassee got right to the point. The Gainesville Sun did not take note of any of the shortcomings of the rankings. The Gradebook, the education Web log of the St. Petersberg, noted that the system was unfair but that so was life. The state says it is holding preschools accountable. Journalists should hold the state accountable for at least acknowledging that their accountability system is "low performing."

I was struck this past weekend by the number of television ads for toys aimed toddlers. Christmas selling and buying season starts right after Halloween. The ads caught my ear because they were talking about how babies develop skills with the right toys.

A couple of days ago I Googled eBeanstalk, the company whose ads for toys for infants I'd seen over the weekend. The philosophy of the company seems to be "teaching" begins at birth and that every interaction between a parent and a child requires a "lesson plan" and goal that can be measured. For example, the site sells socks for newborns with rattles " attached. The rattles "give him a first taste of cause and effect" because when he kicks his feet the baby will hear the sound. The socks will also spur emotional development and dexterity--all for only $10. What tutor charges so little?

Or, take the colorful child-safe mirror toys. (Basic: $18.95. Premium: $44.95. For those who REALLY love their children): These toys develop neck control, teach him that things disappear and reappear, aid in self-recognition and allow the baby to play peek-a-boo. Generations of babies have grown up without these "skills," apparently, because they lacked such devices. Helpfully, the site provides instructions for how parents can play with these toys. It turns out that playing "peek-a-boo" requires special training--for parents as well as babies. After a few lessons, babies will be able to play "peek-a-boo" with themselves, relieving parents of that chore after a long, hard day at the office.

Gender differentiation starts early. A package of bath toys--a pirate ship and shaving kit for the boys! Pink Tub Fashion and Princess in the Tub sets for girls!--can be had for $75 apiece. Perfect for 1 to 3 year olds. Spurs imagination, they're educational, and improve dexterity. (I hope parents don't leave their baby in the tub to work on their homework on their own.) Even Baby Einstein, a Disney company that sells toys and gear to make kids smarter, doesn't go as far as eBeanstalk in its educational claims.

The Wall Street Journal on November 1 carried a story about Eee PC, a computer aimed at first graders. It's just one of several companies selling computers to parents anxious to give their kids a head start on the technology of the future. (By the time they reach high school, of course, PCs will be the "technology of the past.") An Oklahoma company called Digital Dimensions sells a pink PC for girls and a red, blue, or black racecar PC for boys, both equipped with software for children as young as 2.

Journalists have written quite a bit about the phenomena of affluent parents willing to do just about anything to give their kids an edge. Cloaking consumerism in pseudo-science that makes natural development seem to depend on the right toys--rather than just loving, talking to, reading to, and playing with your children--helps fuel this unfortunate parental instinct. This impulse among some parents creates business opportunities and it's no surprise companies are out there capitalizing on them. Sometimes the universal pre-kindergarten movement overemphasizes education, as well, causing opponents to complain that schooling is more important than just fostering normal, healthy development. These issues are worth more critical attention, I think.

An editorial in the New York Times over the weekend commented ironically on "guides" that purport to teach kids the "basic skills" of childhood. With just the right note of sarcasm, the editorial suggested that such books (and, I would add, toys) make natural development seem like a take-home test.

“Lying on your back in your crib, point your knees outward and draw your heels toward your stomach. Using both hands, grasp your left ankle, if you are right-handed (or right ankle, if left-handed), and slowly draw your toes into your mouth. Chew with caution!”

Pat Kossan in the Arizona Republic has a nice little story about how having her kids go to pre-k has changed a parent's interactions with them. This is a good angle on early childhood education I don't see mentioned much. One of the important components of the Perry Preschool Project studies from many years ago and Head Start have been their parent outreach efforts. How do the public pre-k programs in your state work with parents?

Thanks to Russo's This Week in Education just read a Q&A with David Kirp, the author of "The Sandbox Investment." Newsweek also touched down on the growing state investment in preschool here. Kirp made similar points here and here.">here and here.

Kirp's political analysis is compelling but he sometimes loses his footing and overpromises. Perhaps it was the editing of the Q&A (the media does this!) but he seemed to be saying that a dose of high-quality pre-kindergarten would solve all ills for all children. Journalists (and their editors) love quick fix, silver bullet, utopian policies but they ought to be a little more skeptical. (Not so skeptical that they assume a presidential candidate's emotions are a campaign trick, like the Queen of Nasty Maureen Dowd, but just a little more.)

The Foundation for Child Development has issued a new policy brief summarizing research on the best way to serve preschoolers who are not native English speakers. In some states, more than 50% of preschool age children fit this description. The brief challenges a number of myths and offers some research-based guidelines for policy makers. The brief also says that effective approaches must be used from pre-K to third grade if they are to work. This is a quote that caught my attention:

Systematic, deliberate exposure to English during early childhood combined with ongoing opportunities to learn important concepts in the home language results in the highest achievement in both the home langauge and English by the end of Third Grade and beyond.

Thanks to Sara Mead at Early Ed Watch for alerting me to a fascinating article on math education for young children by Herb Ginsburg of Teachers College and colleagues published by the Society for Research in Child Development. Ginsburg is well known in early ed circles for his research in this area and this article pulls a lot together--the math understandings children develop and use naturally, the lack of training pre-k teachers receive in how to build on that knowledge, the fact that many in early ed resist the idea that math skills and knowledge can be taught in developmentally appropriate ways and much more. So much of the talk about education up to grade three focuses on socialization, dispositions toward learning and on preliteracy skills and knowledge. This article convincingly shows that math should be on the table as well, and not just in the form of giving kids blocks to play with (geometry!) or pieces of macaroni to glue on paper in the shape of numbers (hands on!). But the article also is blunt about the obstacles, one of which is resistance to the idea that teachers should "engage in deliberate and planned instruction, an activity some think is developmentally inappropriate."

For journalists, it would make a great feature story to find a pre-kindergarten or a K-2 class where good, developmentally appropriate, content rich math education is occurring. This article (and interviewing Ginsburg) provides a sense of what to look for. Also in this newsletter are commentaries on math education by two other great sources for journalists on teaching and learning in pre-K-grade 3 classrooms: Deborah Stipek, dean at the Stanford ed school and Robert Pianta, dean of the ed school at the University of Virginia.

Early Ed Watch also riffs off the report on how young children can best be helped to learn English while retaining their home language. If children who speak Spanish or other languages at home can learn English why can't English speakers learn a second language, before they hit middle school? This is an area that doesn't get talked about enough. Children in China and much of Asia start learning English as soon as they start school. (One exception is India, where longstanding government policy that goes back to independence, prevents the teaching of English. That is one of the reasons private education is burgeoning in India--parents want their kids to learn English.)

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 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.

In reaction to the Ezra Klein post (see next entry), Bennett Gordon comments on the education blog of Utne.com that universal prekindergarten "reinforces existing inequalities" in the public schools and should be denied to middle-class children. That's an argument that Bruce Fuller of the University of California, Berkeley makes as well.

Given limited resources, I understand why Fuller argues that services should be targeted. But I find it hard to accept that it's a good idea to deny some children education to provide it for others. By that logic, one could ask whether the $550 billion or so spent on public education shouldnl't be targeted mostly to poor children? Certainly, more affluent families can send their children to private schools, can't they? Why should they be subsidized?

(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.

(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?

Look for full-page advertisements in the New York Times and Washington Post this morning laying out what the backers say is a "broader, bolder" approach to raising achievement levels and closing achievement gaps. The liberal Economic Policy Institute is the organizer of the effort, which involved a truly all-star line up of researchers, educators, economists and others. The main idea, as laid out by EPI scholar Richard Rothstein, is that schools alone can't make up for all the factors that tend to undermine poor children's performance in school. (Poor health, poorly educated parents, language differences, maternal depression, transiency.) Those factors overwhelm the effects of teaching, now matter how good it is.

That's an argument Rothstein has made eloquently and authoritatively for a long time. But it's controversial, however, because some education reformers argue that Rothstein is letting schools off the hook, blaming poverty for children's performance rather than weak teaching. The measures proposed by other authors hardly go beyond the usual in-school reform efforts. They call for better trained teachers, more supportive emotional climate, smaller class sizes, more data and accountability, better services for immigrants.

One policy prescription offered, however, does go beyond elementary and secondary schooling: high quality child care and pre-kindergarten classes. My TC colleague Sharon Lynn Kagan and co-author Jane Waldvogel summarize the evidence persuasively, saying that poor children will make greater gains from pre-kindergarten than will middle class children.

By the way, EPI will be hosting a conference call about the reports at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time today.

(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.

(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.

(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?

(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.

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 New York Times reports that 10 NYC schools (Education Week says 11) will be trying the new literacy program developed by Core Knowledge Foundation, which was established by E.D. Hirsch Jr., the well-known proponent of the power of broad knowledge to facilitate learning. The early literacy program, which includes skills as well as information-rich texts, also will be piloted in seven other school districts nationally.

Most NYC elementary schools use the "balanced literacy" approach championed by Lucy Calkins, a Teachers College professor whose Reading and Writing Project trains teachers in NYC as well as across the country. Calkins advocates a "workshop" approach to reading and writing that teaches children how good readers and writers work. It has often been criticized for lacking substance. The Times' story quotes Calkins as saying that she hoped the Core Knowledge schools would continue to teach children to revise their writing and to develop inference skills in their reading. She also said, however, that "this could be calling us to a new and better balance."

The blog on the Core Knowledge Web site has a entry in which a progressive educator "confesses" that he had wrongly rejected the Hirsch approach. It's interesting because it illustrates the reaction of many educators who fear overemphasizing knowledge for fear that it undercuts understanding. Strange, I know.

Core Knowledge also has a pre-kindergarten curriculum.

Journalists might look into pre-kindergarten programs or elementary schools in their area that are using the Core Knowledge approach. Are the kids bored? Do their heads hurt?

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.

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.

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.

Steve Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research says Besharov is way off in his claim that Head Start costs $22,000 per child. He says the cost is $8,000. A fact sheet on Head Start from the Administration for Children and Families, which runs the program, says it costs about $7,300 per child.

Consider this statement, which tops an entry on a Web site called Science Daily:

Parents and educators who favor traditional classroom-style learning over free, unstructured playtime in preschool and kindergarten may actually be stunting a child’s development instead of enhancing it, according to a University of Illinois professor who studies childhood learning and literacy development.

Are there really parents who favor "traditional classroom learning" (bad, bad) over "unstructured playtime?" (Good! good!) Good-bad, black-white statements such as these are a staple of education discourse. But journalists need to see them for what they are. The fact is that no reasonable person would favor having four- and five-year-olds spend their days sitting in chairs, filling out worksheets and taking notes. It may occur, but I'm sure it's very rare and not a matter of policy. But education experts also do not believe that unstructured play is as educative as some believe. This is what Teachers College's Sharon Lynn Kagan, one of the world's top experts on early education, said in a talk last week: "Play cannot be an excuse for lack of intentional teaching and setting high standards for children."

The bigger problem in preschools is that the children are frequently just plain bored, not engaged in anything fun, interesting, or educative. That's what journalists who visit preschools will see a lot.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Diane Flynn Keith, a homeschool advocate who runs an anti-public school listserv and an online site for homeschoolers, reported in a message to her listserv that the ABC producer for the Stossel show had contacted her and asked her to put together parents who would oppose universal preschool. She said the producer contacted her again today and asked her to stir up her base to have them comment on the Good Morning America version of the show . Here's what she wrote in her message:

just spoke to the producer and she tells me that they've
already received "a ton of negative feedback" on the ABC
website. She wrote, "Some positive feedback would be great!"
She said the more feedback - the more likely ABC would be to
revisit the subject.

The comments on the Good Morning America segment show that her base responded. Most of the comments on the site that support the show's conclusions say things like: the government wants to brainwash your kids and turn them into socialists, the government ruined K-12 and it will ruin pre-k, public pre-k programs will do nothing but test kids to death. One comment jumped out, though: "Most of the people commenting on this have never been in a good pre-kindergarten and have no idea what they're talking about."

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.''

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll ask and try to answer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

For years, educators have believed that very young children were not capable of learning math. But a new book finds that children in public and private preschools, including Head Start and other programs aimed at low-income children, should be spending much more time receiving high quality math instruction. Reporters can request a copy at from the Office of News and Public Information.

The report is a terrific starting point for journalists who are interested in how math is taught for young children. It concludes that activities around math should include mathematical reasoning, measurement and spatial thinking, and suggests that teachers receive professional development to help implement a strong early childhood math curriculum. Teachers College experts Sharon Lynn Kagan and Herbert Ginsburg contributed to the report. Ginsburg developed an early math education program called "Big Math for Little Kids,'' that he is now evaluating, and has long pointed out that most preschools either don't teach math or instruct children in a narrow range of math content.

Journalists who visit early childhood programs should ask about math instruction and ask to see a curriculum or for an explanation of what concepts are being taught and why. According to Ginsburg, "...there is a growing consensus that early childhood math education is not only necessary....but should be comprehensive. It should include play with materials and objects that set the stage for math learning, teachable moments, in which teachers in which teachers observe kids in spontaneous situations that can be exploited to promote learning; teacher-guided projects of complex topics—like figuring out how to create a map of the classroom; and deliberate instruction using a planned curriculum to actively introduce math concepts, methods and language. This curriculum is not, of course, a textbook, but a carefully sequenced set of exciting activities. "

It's difficult to imagine just how much parents of children with disabilities depend on programs that help their children integrate with their peers. A quote in the Chi-Town Daily News of Chicago brought it home, from a father describing how Rebecca, his four-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, interacts with her classmates in a public preschool program:

"The key thing comes when she interacts with other kids," says Harry Hoynes, Rebecca's father. "They learn patience, and that other kids their age are different, too. They come to these wonderful understandings at the age of 4 and 5."

The reporter thought to interview Rebecca's dad to illustrate what might happen to pre-school programs where disabled children learn alongside those who are not, and whose programs could be cut under a proposal in the Illinois General Assembly. The state faces a $9 billion deficit.

The reaction to the cuts?

"Most of us who work in early childhood education, and all of the human services, are deeply distressed," says Barbara Bowman, director of early childhood education at Chicago Public Schools. "People don't realize how much of a blow this is going to be."

Bowman was a logical person to seek out for comment. In addition to her longstanding role as an award-winning childhood education expert and author, she is a co-founder of the Erickson Institute , a top graduate school for training child development experts.

But EarlyStories applauds the journalist at Chicago's nonprofit online newspaper for also finding Rebecca's father, and reminding the public that when such programs are cut -- a trend that can be found throughout the U.S. in this struggling economy -- the consequences are real and painful for children and their families.

EarlyStories was an early admirer of Sophia Pappas, a Teach for America recruit whose blog about her pre-k classroom in New Jersey provided tremendous insight into the lives of children. Pappas now has a new book based on the blog, entitled "Good Morning, Children,'' about her experience, and it's well worth reading.

A lot of what is written about pre-kindergarten is framed around academic research, policy debates or budget battles. The book allows Pappas, now a graduate student pursuing a master in public policy at Harvard University, to describe the lives "of the 14 incredible four-year-olds,'' in her class and what they learned, from sharing space to solving problems. The blog, and the book, showed first hand the impact that early childhood education can have and why it matters. In Pappas words, "...I gave my students and their families a voice in this country's discourse on how best to serve our youngest and most impressionable learners."

Stephanie Banchero of the Chicago Tribune is staying right on top of an important political and financial battle in Illinois that could shut some 30,000 children out of preschools. Like many financially strapped states, Illinois is facing difficult budget choices, resulting in an $180 million cut in the State Board of Education budget earlier this week. The state's popular and highly regarded early childhood programs took a huge hit, Banchero noted -- losing a third of its $380 million budget.

What will that mean?

"Without high-quality early-childhood programs, low-income children will arrive at kindergarten unprepared and will struggle throughout their school years to catch up," Diane Rauner, executive director of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, told Banchero.

Reporters throughout the U.S. are doing story after story about painful budget cuts that are causing wholesale elimination of programs and forcing educators and lawmakers to make difficult choices. The situation in in Illinois is far from settled, as Banchero pointed out, with education advocates pressing lawmakers to restore the cuts.

In these tough times, it's a good idea for journalists to closely examine some of the programs that may be eliminated and try to help explain their value to the public, who will be clamoring to preserve everything from arts programs to foreign languages -- and of course, early childhood education. Each has some value, and many will be unsustainable. Advocates are likely clamoring to let the public and lawmakers know how important the programs they support are and journalists will have to document, explain or illustrate value with the help of anecdotes, examples, research, interviews and visits whenever possible.

Rhode Island, the smallest state in the U.S. is about to launch a small pre-kindergarten program for low-income children. It will be the first of its kind in a state that is one of just 12 in the U.S. that don't offer public programs. A story in the Providence Journal of Rhode Island notes that the tiny state is starting small: just four to six classrooms taught by qualified teachers.

The Journal included an interesting quote that goes to the heart of pre-kindergarten education: Quality counts. Larger states with free programs have run into questions and concerns about the quality of their offerings for years.

“Quality is everything,” Robert G. Flanders Jr., chairman of the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, told The Journal.. “We are not just talking about daycare, but a quality preschool environment where learning takes place according to certain standards. So it’s terribly important that any program we initiate has quality factors built in and has certified instructors who have the appropriate skills to deal with early learning, and not just people who are good babysitters.”

It will be interesting to watch efforts in Rhode Island, a hard-hit state economically that managed to find $700,000 in the state budget for the program.

Jennifer Jordan of The Journal raised all the right questions in her solidly reported story. But it would be interesting to see stories and hear from journalists who have uncovered quality issues in their state programs. How is success measured? What works and doesn't, and how will the state keep track of progress and problems?

EarlyStories would love to see (and post) some examples.

While EarlyStories is pleased to see attention focused on the Harlem Children Zone and Geoffrey Canada's efforts to combat poverty with education, it would be nice to see some other examples of early childhood programs that work. Do they not exist, or are education journalists too caught up with other stories to visit them? What research is available on such programs?

Here's why it's important:President Barack Obama has said to be a great admirer of Canada's model, and he hopes to replicate it in 20 cities, according to a front page article in the Washington Post. A closer look at just about every aspect of Canada's quest can be found in Paul Tough's excellent new book, "Whatever it Takes,'' which should be required reading for anyone who is covering early childhood issues.

The Post piece laid out Canada's approach, which starts in the womb and includes programs "that begin before birth, end with college graduation and reach almost every child growing up in 97 blocks carved out of the struggling central Harlem neighborhood,'' according the the Post story.

The U.S. Department of Education is poised to offer applications for grants that could expand the program in 20 cities, in so-called Promise Neighborhoods. Some $10 million in the 2010 budget has been set aside for planning.

It will be interesting to see what other kinds of programs emerge from this and whether the Harlem Children's Zone can be replicated or emulated elsewhere.

Depression seems to be a big media topic lately, and not just the economic kind. The New York Times Magazine in May featured a front page article by Daphne Merkin entitled: "A Long Journey in the Dark: My Life with Chronic Depression. The Today show just featured a segment on anti-depressants. And now comes a new study reminding us that pre-schoolers also get depressed.

Dr. Joan Luby of the Washington University School of Medicine found that depression among preschoolers is a real disorder, and that preschoolers with depression were four times as likely to develop a major depressive order.

"Our study is the first available, to our knowledge, to follow-up and describe the 2-year course of preschool major depressive disorder in a large systematically assessed sample,” Luby was widely quoted as saying. The study, published in n the latest issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, got a lot of play and made for some alarming headlines.

EarlyStories would like to see some follow-up. The study, for example, did not examine how depression is treated in children, or address any controversy about medication. It said little about what course of action teachers should take when they see children who exhibit symptoms of depression.

At least one article about the study voiced some skepticism: University of Massachusetts psychologist Lisa Cosgrove said she is skeptical about the accuracy of labeling preschoolers as depressed, because diagnostic tools for evaluating mental health in children so young aren't as well tested as those used for adults.

Journalists who wonder how early childhood education fits into the larger K-12 landscape have a great opportunity to learn more about this critical topic. The Journalism Center on Children & Families in Maryland has extended the deadline for its September training conference and fellowship, entitled "Ladders of Success: Covering Early Childhood Learning."

The conference features experts including Ellen Galinsky of the Families & Work Institute and Gene Steuerle of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. It takes place Sept 13-15, 2009 (Sunday through Tuesday) at The Inn & Conference Center and the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.

The two-and-a-half day seminar will encourage 20 journalists to examine the best way to fix the country’s underfunded and fragmented early childhood system.

Sessions will include:

Born Learning: A look at the science of early education

Economic Reality: Funding early education during a recession.

Leveling the Learning Field: One out of every five children in the United States is the child of an immigrant. How do communities address the needs of immigrant families and their young children?

Early Intervention: For many children, learning the alphabet and counting comes before they start their formal education. But many children struggle with these early concepts because of limited exposure to learning or because of undiagnosed disorders in cognition or learning.

What Works: Where to find pre-k programs that are thriving in at-risk communities?

Ready to Learn: in 2005, only 31 percent of fourth-graders read at a ‘proficient’ or better level. What do young children learn in early education that helps prepare them for lifelong success? How do programs successfully link early learning to the early grades?

For details and an application, visit at www.journalismcenter.org

Press attention on President Barack Obama's early childhood education agenda focused much on a perceived expansion of Head Start, the national program that promotes school readiness and also provides services such as health and nutrition to enrolled children and families. But in these increasingly tough economic times, with states locked in budget battles over federal and state resources, some Head Start programs are in big trouble, according to an excellent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

EarlyStories has often noted the lack of attention Head Start gets from journalists. When any early childhood program that families depend upon shut down or reduce their hours, the press should take notice. A quote in the story from a father named Nathanael Pomiabo -- worried that his son would lose out on all that he gained by attending a Head Start program -- summed up the importance instantly:

"I see the difference in him," said Pomiabo, 31. "It's all changed how much he's learned and how much he wants to learn."

EarlyStories is always intrigued by stories about kindergarten, which often include phrases such as "Kindergarten is the new first-grade,'' No such phrase existed in an Omaha World-Herald News Service story, but the concept -- that kindergarten has become too academic -- was up for debate, as it surely should be.

The story noted that kindergarten teachers in the state of Nebraska are calling for more playtime in kindergarten, and noted that both teachers and children "feel intense pressure to perform and meet increasing standards and expectations.''

The story did not get inside a classroom to describe that pressure, but there is plenty of room for follow-up, since the story was based on the draft of a report written by the Nebraska Department of Education, with input from kindergarten teachers statewide and many others.

The story did include a concrete example:kindergarten students in Nebraska used to work on printing letters of the alphabet and their names, and now must work on words and sentences. They also are expected under new state standards to leave kindergarten reading fluently.

Are such goals realistic? Since standards vary from state to state, it's worth visiting kindergarten classrooms this year to get a sense of the expectations. Are students struggling to meet them? Are parents upset about what their children are being asked to learn? Do teachers believe the goals they must set are realistic? Finally, is there enough time for play, and does the play have a purpose?

EarlyStories has pointed out early and often how little credible journalism exists about Head Start, even though investing in the program is part of President Barack Obama's early childhood agenda.

Busy education reporters pay more attention to pre-kindergarten, in part because such stories often involve statehouse debates and are either part of budget stories or can go into the K-12 mix. But Head Start gets left out a lot, and that could be because journalists don't know much about the national program that promotes school readiness "by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families."

Kudos goes to the New America Foundation and its Early Ed Watch blog for its seven-part series that contains a great deal of helpful background, and could be a terrific starting point for journalists who want to delve into this critical issue.

The most recent entry looks at the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Law, which former President Bush signed into law in December 2007.

This fall, as the economic downturn continues, journalists are starting to notice cut-backs and closings of Head Start centers. Bringing more background and understanding to the stories will be enormously helpful as the issues and debate continues to unfold. The background is a great starting point for visiting centers and finding out what value they add -- or don't add -- in a given community, as well as providing context and understand about the national agenda.

Has kindergarten become too "rigorous?"

EarlyStories could not help but wonder at the meaning behind a recent headline: "Increased academic rigor in kindergarrten questioned.''

The word rigor is one of the new buzz words in education, and it is often misused. The Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media produced an entire guide aimed at understanding academic rigor.

But the idea of a kindergarten being academically "rigorous,'' left much to ponder. Turns out, though, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review , that many schools now expect kindergartners to read and write complete sentences and count to 100 by ones and tens. And of course, the story included the stock phrase EarlyStories sees way too often: "Kindergarten has become the new first grade."

Is it reasonable in the post No Child Left Behind era to expect so much of five and six-year-olds, if indeed those expectations aim high? The topic has been getting a fair amount of debate lately, particularly with the release of "Crisis in the Kindergarten,'' by the Alliance for Childhood -- which included a plea for more play time.

The Tribune Review story noted that "the impact of academic rigor in kindergarten is not yet well-researched.''

But first, what evidence exists that kindergartens throughout the U.S. have indeed become more rigorous? And what specifically does academic rigor look like for the five and six-year-old set? EarlyStories would love to see some examples.

Every now and then, EarlyStories stumbles across an early childhood story that truly stands out. A piece by Sara Carr last week in the Times Picayune of New Orleans is a great example for many reasons, including solid writing and reporting that included a great deal of context. The story described in detail the plight of many parents attempting to find a decent education for its little learners in a city still recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

A quote from one frustrated parent summed up the situation perfectly: "The low cost of living in New Orleans is all well and good, and works fine if you want to own a dog, " a parent told Carr. "But it's not so great if you want to send your child to prekindergarten."

Carr described how some 1,300 New Orleans children are languishing on a wait list for the federal programs Head Start and Early Head Start in the city, and how early childhood education has managed to take a backseat and become "the Achilles heel of the educational-reform effort in New Orleans,'' according to one professional.

Carr also did a masterful job of summing up two major trends -- and a major dichotomy -- in early childhood education. One is a willingness among states to invest in prekindergarten programs and a recognition that it can help students later on. The second involves the harsh economic reality of a recession that is forcing many states to scale back planned expansions.

Carr's story has another unique context, as she points out: Post-Katrina New Orleans is "widely considered the nation's school-reform capital of the moment.''

Journalists who write with context and authority tell better and bigger stories, and that is what Carr did. It's worth the extra effort.

(As photo shows, there are lots of recreation opportunities for little ones in scenic Idaho, but no publicly funded pre-school options)

The Times News of Idaho performed an important public service in an editorial this week, noting that economic changes in the remote and beautiful state have created a dire need for early childhood education.

EarlyStories noticed the piece because Idaho is one of the twelve states that does not publicly fund any pre-kindergarten programs.

"Two-thirds of all Idaho parents are now working outside the home, making early childhood education a more urgent priority,'' the editorial noted. "The Legislature should lift the ban on state funding for teaching 4-year-olds and permit school districts that want to offer preschool programs do so.''

Idaho parents have to rely on a patchwork system that includes private nursery schools, but at a time when the state's residents are hurting economically it is more difficult for families. And as the editorial pointed out, the state is going through some tough times: "There are more two-income families, fewer of us own homes and the number of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren has increased more than 60 percent."

In tough times like these, the need for free, publicly funded early childhood education is greater than ever, the editorial noted.

From one of the new websites aimed at covering education came a comprehensive and well reported piece that put together the many challenges facing early childhood education in Pennsylvania, specifically Philadelphia. The Notebook describes itself as "an independent voice for parents, educators, students and friends of the Philadelphia public school system."

The story by Dale Mezzacappa, a former longtime education reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, described the many obstacles to getting more young children into pre-kindergarten classes in the city and the state, along with providing a progress report that detailed many state developments.

Despite an increase in quality and access, Mezzacappa wrote, "early education options in the city remain a confusing hodgepodge. While spending for child care subsidies has gone up, less than half the eligible low-income families actually get them, and thousands are on waiting lists."

The lengthy, well reported piece reminded EarlyStories of what is missing in education coverage, as beat reporters struggle in many cases to cover both multiple school districts and higher education at the same time. Too often, important developments and stories about what happens even before children enter a classroom are neglected.

Mezzacappa's piece contained important information about an array of programs and services, described lengthy waiting lists for slots and detailed confusion and uncertainty that exists around early childhood education. She performed an important public service -- one that is more needed than ever as newspapers cut back on education coverage.

With all the attention focused on the eating habits of New York City's public school children, from bake sale restrictions to new vending machines, EarlyStories was struck this week by an over-the-top example from, of all places, Great Britain.

It seems that parents at a school outside of London can actually log onto a computer to check up on what their children had for lunch, according to a story in the Daily Mail.

Children who attend St John's Church of England School are issued photo ID cards when they buy their lunch, the story notes. A list of all the items are then sent to a website, and parents can then log on and see if their children ate, say, nothing but chips and cookies.

A school official in charge of the program defended it to the Daily Mail: 'This isn't a case of Big Brother but we think it is important that parents can see what their very young children are eating during the day so that they can help them make better nutritional choices,'' the official said.

It's not clear how such a system would go over in New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been somewhat obsessed with health issues, and where school vending machines will soon contain no sodas, candy or sweetened drinks.

Studies have shown the importance proper nutrition plays in early childhood academic success, but the electronic check-up idea the London area school is trying has yet to show up in the U.S. -- or has it? Are extreme measures needed to make sure our littlest learners are getting the nutrition they need?

EarlyStories has heard journalists say they don't know how to figure out what is happening when they visit an early childhood classroom. In a room filled with toys and toddlers, it can be difficult to tell what kind of learning, if any, is happening.

That's why it was so refreshing to read the excellent piece by Cathy Grimes of the Daily Press in Newport News, Virgina, which described in great detail how one school district weaves assessment of its littlest learners in its early childhood centers.

The topic, in the era of No Child Left Behind and standards, is extremely important to parents, educators and the public. And any mention of testing little children can arouse opposition and misunderstanding.

"From the moment they walk in the door until the time they leave, students are gauged on their mastery of a wide range of skills outlined in Virginia's Foundation Blocks for Early Learning, sometimes called the PreK Standards of Learning,'' Grimes wrote in a story that truly explains what kind of skills are important for the age group and how they are monitored.

Preschool teachers, Grimes notes," watch for more than budding academic ability. They also keep tabs on the students' social, emotional and physical development. That includes large and small motor skills, self-control and self-reliance, and the ability to work with classmates and communicate.''

The story notes that ""Even activities such as dress-up or playing with puppets are linked to skills.''

In other words, the play is purposeful; designed to help teachers see what students need to progress to where they should be.

Not all early childhood classrooms are as purposeful or as structured as the one Grimes visited. And journalists don't get inside them enough to let the public know what is happening. The story Grimes did -- which will be part of a series -- is aimed at describing what testing, or assessment, looks like across the grades.

If the rest of the stories are as descriptive and telling, the public will get an excellent glimpse at what is happening inside their public school classrooms. The school district should also be commended for giving a reporter access -- such stories cannot happen without it.

Sara Mead at Early Ed Watch this week put together a comprehensive blog posting that really helped frame an important debate in early childhood education.

Mead used the opportunity of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's speech at the University of Virginia to detail some of the arguments and debate about the credentials needed for early childhood educators, an issue in many states and school districts.

In his speech, Duncan harshly criticized the country's education school as "neglected stepchildren,'' who don't attract the best and the brightest students or faculty members.

Journalists may have heard complaints about education schools before, but Mead succinctly lays out why the issue is relevant to early childhood education, noting that early childhood advocates have been fighting for more than a decade to raise credentials for educators of the youngest students. She also lays out important policy and legislative developments that could make a difference. including the Early Learning Challenge Grants that are now before Congress as part of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

"Research documents the tremendous amount of learning that takes place in children’s earliest years, as well as the importance of nurturing, consistent and stimulating caregivers to children’s development during this time.'' Mead wrote. "Yet childcare and preschool teachers often earn less than parking lot attendants or hotel maids, and many also have correspondingly low education levels."

Journalists can and should ask for the background and credentials of the early childhood teachers in the districts they cover, and find out if there is a debate about their degrees and credentials. What do they earn? How do salaries compare with those of K-12 teachers? What kind of background and experience do they bring to their positions?

While the U.S. is pushing early childhood education and an expansion of publicly funded pre-kindergarten, some in Britain are politely saying no thanks. A BBC report this week shed light on a review panel's recommendation that children should continue to learn by playing, and not start a formal education until they are six.

The review found no evidence 'that an early introduction to formal learning has any benefit,'' and noted that "it can do some harm."

The BBC has asked for, and is posting, responses from around the world on the question of what the right age is for children to begin formal learning. The responses should provide a fascinating glimpse at how this issue is viewed around the world.

It wasn't overuse of the word "rigor,'' and "rigorous education,'' without explanation that bothered EarlyStories this time (it's a common complaint here) in a New York Times story about little gifted students. The story described how a new $28,000 a year pre-school is providing an alternative for the parents of young "gifted,'' New York City students who may have been denied admission to some of the most competitive schools on the planet. (Example; some 1,832 four-year-olds compete for 50 kindergarten spots at Hunter Elementary School.

What set EarlyStories off this time was a quote from Gabriella Rowe, the director of the Mandell School, a preschool on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "Some of the most rigorous independent schools spend the first years of an elementary education catching students up, and the gifted kids sit around and wait a while,” Rowe told the Times.

EarlyStories could not help wondering how schools that charge close to $30,000 a year are spending so much time "catching students up,'' and was imagining a bunch of bright kids sitting around and waiting. Waiting for what?

What should little students come into these schools prepared to do? What are these schools teaching in the early years that requires so much extensive preparation and catch-up? Should their pre-school educations (or lack of them) be blamed?

The article reminded EarlyStories once again of the need for the term "gifted,'' to be better defined and explained to the public in stories. The Times noted that an entrance exam makes the determination at Hunter and city public schools (although it did not describe what is on such tests)

The Speyer Legacy School "also considers reports from preschool teachers, and has applicants participate in a sample class to identify children who are advanced in vocabulary, spatial reasoning, mathematical ability and creative expression,'' the story explained.

That detail was useful. Journalist often write about gifted program and tend to focus on the competition to get into them. How do they differ (the Times story does note that in public schools teachers are trained in gifted education and "usually add more complex themes and content.''

What does gifted training consist of in education schools? What research exists to show what happens to those who have received a gifted education -- such as their college and career choices? What kind of difference does such an education make in their life, ultimately? Are gifted teachers gifted themselves?

And what about very talented young students who don't test into gifted programs or have opportunities to attend pricey programs like Speyer Legacy? Are they more likely to get restless in school and drop out later on? Do public schools ultimately afford them the opportunities they need to excel? Is anyone tracking this?

Stories about gifted education bring up a host of equity issues at a time when many public school systems that are scrambling to make sure all students meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law. There are many important questions to ask and feature -- even more important than the mission of one new school of 26 students that is sure to be in far more demand now that its mission has been published.

Tiny Rhode Island is a struggling state economically. The unemployment rate of some 13 percent in September is among the highest in the U.S. The state's economic woes are outsized. That is one reason EarlyStories found it so refreshing to see the excellent story the Providence Journal ran this week describing life inside the state's first publicly funded pre-kindergarten program. Education perhaps cannot save the economy immediately, but it's important to continue reporting on education developments in the toughest of times.

The story did everything a well reported piece on pre-kindergarten education should do. The reporter spent time in the classroom, observing children and talking with teachers. The story included the perspective of researchers and state officials. It described how students were admitted and included interviews with parents on the difference pre-kindergarten is making in the lives of their children.

Readers came away with a much better understanding of how and why such programs matter, a story even a state in the grips of an an economic crisis can embrace.

"In Providence, research suggests that as recently as three years ago, almost a third of children arrived in kindergarten ill-prepared to learn their letters,'' Gina Marcris wrote. She added later on that the program "is designed to build bridges between home and school by regularly reporting progress and educating parents about the purpose of their children’s play.''

It hasn't been easy to get such a program off the ground in the tiny state, which was previously one of only 12 in the U.S. without a public program. Previous stories have noted the difficult fight the state had to get the pilot program started.

The strategy tells an important story: Half-day pre-kindergarten programs pose too many obstacles for working parents, and as a result classroom spots for children who might truly benefit from early childhood education in New York City may never be filled.

The Department of Education in the city is so anxious to find children for some 5,400 pre-K spots for 4-year-old by Oct. 31st they are advertising on Craig's List, according to a story in the New York Daily News. The story noted that the city faces a deadline of Oct. 31 for enrolling kids who turn 4 years old by Dec. 31 or it will lose federal funding; last year the city forfeited $35 million allocated by the state after it fell short of enrollment by 3,200 spots.

To its credit, the city realized that the half-day slots remain empty because working parents simply cannot get their kids to school and back for programs that are just half a day. This year, the city funded an additional 414 full-day seats, and some of these are being advertised on Craig's List as well.

The strategy may or may not work, but questions remain: why did the city wait so long to advertise? Parents usually need to sign-up for such programs way in advance; anyone who has followed the frenzy in New York City for private nursery school slots knows the search begins a full year in advance.

It's a strange fact of life in New York City that parents pay pricey consultants to help them find a spot in $25,000 a year private nursery school only to be turned down time and time again because supply doesn't meet demand -- and yet free spots in half-day programs in less desirable neighborhoods, where parents are being solicited on Craig's List, will remain unfilled.

EarlyStories managed to miss an excellent series on math education in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that included an interesting look at how math can and should be introduced to the littlest learners.

Talking to young students about math, it turns out, is very important. So is counting, and introducing shapes, all part of "teaching preschoolers in a deep, interesting and systematic way, with lots of activities and without textbooks,'' according to the story, which leans upon a report by the Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics, and the work of Herbert Ginsburg at Teachers College.

Education journalists get caught up in covering math scores and math wars, not realizing what to look for in a high quality early childhood program and how critical it is to math success later on. Locating the excellent series in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette served as a reminder of the good work that can be done on this important topic.

Shameless plug -- the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media has a new guide for journalists on covering math education that includes an extensive interview with Ginsburg on early childhood and math, and is filled with tips, resources and story ideas.

You can download "Math Matters: A Journalist's Guide,'' on the Hechinger Institute website.

For years, the term "school readiness,'' has centered on how literate young children are when they enter school for the first time, based on both their familiarity with numbers and related concepts. A new study from Madhabi Chatterji, Associate Professor of Measurement-Evaluation at Teachers College, found that early supports outside of the home can play a critical role in determining how ready a child is for kindergarten.

Chatterji, who is director of the Assessment and Evaluation Research Initiative at Teachers College, focused her research on the Chemung County School Readiness Project, a community collaboration that’s providing child and family services and has a goal of cutting by half the percentage of children in this southern Finger Lakes region of upstate New York county who come to school unprepared.

Factors known to help a child in kindergarten include having a mother who is at least college-educated, with exposure to informal educational experience and some pre-school. The study aims to develop a comprehensive measure of school readiness based on a number of factors, ranging from a child's health to their social and emotional adjustment. According to Chatterji, the results could be used "to build awareness among parents about the need for comprehensive education,'' along with the role county services might play.

EarlyStories is curious about other county and grass roots collaborations aimed at helping little learners get ready for school.

Every now and then EarlyStories come across a reminder of how important early learning is, even when there is an agenda attached. This reminder came from an article in the Washington Post about the sad condition of America's youngsters, age 17-to 24.

It seems some 75 percent of this age group is ineligible for military service "largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces,'' according to a report by Mission: Readiness, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.

The proposed solution? Greater investment in early education, to boost both academic achievement and social development.

EarlyStories would like to propose a modest amendment: why not add a mandatory fitness regime for all pre-schoolers? Couldn't a dose of push-ups, sit-ups and say, wind sprints be used as a counting exercise as well?

Mission Readiness, for the record, is pushing Congress to pass President Barack Obama's Early Learning Challenge Fund, which would grant states $1 billion annually for early childhood development programs.

EarlyStories has been waiting for the post election stories to settle down and hoping New Jersey reporters would start tackling Governor elect Chris Christie's education agenda, particularly when it comes to pre-kindergarten. The Associated Press took a look at the issue in a piece that ran in Education Week, but the story did not mention the stir created during the campaign, when Christie likened the state’s preschool programs to "glorified babysitting," in remarks that offended many who believe New Jersey has made great strides in early childhood education.

The Newark Star Ledger on Sunday published an excellent editorial entitled "Don't mess with success: Gov.-elect Chris Christie should catch up on preschool,'' that laid out strong arguments for keeping the state's hard fought pre-kindergarten programs funded:

"The children graduating from these programs are now in elementary school, and their scores on fourth grade reading and math tests have risen substantially,'' the editorial noted. "This is a key reason why the racial achievement gap in New Jersey is closing faster than in any other state."

There are many questions for Christie about these programs and about how and if he intends to support and maintain funding. The election quips are over; it will soon be time to watch not just what Christie says but what he does.

Anyone involved in covering pre-kindergarten issues at some point hears a reference to the Perry Preschool study, which examined the lives of 123 African American children who were born in poverty. The study was the first of its kind to quantify the impact a high-quality preschool program had on the lives of children, and it is still widely quoted.

Over the years, EarlyStories has heard countless references to the study, but never really thought more deeply about what the actual experience was like for the people involved in it before listening to Emily Hanford's excellent broadcast on American RadioWorks. Hanford's "Early Lessons,'' report should be required for any journalist -- or anyone, really -- with an interest in preschool.

Hanford, a producer at American Radio Works, acknowledges she didn't know much about preschool issues, or about the Perry Preschool Project until she tackled the same question the study attempted to answer: Can preschool boost IQ scores and prevent children from failing in school?

In three visits to Yipslanti, Michigan, where the study took place, Hanford grew fascinated with both the history of the study and the profound questions it attempted to raise about equity in education. She learned a great deal about David Weikart, the Perry preschool founder who died in 2003. Weikart started the Perry preschool in 1958, according to Hanford, "in response to frustration with what he describes in his memoir as "the pace of needed changes in a small, local school system.''

Hanford tracked down at least three of the teachers at the school, who share stories about visits to apple orchards and other ways the children learned about the world around them. The Perry preschool, Hanford's report notes, focused "on cognitive development – stimulating children’s brains, increasing their vocabulary, teaching them letters and numbers.''

Hanford's piece is filled with powerful interviews and descriptions of what life was like at the school: “I would do whatever we needed to do,” former Perry teacher Evelyn Moore told Hanford, “to prove that this many African-American children were not retarded.”

Hanford noted in an interview with EarlyStories: "This is history that is going to go away soon. "The researcher is dead. The teachers will be gone -- most are gone already -- and even the kids are going to be gone, so it was a great thing to capture this history at a moment in time.''

Hanford had not heard of the Perry study before she began the project, made possible with support from the Spencer Foundation which investigates ways in which education can be improved around the world and believes research is part of the equation.

"I literally spent a month just reading and talking to people and trying to figure out what education research has had an impact on policy,'' Hanford said. "I was more interested in the question of how research effects policy...and whether and how research informs public policy in a positive way. It's an open question -- sometimes research doesn't do what it should.''

A transcript of Hanford's project is available here, and the program can also be downloaded.

Will Elmo and his buddies from Sesame Street be able to convey a meaningful message about the need to improve math and science in the U.S.? That is apparently what President Barack Obama's administration hopes, as evidenced by the announcement of a new campaign described in the New York Times.

The campaign comes at a time when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has pointed out that “none of us should be satisfied” with student results on recent math tests, which revealed that under 40 percent of U.S. students in fourth and eighth grade are proficient in mathematics.

The National Math and Science Initiative and the Carnegie Corporation are both promoting new initiatives, described recently in a Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media webinar, available here. Journalists should do more than simply cover the cute advertisements and industry partnerships the White House is announcing; they must examine and find out what, if anything, the schools and districts they cover are doing to help prepare the country’s 50 million students for secure jobs and higher education in math and science.

That effort must start in pre-school, so it's worth asking to see the curriculum and find out what role math and science plays at the earliest levels.

Sometimes it takes a jolt from a rural state to remind EarlyStories of the struggle it can be to help the public understand the benefits of high quality early childhood education, and how it fits into the bigger picture. Reading about what happens in other states is also a reminder of how old-fashioned notions about parents and the workplace can still impact public policy.

An editorial in the Lewiston Tribune that also ran in the Spokesman Review noted that the state has repeatedly declined to fund early pre-kindergarten programs and called it "outside the mainstream,'' with some of the country's weakest day care regulations as well.

"Some of its legislators openly pine for the days of Ozzie and Harriet when mothers stayed at home,'' the editorial noted. "Such longing puts Idaho out of touch with the way children are raised at a time when mothers work outside of the home and many of them are single parents."

The context for the editorial is Idaho's status as one of only 12 states in the U.S. that does not provide state funding for pre-kindergarten.

The editorial also comes as a group known as the Education Alliance of Idaho is pushing to improve education in the state without mentioning or pushing for a better early childhood education system.

EarlyStories read the New York Times piece on an outdoor kindergarten in Saratoga Springs New York with interest. Finally, a story about something other than how kindergarten has become so academic: "It's the new first grade.''

Ultimately, though, the story was disappointing. It noted that 23 children in upstate New York are spending three hours each day outside, no matter what the weather, and that it is an extreme version of outdoor learning that is taught at Waldorf schools -- which are largely private and emphasize nature and the arts. The story noted that forest kindergartens are "increasingly common in Scandinavia and other European countries like Germany and Austria.''

It's nice that a handful of kids whose parents can afford it are enjoying the great outdoors while in school. But the story gives no context for what the nature-based curriculum can and cannot do, nor does it compare the Waldorf program to what kindergarten looks like for millions of U.S. children.

What goals do we have for these four, five and six-year-olds? (The age range varies according to district entrance requirements). What evidence is there that tramping about in the woods for several hours a day will make for a better thinker or reader later on? What does the research show?

A cute woodsy feature story about one program can and should go further at a time when the U.S. is seriously considering national standards and much debate is taking place about what children should learn and when. Is the program prompting urban schools to consider taking more field trips, for example? Do the kids who don't get outdoors suffer? Is anyone proposing a different approach for city schools, based on the Waldorf's results? And what are those results?

A smart and well reported piece on so-called helicopter parents in Time Magazine at first produced in EarlyStories the kind of reaction such pieces intend to produce -- a sigh and a shrug, directed, as it should be, at parents who have once again gone too far.

But a second read produced a different reaction. At a time of high unemployment, and with so many families struggling financially, the timing seemed a bit off. Do parents worrying about foreclosures, credit card debt and job loss really have the time and inclination to over manage their kids lives in the way the Time piece described?

The answer is that that most don't, although the more upscale parents Time spoke with seem to have more than enough, according to the extreme examples from Nancy Gibb's cover article. Parental transgressions ranged from buying macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks to hiring tutors to correct a 5-year-old's "pencil-holding deficiency,'' and showing up at school unannounced to bring matching accessories. Let's not forget hooking up broadband connections in a treehouse or buying leashes for children and knee pads for toddlers.

"We were so obsessed with our kids' success that parenting turned into a form of product development,'' Gibbs wrote. "Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it's never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy.''

All of this may be true. But so is this: More than 75 percent of the nation’s four-year-olds and an even larger percentage of 3-year-olds still have no access to state-funded pre-k programs, much less mandarin programs. Despite worries about the overscheduled child, some 18 million children need, but don't have, after school programs. Some 28 million parents work outside the home and as many as 15 million "latchkey,'' kids go home to an empty house.

So EarlyStories has concluded the following. The helicopter parent may not be hovering in many U.S. households at the moment. But reading the story was a nice substitute for buying Entertainment Weekly.

EarlyStories welcomes new websites, collaborations and any efforts by journalists to understand the complicated landscape of early childhood education in the U.S. The area gets little media attention, so it was nice to see the brand new Texas Tribune taking on the issue in Texas, with this promising start:

"The battles over Pre-Kindergarten are no place for children. Scarce resources and passionate people make for the political equivalent of street fights.''

The opening line by Abby Rapoport sets the reader up nicely for a look at the many divisive arguments and issues that have characterized pre-k education in Texas , which has the largest enrollment of any U.S. state. Rapoport poses some good questions about what works throughout, along with describing some unsuccessful attempts to evaluate programs in the state.

A person outside of Texas might be confused about how pre-school concerns in Texas relate to overall battles and issues pre-kindergarten faces nationally; little context is provided. And while the story attempts to provide a view of what happens inside some pre-kindergarten classrooms, there isn't much evidence of an actual visit that describes what children and teachers are doing, or what teaching and learning is -- or isn't -- taking place.

Still, it's a promising start, and terrific to see new education journalism in any form, with hard questions being asked about both the public policy issues surrounding pre-kindergarten and the quality of taxpayer financed programs. EarlyStories hopes this issue will stay on the radar for the Texas Tribune.

The best pre-kindergarten classrooms are teeming with books -- books in baskets, on shelves, on the floor and most importantly, in little hands. During the highly commercial Christmas season, it's nice to remember that books make excellent gifts for some of the little people in your life as well, and EarlyStories was inspired to find a few lists after reading a Washington Post column filled with recommendations.

Education columnist Jay Mathews is a big fan of an excellent list compiled by Renaissance Learning but that list is geared more toward books for older readers in grades 1-12.

So what about the pre-school set? EarlyStories set out looking for good lists, and came up with a few, including one from TeachersFirst, of course Amazon, and the Brooklyn Public Library. Most local libraries will have their own list -- and very likely, classics like Caps for Sale and anything by Eric Carle will be on them. There's a terrific selection of books for toddlers through three at BankStreetBooks.com; a good list at PreKinders and a great read
aloud list at the Children' Literacy Initiative, which also isolates the best books for kindergarten students.

EarlyStories also wants to offer a few suggestions for books journalists -- or anyone else -- who is interested in learning more about pre-kindergarten might like to read, courtesy of Pre-k now.

The list doesn't include personal favorites, like Carle's "The Very Quiet Cricket,'' and "Just One More Story,' by Jennifer Brutschy' -- oh wait, and of course, the much read and beloved "Ghost Train,'' by Stephen Wyllie.

But there comes a time to pass those books down and move on to more scholarly pursuits like "The Sandbox Investment,'' by David L. Kirp..

Happy reading!

Just how much math are little children capable of learning? For years, it seemed educators and scientists did not believe little brains could handle much math at all before the age of five. But now new research is showing they can, according to an interesting piece in the New York Times. EarlyStories immediately wondered what kind of impact the research might have on the way math is taught in pre-schools across the U.S.

The story pointed to new studies from the world of neuroscience showing that preschoolers can perform far more complicated math problems than initially thought. It noted that about a dozen states are using a program that helps the youngsters develop their frontal lobes, and that the new findings are fusing the fields of brain science and education for the first time, The story also described how a program in Buffalo already has a track record for teaching early math.

Herbert Ginsburg at Teachers College has also done some groundbreaking work on teaching math to young children, another terrific resource for journalists trying to figure out what -- if any -- math is being taught in pre-kindergarten and even kindergarten classrooms. The article also pointed to the interesting work that Sharon Griffin is doing with Number Worlds, a research-based math program for young children.

Journalists don't usually venture deep into the world of education research when covering pre-school issues, but there is clearly a rich world to tap and ask about when visiting classrooms. What sort of math, if any, is being taught, and why? Do the teachers have any sense of what the children could be capable of learning? How do school officials explain the math curriculum, or the lack of one?

Imagine thinking about getting a newborn, still in the hospital, ready to start school. In cities with long waits for high quality day care and killer competition for private pre-school, parents may be obsessing about early childhood education long before labor and delivery.

A Forth Worth public school district has taken it one step further, handing out welcome letters to all newborns as part of a school-readiness program, according to the Star-Telegram in Forth Worth. The efforts of this one school district and hospital in Texas are worth noting; they come at a time when research shows as many as half of U.S. children who enter public schools are not ready to learn.

A packet of information produced by the Hurst-Euless-Bedford School district includes advice on everything from early childhood activities to benchmarks parents can look at to asssess how ready their child is for school. The North Hills Hospital has played a role as well.

"Anything we can do to help new parents prepare, we think, is a benefit," Randy Moresi, chief executive officer of North Hills Hospital, told the Start Telegram.

It would be fascinating to follow the families who participate in this program and see how their children fare once they enter school. Will the suggestions be followed or tossed away with the Pampers? Will parental awareness of school readiness benchmarks make a difference in how their children fare once they enter school? Are any studies available to see if such programs have worked elsewhere in the U.S. or is this one groundbreaking?

Every now and then, EarlyStories runs into a piece of journalism that attempts to answer what could be perhaps the most important -- and mysterious -- question about the U.S. education system: What makes an effective teacher? It's a question with implications for students of all ages and sizes, and it matters from the minute they enter a classroom.

At a time when journalists who cover education are focused intently on Race to the Top applications and impending deadlines, it's critically important to stop and think about how children are being taught and what they learn. And that's exactly what Amanda Ripley's illuminating story in the The Atlantic this month does.

In clear prose, Ripley explains why the question of what makes good teaching is so important at this point in time.

"Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children,'' Ripley notes. As states are competing for money, they must also "try to identify great teachers, figure out how they got that way, and then create more of them."

Along with the politics of covering the Race to the Top grant program, it's important to really think about how teaching might be improved and examine the most recent rsearch and data. Reporters covering early childhood education rarely focus on the topic of teachers and teaching, and indeed the credentials and qualifications required are often different.

Regardless, the questions Ripley raises and examines thoroughly are the right ones. Properly trained, effective teachers are key to improving the quality of education in the U.S. How are we going to get there?

One of the more interesting chapters in Paul Tough's "Whatever it Takes,'' -- a book about the Harlem Children's Zone -- describes how young parents go to school to learn how to be parents. The Harlem Children's Zone is the brainchild of Geoffrey Canada, whose goal is to "end the cycle of generational poverty.''

The book describes in detail the nine week parenting workshop known as "Baby College,'' aimed at expectant parents as well as those with children up to the age of three. One of the major goals of the program is to improve the lives of children born into poverty -- all part of the Harlem Children's Zone attempt to surround children within a 97-block section of the city with social services and educational advantages from birth through college.

Baby College instructors promote everything from teaching early reading skills to lessons on how to turn a trip to the supermarket into a learning experience. Tough's book on the program weaves in a great deal of research showing that what happens during early childhood is key to building a foundation for a child's educational future.

All of this is a very long introduction to a piece in the Times-Union of Albany, New York that described how the Harlem Children's Zone's efforts in New York City captivated parents and educators in upstate Albany, who are already moving forward with a similar plan and will be launching their own Baby College in the coming months. Already, there are waiting lists.

EarlyStories is trying to keep an eye on any expansion of the Harlem Children's Zone because President Barack Obama said he'd like to see it expanded to 20 cities nationally -- and he set aside $10 million in seed money to develop a national model. Journalists should look out for applications and see if communities are finding ways to address and improve the quality of early childhood education -- and what existing models they hope to emulate. Are new programs to be offered? Will they be eagerly embraced? How can the public know if they are of high quality?

(photo from "This American Life")

Thanks to our colleagues over at Early Education Watch for raising iquestions about the important new study that may not bode well for Head Start, the national school readiness program that is integral to President Barack Obama's early childhood strategy.The study made its way to Congress on Wednesday.

The study found that while Head Start had a positive influence on school readiness after one year, the gains were minimal by the end of first grade. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services immediately announced plans to strengthen Head Start programs, and it will be important for journalists to follow up.

Early Ed Watch concluded that the study points to the need for giving disadvantaged children more than a a year of high quality education, and that improvements in teacher training for Head Start and all pre-kindergarten programs are needed. W. Steve Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, offered another perpective: he noted that the findings "are based on comparing children who went to Head Start with other children who likely also received some kind of preschool experience – sometimes Head Start in another place or a state-funded pre-K program. It is especially significant because that kind of comparison will not likely show big differences."

He also pointed out in a press release released by NIEER that "the promises of Head Start can only be fulfilled if the program is funded and staffed at the levels that have proven to make a real difference in the lives of children, something that has not happened in the entire 40-year history of the program.''

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted in a press release that Head Start must be improved. “The program provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition and social services to low income children and families,'' she noted. “Still, for Head Start to achieve its full potential, we must improve its quality and promote high standards across all early childhood programs.”

How will questions and concerns about the future of Head Start be addressed? EarlyStories has noted repeatedly that this is an issue worth paying attention and too often ignored by the press.

A study about childhood literacy and then an unrelated story about adults who cannot read out of Chicago prompted some thought about literacy here at EarlyStories.

The study from the University of British Columbia, found that neighborhoods where children live while they are in kindergarten predict their reading comprehension skills seven years later. Published in the journal Health & Place, , the researchers found a "delayed effect" of the residential environments in which children are raised.

"The researchers say it's possible that the socioeconomic conditions of children's early residential neighborhoods exert a strong effect later because acquiring reading skills involves the collective efforts of parents, educators, family friends and community members, as well as access to good schools, libraries, after-school programs and bookstores, '' according to an article about the study in Science Daily.

The interesting story about adult illiteracy out of Chicago prompted EarlyStories to think once again about how and why some 23 percent of the U.S. population cannot read, according to statistics from the National Center for Family Literacy. The story described a vibrant volunteer culture for a program known as Open Books in Chicago, where the number of adults who cannot read is even higher.

The story did not delve into what kind of early childhood education, if any, the adults who want to learn how to read had previously. And yet, the question must be raised. How could such large numbers of our population be so deficient in reading skills? What does that say about the way reading is -- or is not taught?

An interesting report today from the recession battered state of Michigan: It found that pre-school attendance saves taxpayers money and can be a sound investment by giving youngsters a foundation they need to become productive members of society.

The report comes at a time when Michigan, struggling with reduced tax revenues and high unemployment, has cut many of its publicly supported early childhood programs back drastically.

The report, entitled "Cost Savings, Analysis of School Readiness in Michigan,'' found that investments the state has made in fully preparing young children for school has saved an estimated $1.15 billion over 25 years because the boost children got in pre-school programs decreased their need to repeat grades. The solid foundation also saved the state money by identifying disabilities in children early and cutting down on juvenile delinquency.

Wilder Research completed the study, commissioned by the state's Early Childhood Investment Corporation., a state-wide initiative aimed at fostering school readiness.

A story on the report in the Grand Rapids Press noted that the state-funded programs that began in Michigan some 25 years ago are geared largely for poor children who don't come to kindergarten with the same level of vocabulary and school experiences of their peers.

"Based on past participation and success rates of early education programs in Michigan, an estimated 80,000 adults, age 18 to 29, in the Michigan labor force today are high school graduates who likely would have dropped out of school if not for Michigan's past investment in their school readiness,'' the report found.

Michigan was among 10 states that lowered funding for pre-kindergarten for 2010, despite early promises from Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Teachers College professor Herbert Ginsburg recalled a story on Tuesday about a very young child who walked into a day care center and gave the teacher an urgent command:

"Teach me something."

The teacher asked the child what it was they hoped to learn, and got the reply: "You are the teacher, tell me!"

Ginsburg described the incident before a packed audience at Teachers College during a discussion about a new National Academy of Sciences report that calls for a major national initiative to improve early childhood mathematics education.

The story underscored a major point in the report: Young children are capable of learning and often want to learn a lot more math than they are offered. Low income children in particular have few opportunities to learn math and teachers aren't adequately trained or prepared to teach them, Ginsburg said as he walked through the reports findings. He also showed several videos of low-income chidren using a calendar to count by two, even without any direction.

"We need to think about how we teach and what we teach,'' Ginsburg said. The report notes that the amount of time and attention devoted to math needs to be increased in all preschools, and suggested that training of teachers must be dramatically improved so they have the confidence and the background to teach early math.

One reality check in the discussion came from Sharon Lynn Kagan , the co-director of the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College who also served on the National Academy of Science panel that produced the report.

Kagan pointed out that nearly half of young children in the U.S. are in family day care settings where there is even less of a chance they will be exposed to early math concepts.In addition, early math plays a low priority in any standards that do exist for early learning in the U.S. and little is known about the teaching of math at the pre-school level.

There is hope that some states will revamp and revise their early childhood standards and curriculum, she noted. "It may be limited to a given number of states but it will be a great opportunity for them."

A full copy of the report -- which is a terrific roadmap for story ideas -- can be found here.

For the first time, Chicago public schools will formally measure just how ready little learners are for kindergarten, by piloting a new readiness measurement, according to a story in Catalyst.

Unlike a standardized test, the tool will gauge how children are ready through a series of observations over time, and by measuring their understanding of concepts such as which words rhyme, the story notes. The tool will help educators gain a better understanding of the quality of the pre-school education a child received.

It would be interesting to see what other school districts do to formally evaluate kindergarten readiness, especially in states where there is no publicly funded pre-kindergarten. There are checklists and exams and quite a few resources that are aimed at helping parents and educators answer the question.

The new assessment tool in Chicago comes as important questions are being raised about the quality of U.S. preschool programs, especially Head Start, which serves more than a million students and is under scrutiny after a major study found gains students make fade by third grade. Experts hope the new readiness tool the Chicago Public schools plans to use will help gauge just how effective half-day programs like Head Start are.

The latest education buzz phrase is sure to be "Career to Cradle,'' and questions are already being raised about its meaning.

On Monday, President Barack Obama submitted his second budget request to Congress, and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted that the president is committed to providing a "cradle-to-career,'' education for all U.S. students.

That includes some $9.3 billion over 10 years for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, which will provide competitive grants to states that agree to expand their early learning experiences from birth through kindergarten.

EarlyStories will be interested in watching coverage of this newest acronym, along with some concerns already being expressed about its meaning. Eric Tipler at the Huffington Post expressed concerns that "career readiness,'' actually means "readiness for a career, not a back door to avoiding the children we're currently failing to educate."

And blogger Donna Garner worried that cradle to career goes too far.

"It was not enough for Obama/Duncan to control our K-12 public school children's minds through national standards, national tests, national curriculum, and a national database,'' Garner wrote in a letter she sent to two Texas senators. "Now they have revealed their plan to extend the federal government's control over our youngest children while at the same time controlling which high-school graduates will get student loans."

For his part, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the U.S. Department of education "can't wait to make these reforms."

A number of fascinating issues came up in "The Myth of the Gifted Child,'' a cover story in New York Magazine this week by Jennifer Senior that looked at intelligence tests for gifted programs. The story had lots of information that will be welcome to wealthy, connected New York City parents obsessed with getting their kids into the right private schools, including statistics on what percent of the students who graduate will attend Ivy League colleges.

It also made a point that might be welcome for parents willing to do whatever it takes -- copies of the tests can be purchased in advance for a few thousand dollars.

Far more interesting to EarlyStories, though, were interviews with experts like Samuel Meisels at Erikson Institute, who helped Senior cement the point that tests perpetuate stratification instead of really determining a superior intellect.

"Instead of giving IQ tests, you could just as easily look at zip codes and the education levels of the parents to determine who gets the better schooling -- you get a very high correlation between IQ and socio-economic status in the first seven or years of life,'' Meisels, an assessment expert and president of the Institute, told Senior. His take? Several observations of a child in a classroom setting would be a far better way to determine a child's intelligence, along with an examination of their work.

One of the more interesting observations in the story came from the director of the Calhoun School, which charges $31,240 for kindergarten. The director prefers children with a slightly rebellious and even cynical streak, and told Senior he wanted "a school full of kids who daydream....who don't want to answer the questions on those tests in the way the adult wants them to be answered, because that kid is already seeing the world differently."

But is that kind of child born, or nurtured with money, connections -- and perhaps the right zip code?

With the release of President Barack Obama's budget this week, much of the media attention has been focused on what the president hopes to do with the No Child Left Behind Law as well as his Race to the Top program. Few journalists have the luxury these days to focus exclusively on early childhood education, but those who do might want to spend some time on the website of the New America Foundation and click on the Early Ed Watch blog.

Early Ed Watch points out that Obama's priorities offer a stark contrast to budget cuts that are part of life in tough economic times, with significant boosts to an array of programs, including $989 million for Head Start. The president has also proposed another $1.6 billion for federally funded child care programs.

So what will a potential new infusion of cash mean in local communities and cash-strapped states that have cut back on pre-kindergarten and other early childhood programs? And what will other proposed changes and consolidations of early learning programs mean? The New America Foundation has come up with a list of key questions that should be a useful jumping off point as the budget battles begin to unfold.

EarlyStories was both horrified and heartened by an expose in the Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee that looked at ways thousands of children from low-income families in Wisconsin are being kept out of kindergarten.

The horrifying part were the facts laid out in the story, which found that the $350 million Wisconsin Shares program lets parents keep their 4-, 5- and even some 6-year-olds in day care centers all day - at taxpayer expense - rather than enroll them in accredited kindergarten programs.

"In some cases, unscrupulous parents are participating in an easy scam,'' the story noted. "They sign up their children with friends or relatives who provide child care. The state then pays the providers roughly $200 a week, and providers give parents a kickback."

The story found that the state's neediest children "often wind up in loosely regulated environments where little learning takes place. Day care providers aren't required to meet the standards of teachers, nor are they accountable for what children learn."

Naturally, by the time they do start school, they are lagging way behind.

The heartening part? That newspapers are still able to produce the kind of journalism that brings situations like this to public attention.

Tuesday's New York Daily News carried one of the saddest pieces EarlyStories has ever seen about parental expectations gone wrong.

In a story that is likely far more complicated than meets the eye, a U.S. soldier was arrested for waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she wouldn't say her ABC's.

Army Sgt. Joshua Taylor admitted that he punished his daughter by holding her down on the kitchen counter of their home and pushing her head backward into a full sink of water, according to the story.

This is probably not a tale about societal and/or parental expectations for pre-schoolers. It's may be more illustrative of the problems an Iraq war veteran is having adjusting to civilian life.

'He would lay her down on her back and push her head into the water right up to her eyeline. He was open about it," Todd Stancil, the police chief in Yelm, Washington, is quoted as saying in the story. "He did it all the time. To him, that was an acceptable form of punishment - because she wasn't able to say the alphabet."

Tabor will be arraigned next month, and is out on bail and restricted to his base. It's difficult to fathom what the father expected of the child and if she had real learning issues that might be identified.

Again, this is a story that is far sadder -- and more complicated -- than a few sensational paragraphs about learning the ABC's might convey.

In an unusually blunt answer, the founder of Harlem Children's Zone recently described how he defines success at the anti-poverty program he started in Harlem in 2004.

"The only benchmark of success is college graduation,'' Geoffrey Canada told Helen Zelon of City Limits magazine, where Zelon's excellent series appears this month. "That's the only one: How many kids you got in college, how many kids you got out. Everything else is interim."

Canada's remarks were particularly instructive because the "cradle to college,'' program he began in Harlem in 2004 has been cited as a model for President Barack Obama's "Promise Neighborhoods.'' Obama wants to see 20 poverty reduction campaigns in areas around the country that, like the Harlem Children's Zone, offer services to new parents even before the child sets foot in a school. The best programs support children all the way to college.

There's a great deal of interest in how Canada's program works, and the best source for truly understanding both the ideas behind Harlem Children's Zone and the difficulty of succeeding are described in "Whatever it Takes," by Paul Tough, a former New York Times writer.

Journalists throughout the U.S. should be learning more about Canada's programs as the communities they cover contemplate similar models, and Zelon's pieces are another great jumping off point. Hope or hype? Zelon asks.

Zelon perfectly captured the lockstep approach to Canada's pro-college philosophy in an interview with Patrice Ward, who teaches ninth-grade English language arts, African-American film, and college prep.

"Everyone is here for the same greater purpose,'' Ward said. "Everyone exudes it and will support you in it. So the students, from every person they encounter, are going to get the same message: That they can succeed, that they can go to college, and here's what you need to do. No, you're not going to fall apart—no, we're not going to let you have a bad day—we want you to succeed, we're going to push you in that direction."

Can how well a baby crawl yield information about how well they learn once they reach kindergarten? A recent story from the BBC about new research on the topic in England found that babies who did not reach expected milestones in areas like crawling and holding objects were more likely to have learning and behavior problems once they started school.

The research from London University's Institute of Education looked at 15,000 children in the United Kingdom and concluded that delays in the first year of their lives had a significant impact on their behavior and cognitive development. The researchers also found a gap in ability "between children growing up in persistent poverty and those in families that had never received means-tested benefits."

The researchers noted that similar conclusions had been reached in previous research, but said their new work showed for the first time that development delays -- along with the "psychological characteristics of the mother and the quality of her relationship with the child,'' are tied into both cognitive and behavioral development, even in poor families.

Some of the research is included in a new book by The Policy Press, Children of the 21st century, available here:

Early Ed Watch is taking on a critical and vastly undercovered issue in a series of blog posts on dual language learning in early childhood. The blog hopes to address ways that both policymakers and educators can improve dual language education in the U.S.

"The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that by 2030 Latino children will constitute 25 percent of the total student population." a recent post notes. "As of 2007-2008, approximately 26 percent of children enrolled in Head Start Pre-K programs speak Spanish and are classified as dual language learners. And, beyond the booming Latino population in the United States, other immigrant populations are growing too, posing a challenge to teachers in the early grades who provide these students with their first exposure to school and, sometimes, their first exposure to the English language as well."

Think of all the challenges these statistics recognize. Early childhood issues get little coverage in the media, and even less space is devoted to how immigrant children will be prepared in U.S. schools as their numbers continue to grow. The list of questions posed in Early Ed Watch are ones journalists across the U.S. should be asking of educators and policy makers. The blog raises lots of good ones.

Some fascinating findings came out of a comprehensive survey of U.S. teachers, released this morning at Scholastic headquarters in lower Manhattan. The results of a questionnaire on American education sent to some 40,000 teachers found many teachers have doubts about the ability of their students to succeed after high school.

Nine out of 10 teachers said that not all of their students could leave high school prepared to succeed in college. The teachers had lots of ideas and recommendations about how to better prepare them, and the 100-page report that came out of a collaboration between Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is filled with strategies and ideas for moving forward.

The report should be required reading for all education journalists, but EarlyStories was particularly interested in what the findings mean for the way the U.S. does -- or does not -- educate children well before they even set foot in a classroom. Beth Prince, a kindergarten teacher at Hearst Elementary School in Washington, D.C. was on hand to share some of her thoughts on the topic.

"If you get it right in the early years, from pre-kindergarten to third grade, and look at early learning styles, you can get that spark and love for learning going early on,'' said Prince, who has worked with young children in private child care and public school settings for over 19 years. Prince said she always notices the difference when children arrive in kindergarten without having attended a pre-school, nursery school or a Head Start program.

"They don't have that letter and number recognition, or that sense of having been read to,'' she said, adding that children who start kindergarten without any formal sitting have particular difficulty sitting still.

Francie Alexander, Scholastic's chief academic officer and a former kindergarten teacher, noted that the findings of teachers confirm the importance of establishing trust with parents early on. "It really starts in kindergarten,'' she said. "Parents really want to know how my child is doing."

One finding that supported that view came from teachers, who said family support is a critical part of keeping students engaged in school. Teachers cited a lack of encouragement from family and friends as a major obstacle to student success.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was on hand to hear the results of the survey and called it "one of the most reveting conversations I've experienced. Teachers will tell you their real world experiences if you listen."

While the survey was anonymous, excerpts of their remarks appear throughout the report from both elementary, middle and high school teachers that provide insight into their thinking on everything from student achievement to standards, performance pay and retention.

Harris Interactive conducted the survey, which also provides an in-depth look at state-by-state data that show how teachers in different states view the issues.

Vicki L. Phillips, the director of education, College Ready at the Gates Foundation, said the findings show that teachers support a stronger curriculum that relates to the establishment of clear academic standards and reliable data on student learning.

"The survey tells us that what's good for students and student achievement is good for teachers too -- in fact, it's what they want,'' she said.

One other interesting note about what teachers think is important to keeping good teachers in the classroom: good leaders. More teachers say it is absolutely essential to have supportive leadership (68%), time to collaborate (54%), and quality curriculum (49%) than it is to have higher salaries.

At the end of a lengthy Associated Press story on a battle for pre-kindergarten funding in Virginia, a quote stood out that begs for an answer and a response.

Republican Kirk Cox of Colonial Heights, who is a member of the legislative panel working to finalize the state's budget, said that Virgina has more than doubled funding for its pre-K program in recent years.

“It’s not a core function of education,” Cox is quoted as saying. “Every dollar you put into pre-K is a dollar you take out of the classroom.”

The quote came at the end of a story similar to one being written by statehouse reporters all over the U.S., as states are under pressure in a weakened economy to slash budgets and make painful choices.

The story detailed how teachers and advocates for a program that puts low-income children in Virginia testified before lawmakers and urged them not to cut the Virgina Preschool Initiative.

They described how the program helps get children ready for kindergarten and helps level the playing field with those from more advantaged homes. There were plenty of clear arguments quoted about the value and benefits of of pre-kindergarten, an issue the state continues to debate even as the new Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has urged that pre-k programs not be cut.

So what about the "core function,'' quote? It's important to hear from both sides in any debate about education spending, but EarlyStories still would like an explanation of what is a core function. How exactly would funding pre-k take other dollars out of the classroom? What specifically would have to be cut?

Those making arguments on the other side have to be ready to answer and defend the role of pre-k as "a core function,'' at a time when every dollar spent on every program is coming into question. Rhetoric isn't helpful. Facts and explanations are.

How often have you heard children answer "recess,'' when asked the following question: What is the best part of your day at school?

Who can blame them? EarlyStories wouldn't mind running and jumping around outdoors in the middle of the day if given the opportunity. What's interesting about the concept of recess, however, is the new life and attention it is getting from the media and from bloggers, including my excellent colleagues over at Early Ed Watch and Birth to Thrive.

The discussion started anew last month after the New York Times ran a piece about how much sense it might make to reschedule recess for before, instead of after lunch. Writer Tara Parker-Pope last year in a column looked at new research findings that children who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none.

This week, Paul Nyhan noted on his blog that some 30 percent of students in a study published in the journal Pediatrics have little or no recess at all.

At a press conference this week at Scholastic headquarters, Beth Prince, a kindergarten teacher in Washington, D.C., said that many of her students show up at kindergarten unable to focus in class because they've spent too much time in front of television, computer and video game screens. Prince noted that while she can't control the technology they are exposed to at home, her preferred solution is more outdoor time. "These kids need to run around,'' she said.