The Washington Post picked up on an important trend that journalists covering pre-kindergarten issues ought to be aware of and to follow closely. The growing Hispanic population will continue to change the nature of and makeup of schools.In three suburban counties outside of Washington D.C. the number of children ages 4 and younger who are minorities has reached 60 percent, according to Census Bureau figures used by The Post.

Not all of the immigrants are Hispanics, but the growth of that population will force school systems to accommodate larger numbers of immigrant students whose parents do not speak English at home.

Some important follow-up questions and stories remain. Are school systems hiring much larger numbers of English as-a-second language teachers and does that include pre-kindergarten and kindergarten? What are their qualifications and is there a shortage? Are language barriers creating other issues for these children and for schools, especially with increased testing under No Child Left Behind? What other plans do local school systems have to meet and follow the needs of this changing population? Are they measuring an achievement gap between white and Hispanic students and consulting research that shows pre-kindergarten can reduce such gaps?

News of population shifts and trends is a great starting point for a host of important stories and follow-up.

(With convention approaching editorial writers want to hear more specifics on education)

As the presidential nominating conventions approach, editorial writers and others are taking note and wondering why education is remaining so far in the background. Today's Washington Post gave credit to Democrat Barack Obama for paying a bit more attention to the topic, including an emphasis on early childhood education . It also credited Republican John McCain for outlining more of his views to the public in his acceptance speech before the National Association of Colored People.

But the editorial asked a question on the minds of educators, advocates and citizens everywhere -- where are specifics, and where are proposals for sweeping change? And why isn't the public hearing more of them?

Eduwonk weighed in today with a bit of advice from guest blogger Richard Whitmire of USA Today, an editorial writer who also contributes to Education Election , which is monitoring coverage of the candidates on education issues.

And blogger Alexander Russo, meanwhile, who writes the This Week in Education blog, has reminded interested parties to keep an eye on Ed Challenge for a Change , which will be convening a forum at the Democratic Convention in Denver to highlight their own push for a new Democratic agenda around education issues.

Roaming around the WWW in search of links to the Reason Foundation Wall Street Journal commentary I came across a Kindergarten, Pre-Kindergarten, and Head Start thread on a blog that was new to me: "Jerry Moore's School Talk" Jerry seems to compile full-text news coverage on a wide variety of education topics on the blog, without comment.

One of the articles he posts is an Aug. 29 Wall Street Journal piece on a British study that attributes significant advantages in early grades math performance to having attended preschool. The study is also interesting in that it attempts to isolate the
relative impact of various influences on children, such as a mother's education, father's education and so on. Interesting stuff.

Last night's hour-long comparative look at American education on PBS added to the growing renown of Harlem Children's Zone president and CEO Geoffrey Canada. The documentary had some scenes from the preschools HCZ operates and quotes Canada saying that his goal is to have the children who attend "on grade level" when they enter kindergarten. In his video on YouTube Canada talks about the need to take care of Harlem children from birth on, "at every developmental stage." Here's a video of Canada talking about the work of the HCZ.

Early Ed Watch has two entries highlighting new analyses of economic returns from investments in early childhood education. Here and here. Have I said recently what a valuable resource Early Ed Watch is?

Who Should Be Eligible For Pre-Kindergarten? Tune in to Hechinger Webinar November 12 at 1:30 p.m. EDT

The troubled economy is taking its toll on the middle class in many ways, including the cost of pre-kindergarten for the many who are not eligible for publicly funded programs.

Doug Besharov, American Enterprise Institute

Speakers will include Albert Wat of Pre-K Now, who is working on a major report on what the organization calls the "middle class squeeze." The report – which will be released during the webinar -- will analyze the financial challenge many families face in accessing and paying for high quality pre-kindergarten education and include case examples of actual families across the country.

Participating journalists will have an exclusive chance to speak with Wat, and hear expert

commentary and ask questions of Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute and William Gormley of Georgetown University.

Reporters can sign up on line here

William Gormley, Georgetown University

A good place to read more on the topic comes in Jay Mathews' Washington Post piece this week.

Headlines proclaiming cutbacks in pre-kindergarten expansions and other education programs are common in these tough times, as are editorials questioning the extent states can afford them. An example of the new cautionary tone appeared in the Topeka-Capital Journal in Kansas earlier this month.

Journalists who are covering the story of strapped state legislatures are reporting on governors like Deval Patrick, who is scaling back early childhood education reforms in Massachusetts. There's no shortage of examples, including Stateline.org's Legislative Year in Review , which comes at a time when some states are considering asking the federal government for loans.

It's important to note that in the midst of all the bad economic news, many state legislatures are continuing to make pre-kindergarten a priority. Pre-K Now released a report last month noting that net state investments in pre-k will increase by more than $309 million nationally, to $5.2 billion in the next fiscal year.

The report is a good resource for journalists as the story of the economic downturn and its impact on education spending continues to unfold on the eve of the presidential election.

As U.S. voters go to the polls and anxiously await the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election, Learning Matters , the production company covering education issues, is offering some expert advice to the next leader.

While education has not been top of the agenda in this historic campaign, Learning Matters posed a question to expert educators, parents, students and policy makers: What must the next president do to fix our country's education system?

There are some fascinating answer available at a click, ranging from Teachers College early childhood professor Sharon Lynn Kagan to author and scholar Mike Rose of the UCLA Graduate School of Education.

For more clarification on where Senators John McCain and Barack Obama stand on education you can also listen to the Oct. 21 debate between his education advisors or read the transcript..

As President-elect Barack Obama gets ready to visit the White House today, he's getting no shortage of advice. some of it on an Education Week blog about fulfilling the promise of his early education proposals. Bruce Fuller, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, weighs in as well, reminding Obama that increasing access to quality pre-schools for poor families is a strategic long-term investment.

Of course, when it comes to the education of their own two elementary-school aged daughters, the Obama family is also getting lots advice. Jay Mathews of the Washington Post took a look at some of the options and found a compelling public elementary school near the White House where the principal noted she would be more than willing to make room for two mid-year transfers from the Midwest. While choosing a public school would be a powerfully symbolic gesture, the Obamas are also said to be considering the private Georgetown Day, where tuition tops $25,000 annually for elementary school students.

High quality pre-kindergarten has become something of an elusive luxury for middle class parents, caught between rising prices, the housing crisis and stagnating wages, according to report released by Pre-K Now during a Hechinger Institute Webinar on Wednesday.

The report provides a great starting point for rich and worthwhile stories journalists should be telling about the hard choices middle class American families are making as they struggle to pay mortgages and credit card debt and worry about holding onto their jobs.

Families earning too much to qualify for state-funded programs but not enough for higher quality private schools in some cases are choosing substandard care or keeping their children out of pre-kindergarten altogether, said the report’s author Albert Wat, a policy analyst for Pre-K Now.

Middle-class families and their children need and would benefit from voluntary, high-quality pre-k indergarten programs funded by their states but they often don't have access to them, notes the report, which calls for states and the federal government to expand such programs. Wat found that the average middle class family of four, living in a state with a public pre-k program, spent about 29% of their income on pre-kindergarten for their two children.

"Middle class families are feeling increasingly pessimistic about their financial situationn,'' Wat noted during the webinar, which will be available on the Hechinger Institute's website.

The webinar also offered views from William Gormley of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, the author of a study on the benefits of Oklahoma's early childhood programs. Gormley's study found students experienced substantial gains and that the negative effects of family and environmental risk factors can be lessened by a strong preschool program.

Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute, , pointed out that emphasizing the needs of the middle class can divert attention from the most needy children in the U.S. He said the federal government help poor children by strengthening federal Head Start programs.

The report comes at a time when 80 percent of Americans believe it is more difficult to maintain their standard of living than it was five years ago, and some twenty percent think their children will have a lower standard of living than they do.

Rising expenses and declining incomes are leaving more Americans in debt, although many still earn too much to qualify for state-funded pre-k programs.

The report's recommendations include a phase-in plan to expand pre-k to all children, using factors other than family income to define eligibility, creating full-day programs to meet the needs of working families and extending eligibility for voluntary pre-k to three year-olds.

With new evidence every day that the U.S. economy has run off the rails, there apparently is much talk in D.C. education circles about including a big federal investment in early childhood education as part of the Obama administration's stimulus package. Andy Rotherham of Eduwonk fame surfaces the idea here. He wonders, however, whether spending money to build new classrooms wouldn't provide more immediate stimulus.

While it's true that a lack of space hinders the growth of some pre-k programs, and it's also true that, as Rotherham notes, charter schools need better facilities, I think helping states expand or maintain existing pre-kindergarten programs would provide a more immediate stimulus. It also would show Obama's commitment to helping the middle class.

Why? Because states may be forced to cut back on their pre-kindergarten programs without federal help. A Wall Street Journal article reports that, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, states have cut $53 billion from their 2008 and 2009 budgets and 43 states will have to make additional cuts. During a Hechinger Institute-organized discussion with reporters last month, Michael Bird of NCSL reported that 17 states will have deficits of between 5% and 10% in the coming year. Over the next couple of years, he said, states may have to cut as much as $150 billion in spending.

So far, pre-k has mostly been spared. PreKnow, the policy advocacy and analysis organization, reported last month that 32 of 38 states with pre-k programs maintained or increased their spending for this year. But can that last in the face of such deficits? Another PreKnow reporthighlighted the trouble middle class families are having paying for high quality pre-k and said that 20 of the state program determine eligibility using income. As incomes fall, more families will qualify. If the federal government invested in expanding existing high quality programs--and raising the quality of those that are subpar--it could keep teachers on the job and help parents working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Pre-k shouldn't be viewed as an employment program, as Rotherham notes. But supporting such programs would not only help parents work it would pay long-term benefits, as would investing in infrastructure.

The story Donna St. George of the Washington Post wrote just before Christmas serves as a powerful reminder about ways parents are sacrificing their children's education and safety in this troubled economy.

St. George found more children are being left home alone because their parents can no longer afford child care, and documented a spike in complaints about unregulated and informal day-care providers that operate illegally.

The trend St. George reported in the Washington D.C. region and surrounding suburbs is one every journalist who covers early childhood issues can examine in the communities they cover. Good sources include social service commissioners and child care operators who might report a new rise in vacancies among parents who can no longer afford to pay. St. George found more examples of children left alone from housing code enforcers who in one case found a kindergarten student hiding in a closet.

Families of all income levels are experiencing difficulty,as Albert Wat points out in "The Pre-K Pinch,'' an excellent resource for journalists.

St. George followed up with yet another powerful story a few days later: child welfare workers are also seeing a marked increase in child abuse and neglect cases in the worsening economy.

An important new federal research report out today looked at 500 research studies to conclude, just as most parents would, that knowing the alphabet, the sounds of letters, the colors and other basic nouns (car, tree, house, man) and being able to write one's name when a child goes to kindergarten predicts how well children will read later on. The six-year study also found that kids who can write individual letters when asked to do so, who can remember what they've been told, and who can break words down into their sound components do better, too.

The panel's report is careful to say that its conclusions are limited by the limitations of the studies it reviewed and more research is needed on critical issues. Even so, the report raises some interesting issues that go against conventional wisdom.

--The highest impact teaching methods involved a teacher teaching a child a literacy-related skill either one-on-one or in a small group. Letting children do art or play in the kitchen area or other activities are what get more attention from preschool teachers and experts. "Many of the high-impact instructional strategies involved activities and procedures different from those typically seen in early childhood classrooms," the executive summary of the report said.

--Experts often talk about the importance of having classrooms that are "language rich" or literacy rich." The panel found few studies that looked at how much that mattered. Not that it doesn't. But the panel could not find much of a research base for it.

--The report's authors also say that the learning patterns of poor kids and better-off kids are the same. Again, that finding goes against other research that has found that poor kids need focused, more teacher-directed instruction.

There are certainly other views on these issues. Deborah Stipek at Stanford, Susan B. Neuman at the University of Michigan, and the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia are sources I'd consult in writing about this important report.

As always, of course, get out into preschools and Head Start centers to talk to them about this.

The presidential pre-school watch can officially begin.

The eyes of advocates, educators and many others are now upon President-elect Barack Obama's choice for education secretary as he initiates an early childhood agenda.

Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan made it clear that preschool expansion is among his priorities at a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Duncan said he wants to build on the successes of Head Start and Early Head Start and that he believes investment in early childhood is needed because "too many children show up at kindergarten already behind."

Before Duncan faced the Senate, the New America Foundation posed some excellent policy questions that will be useful for journalists to watch closely in the coming months.

The Senate hearing was hardly a grilling; Duncan received a warm reception and lots of applause throughout the hearing -- where his own pre-schooler read and drew.

It's refreshing to see newspapers stay on top of the many ways the economic downturn hurts small children and their families. In ailing Michigan, the Heritage newspapers reported some startling data from the annual Kids Count survey in the Michigan Data Book, finding that poverty affects one out of every four children in a state hit hard by auto industry layoffs.

The report, produced by the Michigan League for Human Services, found "stark disparities for minorities in Michigan threaten the well being of large numbers of young children and their families.''

EarlyStories would like to see journalists go beyond reporting the depressing but not surprising numbers and talk to some of the families about how they are coping. What government efforts, if any, are there? What programs are being cut? Who is hurt? What are nonprofits, also struggling, doing to help?

Are any leaders emerging during these terrible times? Journalists might want to look for inspiration at the story Paul Tough, a New York Times wrote this week in Mother Jones Magazine about the efforts of Geoffrey Canada of Harlem's Children Zone to combat poverty and educate children in a poor New York City neighborhood.

The piece describes the efforts of Canada and Harlem Children's Zone to educate poor parents and children in ways large and small, including a simple trip the Harlem Children Zone aimed at exposing young children to everyday language.

"The point wasn't to learn about nutrition, but rather about language—how to fill an everyday shopping trip with the kind of nonstop chatter that has become second nature to most upper-middle-class parents, full of questions about numbers and colors and letters and names,'' Tough wrote, describing what he saw on the trip with parents to a local supermarket. "That chatter, social scientists have shown, has a huge effect on vocabulary and reading ability.''

Tough's magazine piece looks at an effort to solve some of the most intractable problems of poverty, and grew out of his new book on the Children's Zone.

The supermarket anecdote is great example of the kind of show-don't-tell journalism needed more than ever right now, alongside the data and statistics quantifying the ways children are hurting in tough economic times.

Columnists can freely give their opinions without explanation, but Early Stories would have liked to hear the thinking behind David Brooks' op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he "fervently hope[s]'' that a Head Start expansion is dropped from the stimulus package.

Brooks clearly articulated what he believes is wrong with the $819 billion tax-and-spending bill, but he didn't say why he wants to jettison the $2.1 billion proposed for Head Start, the national program to promote school readiness. The package calls for giving $2.1 billion to allow the longest-running anti-poverty program in the U.S. to serve an additional 110,000 children. The National Head Start Association had hoped for a $4.3 billion boost for both Head Start and Early Head Start.

The NHSA noted that the $2.1 billion "would create new jobs and provide safe, high quality services for children as parents go back to work,'' and would provide help to children and families who most need it.

Early Stories decided to find out what David Brooks' objections to Head Start are, since he omitted them from his piece, and discovered a column from 2005 where he declared "there is little evidence that it actually transforms lives.''

The piece had links to a 2005 study that Brooks used as the basis for his dislike of Head Start.

If Brooks wants Head Start money out of the bill now, he owes us a cogent explanation of why Head Start should not get help in this bill. Others have expressed skepticism of the bill's education spending, but few have addressed Head Start. Sara Mead over at Early Education Watch, meanwhile, has done a good job of analyzing what the provisions could mean for early childhood education.

Early Stories did find some more objections -- not surprisingly -- from Chester Finn Jr. at the Fordham Foundation, whose conservative views may have influenced Brooks: "Forty years of evaluations have demonstrated that Head Start does next to nothing to prepare its young charges....to succeed in kindergarten and beyond,'' Finn noted.

Finn went on to describe what he dislikes about the program, which Brooks now has an obligation to do. The view may not be a popular one during this economic crisis, but it should be explained.

The possibility and promise of a new administration and new spending requires reporters to shine a light on which early childhood programs are effective, rather than to simply report the amount of money earmarked for new initiatives. Yale University psychology professor Edward Zigler offers some concrete suggestions that are worth a close read in a thoughtful Education Week piece published on Feb. 5 that looks at spending on Title 1.

The foundation of the government's commitment to closing the achievement gap is now known to all as No Child Left Behind, a cornerstone of the George W. Bush administration.

Zigler, widely regarded as one of the founding “fathers” of Head Start ,has always been a staunch advocate for children and families and a leading researcher of program and policies designed to support children and families. He calls on President Barack Obama and Congress to support a plan that "would enable Title I to evolve from a hodgepodge of efforts into a single program that had performance standards to guide quality and made Title I more accountable. ''

Zigler makes the case that spending on early childhood education is beneficial; "the younger the better,'' he says. He also says spending more federal money on it without a hard look at the results is not the answer.

Zigler wants money set aside to evaluate Title 1, nothing that the program launched in 1965 as part of then-president Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty,'' has turned into a stream of money that allows school administrators to "mount any type of initiative they feel will be beneficial to the academic progress of poor children.''

Zigler raises important questions for journalists to think about as they keep a close eye on new education spending, along with what kinds of questions to ask about how existing programs have -- or have not --worked.

Early Stories took David Brooks of the New York Times to task recently for railing against Head Start without detailing what it is about the program he dislikes. Over the weekend, a more persuasive Times opinion piece by Douglas Besharov detailed why he believes Head Start has not filled its promise.

As the House and Senate debate different versions of the $800 billion plus economic stimulus package that could see Head Start losing the $2.1 billion originally earmarked for the program, it's important for the public to ask hard questions.

Besharov, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland,says that Head Start as it is managed now is failing children, although he pointed out that Head Start programs and centers differ widely. So
what does a truly effective Head Start program look like and what kinds of statistics are available to measure it? Who is keeping track?

Besharov acknowledges that there are some "really good,'' Head Start centers and urges the centers that are less than successful to follow their example. He also notes that this is difficult to do because Head Start advocates in 2007 "persuaded Congress to eliminate the program’s new National Reporting System, which would have measured how well individual centers were doing.''

That leaves education journalists, who are busy covering K-12 systems and rarely visit Head Start centers, with a large and largely unfilled responsibility to try and find out what is happening in their own communities.

How are the Head Start graduates faring down the line? Do teachers in K-3 and beyond note any kind of differences among the children who have been through such programs? How do they measure their academic success? Are any local studies or research available?

As the political and financial support waivers and the arguments continue, these questions will remain relevant and well worth asking. In the meantime, journalists tracking the early childhood provisions can check out the different versions in this excellent chart.

Early Stories has pushed for better journalism on Head Start and for more explanation from early childhood experts who have criticized the program and urged that it not get any more federal money.

On the same day the Senate voted its approval of an $838 billion stimulus plan that provides $1 billion less than originally anticipated for Head Start, U.C. Berkeley professor David L. Kirp weighed in with a defense of the program in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Kirp warns that any decision to cut money for Head Start "is a mistake whose reverberations will be felt long after the recession is over."

Kirp, author of "The Sandbox Investment,'' argues that Head Start is indeed an "economic pump-primer,'' and noted that every Head Start dollar "means new jobs for teachers, aides and staff, many of them poor women who are the economic anchors of their communities.''

Early Stories has suggested that it's time for reporters to take a hard look at centers in their own communities. What is the quality of instruction? Are there long waiting lists to get in? How do the children do once they get out? Is anyone tracking their long-term performance?

Still confused over the differing views about Head Start? Further explanation is available over at Early Education Watch ., which takes a look at a number of recent articles on the topics and offers some new ideas as well.

While pondering the role of Head Start in the economic stimulus package, Early Stories has looked at a variety of views and lamented the lack of journalism on this longstanding and often maligned federal program.

We somehow missed an excellent piece in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, a paper whose clock may be sadly running out since the Hearst Corporation announced last month it is putting it up for sale.

The article makes several good points, noting that stimulus funding could create 300,000 more spots for children in child care -- and some 5,530 in Washington state, quoting an analysis by the national Center for Law and Social Policy.

"If you want to get smart people back in the work force, then you have to give them the opportunity to get child care that makes sense," Anna Lemchen, a North Seattle mother of two daughters told the paper.

Head Start, meanwhile, issued a press release urging that the original $2.1 billion earmarked for Head Start be maintained as negotiations continue, noting: "the truth is that up to 60,000 jobs could be created – and that is not even including related construction positions – with the $2.1 billion that Congress has discussed for Head Start and Early Head Start.''

As educators and policy makers sort through the meaning of the slimmed down compromise stimulus, journalists are trying to figure out the meaning in their own communities. How much of what was promised was cut? What will any new money be spent on? Who is setting the priorities?

A few good resources -- beyond speaking to school officials, Head Start operators and other early childhood education providers -- can be found on the Ed Money Watch blog.

Economist Steve Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research has also weighed in, and it's likely that schools of education are watching the developments closely.

Early Stories had a chance to listen to one of the top experts in the U.S. this week,
Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College, Kagan emphasized that what matters about the stimulus spending is the quality of early childhood education it may be providing money for, from child care to pre-kindergarten. The vast majority of existing programs are mediocre, she noted.

"There are very, very few high quality programs and those are the ones that produce the high effects that we tout in the research literature,'' Kagan said.

NIEER has some quality markers. Most states now have early childhood education standards. The National Assn. of Early Childhood Education has its guidelines. So does Head Start. Kagan noted one element of quality that concerns her greatly. Only 36% of Head Start teachers and 30% of child care workers have a bachelor's degree. She also worried that, as these programs expand, the teachers they hire will not have the background and training they need. "Those coming in often are less qualified than those leaving," she said.

Early Stories posed some questions this week about how pre-kindergarten students are tracked and assessed, a topic that came up in Maryland Governor O'Malley's education speech. Turns out there are many ways, and one revealing answer came from reading an excellent story by John Higgins of the Akron Beacon Journal.

Higgins examined a pilot program that aims to teach parents ways they can get their children ready for school even before they begin kindergarten. The program, sponsored by the W.K. Kellog Foundation, is successful enough that it will soon be replicated in other cities. The program relies on parent "mentors,'' who visit students in their home before they start school. They also provide advice and support to parents on how to help the children acquire pre-reading and other learning skills.

The program exists in a state where students are falling behind even before they enter kindergarten, based on the results of an Ohio assessment test that measures a child's ability to process and understand language and identify letters, rhymes and sounds. The story noted that those who scored echelon lower (In Akron, some 24 percent) tended to need special help when they get to school with everything from holding and gripping a pencil or crayon to interacting with other children. Such skills develop better with guidance and encouragement.

Data from the University of Akron's Institute for Health and Social Policy tracked the children in the program, known as SPARK, and found significant improvement on the same kindergarten assessment tests after they had completed the program.

The effort is not funded by taxpayers, but that did not stop irate readers from posting comments at the bottom of Higgins' story, complaining about the idea of giving parents guidance to help get them ready for school.

What happens to the children ultimately, the story noted, will depend on how involved parents remain with their children's education -- long after kindergarten.

In the days and weeks to come, details of President Barack Obama's stimulus package will begin to emerge. His budget is now a public document. Enterprising journalists from Ohio to Arkansas are beginning to report on how much money their states will get for pre-kindergarten, Head Start and other early childhood programs.

Early Stories firmly believes the reporting should not stop after that. Who will get the contracts and the jobs? How can the public be assured the new programs will be high quality? What types of programs will states and school districts offer and what does the research say about which are best? Who will make decisions and how will the decisions be made? Will opponents and others attempt to steer the money toward different types of programs? Will political connections play a role?

More excellent questions are posed by Sara Mead at Early Education Watch, who keeps a close eye on both the money and the larger policy implications.

It's not enough, in the recession economy, to simply report on how much money each state will get. The number is just a starting point for the many important stories waiting to be told.

As details of President Barack Obama's stimulus package trickle down to the states, journalists who dig into the emerging story are finding the new spending may not solve entrenched financial problems of districts struggling with deep budget cuts and already sending out layoff notices to teachers. Larry Abramson of National Public Radio spoke to superintendents in Florida, Michigan and California and found enormous concern. Many journalists are find themselves writing about new spending and budget cuts simultaneously.

Education Week noted the lack of specific numbers in the plan, and a variety of other concerns and questions are being asked. Richard Lee Colvin of EarlyStories raises good questions for journalists to ask as well in the latest edition of Education Next . Will the money reshape and reform the landscape of public education for years to come, he asks?

The New York Times Sam Dillon is also doing an excellent job keeping track of the many interest groups watching every move Education Secretary Arne Duncan is making around the stimulus money. Pre-K Now is closely watching the early childhood proposals and Duncan's budget.

Sometimes, it takes a video to explain why after school programs matter so much. This clip comes courtesy of TASC , or The After School Corporation, which works in New York and across the U.S. to "enhance the quality, availability and sustainability of comprehensive, daily after-school programs.''

The adorable video is filled with drawings from children in after school programs, and includes a rendition of New York City officials, including Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as Spiderman:

(Clockwise from top left corner, Joel Klein, NYC Commissioner of Youth and Community Development Jeanne Mullgrav, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Mayor Michael Bloomberg)

The video It was shown to an audience that came to honor financier and philanthropist George Soros in New York City earlier this week. It brought home how important such programs are for working parents -- and how much they truly mean to children who would otherwise have nothing to do and in many cases no supervision after school.

As education journalists examine President Barack Obama's stimulus plan it's important not to leave out what happens when class is out. After school programs are known to provide academic, emotional and social support for at-risk students, and provide a lifeline for working parents. Obama has said he wants to double spending on the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, "to serve one million more children."

The new promises and pledges come at a time when after school programs, from art to music to sports, are being cut in school disticts throughout the U.S., a story many newspapers are already following.

Journalists should visit after school programs, where children could be engaged in learning new sports, playing music, or creating art. They will learn quickly that some are better than others. Some schools and districts offer programs that are nothing more than babysitting and extra work for teachers, while others provide real instruction in skills from music to robotics. It's important to ask who is monitoring and evaluating the programs.

There are also many different kinds of different funding streams for programs. which often run in partnerships with foundations and nonprofits like TASC, founded in 1998 by Soros and the Open Society Institute (OSI) . Their $125 million investment helped build a network of daily after-school programs for New York City public school children that served 140,000 children last year.

The stimulus money may provide districts with more opportunities to expand existing programs, if deemed a priority. Who will get the contracts and who will insure that programs are high quality? What else might be cut to make way for after school programs? As existing programs are slashed, what is happening to the children who once depended upon them? Are more children being left home alone, a trend that Donna St. George of the Washington Post documented?

As Georgia mulls spending stimulus money, an advocate weighs in to try to keep the focus on the state's children, whom she says stand the most to gain.

Lauren Waits, policy director for Voices for Georgia’s Children, examined in a piece for the Daily Citizen how the stimulus money might be spent to directly improve the lives of children. Waits describes different ways the money can help, noting that the stimulus would provide Georgia with $82.8 million to subsidize child care for low income working families in a state that has never been able to serve all of its eligible families.

"These new dollars can help eliminate waiting lists for services and expand the eligibility level so more parents can be assured of safe, healthy environments for their children while they go to work,'' Waits wrote. The remarks come at a time when Georgia's Governor Sonny Perdue has said he might turn down hundreds of millions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money because he says it might not be in the state’s long-term interest to accept it.

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."

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.

Long distances and endless stretches of road have always made it challenging for youngsters in rural areas to attend pre-kindergarten, as have the lack of programs that serve them.

Many of the states that don't fund programs are sparse in population, educating children who must travel miles to go to school. A new push is now underway to provide better access to early childhood education for rural students.

Congressman Phil Hare, a Democrat from Illinois, introduced legislation last month to help give states and local school districts a boost by establishing programs and grants to school systems and community-based providers.

It will be interesting to see what the reaction is and how new programs will be funded -- will any stimulus money be involved, for example? Will communities welcome them?

A report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that rural children have the lowest level of enrollment in preschool programs, and noted that programs struggle with a lack of qualified teachers, adequate facilities and transporation. Pre-K Now's paper, "Meeting the Challenge of Rural Pre-K,'' is also a good resource for journalists looking to add context to any local battles. One interesting fact: Of the 2.69 million children between the ages of three and give who lived in rural areas in 2006, only half had access to preschool based in a center. The students from rural areas were 15 percent less likely to begin kindergarten with early literacy skills.

Education journalists who are busy juggling the many K-12 stories on their beat don't always recognize the importance of what does -- or does not -- come before. That's why it is an excellent idea to listen in next week to the 2008 State of Preschool report from the National Institute for Early Education Research that ranks all 50 states on quality standards, funding and access to state funded programs. This year the report will also look at how state budgets have been effected by the recession, and will consider the likelihood of cuts. Take a look at the yearbook from 2007 for comparison.

Journalists can tune in for a phone briefing about the 2008 report at 2 p.m. on April 6 or attend a news conference on April 8 at 10 a.m. at the Oyster Adams Bilingual School, 2801 Calvert St., NW, Washington, DC. To participate in the conference, contact Jen Fitzgerald at jfitzgerald@nieer.org or Mary Meagher at mmeagher@nieer.org. Registration for the conference call constitutes agreement to honor the embargo of the report until April 8; call-in information will be available upon registering for the call and an embargoed copy of the report will be made available.

Listening to the report is no substitute for something EarlyStories has long advocated -- visiting pre-schools and early childhood centers to see what is -- or is not -- happening. The report may provide an excellent starting point for an overview of some of the key issues at a time when planned expansions may be stalled by the weak economy, and will likely provide some excellent questions to ask as well as some stories well worth pursuing.

It's worth taking a look at what is happening to promises of pre-k expansion in states beset by economic woes, like hard-hit Michigan. Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has been a champion of education, may now be cutting a program that helped fund early literacy efforts and provided free books to poor families, the Muskegon News reports. The state has a budget gap that may be growing by $100 million a month.

Granholm has been a longtime advocate for early childhood education, proposing $31 million in her 2009 school aid bill to expand early education for children. With the state facing an unprecedented economic crisis, it's not clear what will survive.

The Great Parents/Great Start program brought nearly $90,000 to Muskegon County and is part of a project Grahom started to coordinate public and private efforts, the Muskegon News reports. But funding for the project comes at a time when auto industry woes and growing unemployement are creating a dire situation for the Midwestern state.

It is uncertain how much the federal stimulus package will ease cuts and smooth the way for long sought after education improvements.

The dichotomy between a governor's promises and expansion plans vs. economic reality is one all education journalists should be following, as governors everywhere are forced to roll back lots of earlier promises made during better times. Journalists should look up what these governors said at the time and closely scrutinize some of the programs, promises and priorities, which are now constantly shifting. Are they worth the investment? Would the money better be spent elsewhere?

The downturn economy is taking a toll on grown-ups, with a confluence of stressful events: rising unemployment, a housing crisis, income cuts and an overall sense of fear that is permeating everyday life. But how are children faring? EarlyStories was reminded why journalists should be paying closer attention, after reading Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times this week.

Herbert didn't speak to any children for his column, nor did he focus on any particular family. He wrote rather broadly and stated some obvious facts that really could be the starting point for taking a closer look at the lives of children in just about any U.S. community: "Official statistics are not yet readily available, but there is little doubt that poverty and family homelessness are rising, that the quality of public education in many communities is deteriorating and that legions of children are losing access to health care as their parents join the vastly expanding ranks of the unemployed," Herbert wrote.

He went on to describe the efforts of a Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who also is a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York. Redlener is headed to Detroit this week with a medically equipped mobile operated by the Children’s Health Fund that will provide free health and dental care to children whose parents cannot afford to pay for care. Just imagine the stories he will hear along the way.

It's important for journalists to delve into the health and well being of children in these tough times, along with covering local school news and pre-k battles. What kinds of stories are teachers hearing? Have requests for free lunch doubled and even tripled? What are schools doing in particularly hard hit communities to help the many newly laid off families along with those that have struggled in poverty for years? And how are children faring? Are they displaying signs of stress, and are schools dealing with more discipline issues, more children coming to school hungry, angry and stressed? Are they looking for these signs and providing any kind of help or assistance?

Journalists who spend time speaking with and listening to children and their families right now will find some terribly sad -- but important-- stories, just waiting to be told. EarlyStories would like to hear them.

It did not take EarlyStories long to predict the reaction to an opinion piece in The Star Press of Indiana, which described how the economically depressed state -- one of 12 that doesn't offer publicly funded pre-kindergarten -- is lagging in student achievement.

"It's obvious public schools need help when less than half of East Central Indiana schools and only half of schools statewide made adequate yearly progress benchmarks," the story notes, adding that early education advocates believe that preschool education is the logical place to start.

Many of the comments posted at the end of the story appear to be written in response to a concept, not to the story itself -- the concept that parents, and not educators, should be responsible for their child's education. "When I was a kid, I did not attend kindergarten,'' said one poster, who described going onto get two master's degrees.

Then the tired old argument comes up again in the comments; parents who cannot afford to stay home with their kids and teach them what they need in early childhood; children learn better without forced socialization, and the rant: "Why do I have to pay for your babystitters with my taxes?''

EarlyStories sees the arguments come up again and again on the comments posted to stories -- usually in states that aren't funding pre-kindergarten. And we offer one suggestion -- more high quality journalism is needed that exposes the public to latest research about the benefits of early childhood education. We also strongly believe journalists should visit early childhood programs to illustrate what is happening in the classroom -- and how effective it is -- or perhaps is not, as not all programs work well.

Fair and balanced journalism with meticulous reporting can help chip away at pre-conceived notions about pre-k, along with the many strong and sometimes ill-informed opinions that creep onto the pages of newspapers. The opinions will still exist, but some may be tempered or shaped through education.

Patrick Riccards at Eduflak, who aims to improve education "through effective communications,'' makes some helpful points that journalists covering the push and pull of pre-kindergarten expansion in a tight economy might consider -- including the very real prospect of cuts to existing programs. "We all know,'' Riccards wrote, "that once cuts come, it gets harder and harder to restore them.''

Journalists likely will be reporting on the cuts, but Riccards raises some important questions to ask in states that are pushing to expand existing programs and initiate new ones, in some cases with the help of federal stimulus money.

"How do we deliver return on investment on early childhood education? How do we make sure we have moved beyond glorified babysitting and are really focusing on instruction and academic and social preparation? How do we ensure that quality preK is measured and assessed for having true quality?" Riccards asks.

A forum held by Early Ed Watch blogger Sara Mead at the New America Foundation last week also attempted to draw conclusions from data available on early learning: it's available on their site.

Universal Pre-K for all? Not so fast, says Chester E Finn Jr., a former assistant secretary of education and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

At a time when politicians from President Barack Obama to governments are pushing the concept that all American children should receive at least a year of government funded pre-school and being applauded for their position, Finn is urging skepticism in a new book, entitled: "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut."

"For all its surface appeal, universal preschool is an unwise use of tax dollars,'' Finn writes this week in the Washington Post. "In a time of ballooning deficits, expansion of preschool programs would use large sums on behalf of families that don't need this subsidy while not providing nearly enough help to the smaller number of children who need it most. It fails to overhaul expensive but woefully ineffectual efforts such as Head Start.''

Finn's views are likely to be challenged and questioned in the coming weeks -- as they almost always are. Yet it's important for journalists covering pre-kindergarten to be aware of arguments against universal pre-kindergarten when reporting on both the new federal and state push for early childhood education expansion. The story of pre-k should not be told entirely from the viewpoint of advocates and politicians.

As EarlyStories often points out, there is no substitute for visiting existing programs and looking for research on their impact. If none is available, journalists can ask kindergarten and educators in early grades what they've noticed about students who have been enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs vs. those who have not. Also, what are the costs associated with universal pre-k and who is monitoring the quality? Who benefits the most? And given the financial bind many states are in, what will other education programs have to be sacrificed to expand pre-K?

More than half a million children school-aged and younger are suddenly stranded at home due to swine flu concerns, leaving parents who in many cases are already experiencing financial hardship scrambling. On very quick notice, they must find alternative child care settings or leave children home alone because they can't miss work. As the New York Daily News pointed out, parents who work in hourly-wage jobs or who are off the books are hurt the most because they can't easily take time off.

The sudden and mysterious spread of the virus is exposing the lack of back-up care and safety nets for families throughout the U.S. With schools closed amid fear of spreading disease, alternative child care settings aren't easily arranged. In Texas, children were fighting cabin fever earlier this month while their schools were being disinfected.

Some 14,000 New York City children are home this week and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked companies to show some flexibility and allow parents to take time off if they can; he's said that decisions to close schools must be weighed with inconvenience to families.

Texas families have been scrambling as well, with many schools closed for two weeks. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged teachers and parents to continue learning at home, via a series of government websites described here.

The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies compiled resources for families, but the emergency situation many find themselves in now won't be solved by a web site. It's not entirely clear that closing schools will stop the spread of flu, but one thing is clear: once schools are shut down, working parents have to find instant child care solutions for as long as the doors remain shut.

What kind of a difference can high-quality pre-school make in the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged children? This is no small question. EarlyStories poses the concept as a reminder of what journalists must keep in mind at a time when President Barack Obama is pushing an expansion as part of his broader education agenda.

Educator and author Gordon MacInnes lays out lessons on the difference a federal role can make by examining what happened in high-poverty New Jersey school districts that have shown significant improvement by focusing on early literacy. His piece in Education Week describes how borrowing the practices of an intensive early literacy program in pre-school has led to improvements that can be seen all the way through eighth grade.

MacInnes, who devoted four decades to government service and leadership on issues related to education, poverty, and urban living is also realistic about the obstacles of establishing successful pre-school programs. Those obstacles and the political and financial fights are often the focus of media coverage.

"Expanding high-quality preschool opportunities is a much more complicated endeavor than it may at first appear," MacInnes writes. "Two major obstacles are usually overlooked: The leadership in many urban districts does not accept the connection between a quality preschool opportunity and stronger literacy; and early-childhood education is still a stepchild in most universities, state education departments, and district headquarters."

MacInnes' remarks open the door for many questions to be asked of school superintendents, even though journalists who cover K-12 school systems don't tend to focus on pre-school, unless there is a battle involved. Why nost ask superintendents exactly how they view the importance of pre-school and what connection they see to achievement later on? In districts with established programs, is anyone studying how students do later on or tracking the difference in achievement between those who have been in pre-school vs. those who have not?

Finally, if program claims that it has successfully improved early literacy, what is the evidence beyond test scores? What do successful early literacy programs look like in action? What is the curriculum, what books are used and how are the teachers being trained? What are the expectations for the children?

New Jersey journalists are likely to have taken on many of these questions while covering Abbott v. Burke, the nation’s most prescriptive and sweeping state supreme court ruling on school finance. MacInnes served from 2002 to April 2007 as assistant commissioner for Abbott Implementation for the New Jersey Department of Education, so he's clearly familiar with what went wrong and right in the quest to improve academic achievement in the state’s poorest cities.His piece this week poses larger questions that are relevant to coverage of this issue nationally, especially as it becomes a priority in the Obama administration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sign-up on the Hechinger website.

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

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

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

EarlyStories spends a great deal of time commenting on the way early childhood education is covered by journalists, and pointing out new ways to think about the issue and get inside classrooms for visits. Now there is a new guide available with a wealth of resources all in one place: "Covering the Pre-K Landscape: New Investments in Our Littlest Learners,” the newest publication from the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media. The 20-page publication includes guidance for covering all aspects of the rapidly expanding pre-k landscape, from Head Start to state-sponsored pre-k programs.

Barbara Kantrowitz, staff editor for the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, edited the guide, conceived by the Institute's director Richard Lee Colvin and written largely by longtime former Education Week assistant editor Linda Jacobson, along with Karen Springen, formerly of Newsweek and Hechinger Institute staff.

Kantrowitz notes that the guide is important because education reporters for years neglected coverage of preschool in favor of k-12 or higher education issues. But in the last decade, early childhood education has jumped to a prominent place on the national agenda with huge increases in state and federal spending for the littlest learners. The Obama administration is accelerating that trend, by allocating billions for Head Start and other programs that reach young children. Suddenly, preschool is on the front pages. What brought about this dramatic change? And what’s the wisest way to spend the new federal dollars?

A major message is the importance of skepticism when covering preschool. Policy makers and advocates often cite studies showing that every dollar spent on preschool returns as much as $17 in savings on future social services. The guide points out that much of this research was conducted on high-quality programs and many preschools today do not meet those same standards. There’s a useful list of things to look for in assessing whether a preschool is doing a good job (and signs that the school is failing its students). The publication also includes a rundown of experts and research studies to guide further reporting. The publication was funded with a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

To request a copy, email Hechinger@tc.edu.

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.

EarlyStories often pushes journalists to spend time visiting early childhood classrooms and to see the area as a rich source of story ideas. Sometimes it takes a little jump start to see the connection, and that's why it's an excellent idea to apply for the Journalism Center on Children & Families conference in September "Ladder of Success:Covering Early Childhood Learning.''

Competitive fellowships are available that include travel subsidies, and the 20 journalists who attend will have a chance to hear from some of the top experts in the field. Topics will include the debate about who should attend public preschool, how to train early childhood teachers and ways of educating immigrant children. Experts include Ellen Galinsky, Gene Steuerle, Margaret Freedson and Joan Lombardi.

It's a great chance to get out of the newsroom and come back with ideas, sources and perspective on an issue that is gaining increasing importance due to President Barack Obama's agenda of unprecedented federal involvement and investment in early childhood. Anyone with questions can call 301-405-8808.

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.

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

At a time when many states are having to scale back on long-planned pre-kindergarten expansions, Oklahoma is taking advantage of $15 million in stimulus funds to help support three new early childhood centers, according to published accounts.

Oklahoma is is indeed facing tough fiscal times. Gov. Brad Henry has noted that state revenues are declining, but has pushed for the early childhood programs with the help of the Kaiser Family Foundation and matching funds from the Tulsa Public Schools.

Oklahoma has long been thought of as a leader in early childhood education, especially the state's emphasis on enrolling disadvantaged children. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact the early childhood education centers will have on education in the state in the years to come.

Henry is making some pretty big promises, and the press -- along with researchers -- are going to have to do a lot of follow-up work to get a sense of both the quality and the impact the new centers will have in Tulsa and beyond.

"They will be the first of their kind in the nation," Henry said during his annual state-of-the-state speech to the Tulsa Metro Chamber of Commerce this week, according to the Tulsa World. "Tulsa will continue to be a leader in early childhood education."

What kind of a leader remains to be seen.

EarlyStories is keeping a close eye on efforts to bolster early childhood education in North Dakota, one of only 12 in the U.S. that does not offer any state-funded programs. The state has long resisted the idea, so any conversation around the concept brings out advocacy groups in force.

That is what happened last week at a summit organized in Bismarck by the Head Start State Collaboration Office, according to an article in The Bismarck Tribune.. The story pointed that out only about 8,725 children out of some 40,000 children in this rural state are enrolled in either a nursery school or a special program such as Head Start.

Those are very small numbers, so it will be interesting to see what could change as a result of these early conversations. Will North Dakota continue to resist funding programs at a time of unprecedented federal interest and involvement in an early childhood agenda? Will it embrace President Barack Obama's belief that what happens in the early years pays big dividends for education later on?

It's particularly interesting to watch what is happening in North Dakota, a state where kindergarten teachers backed a proposal to require youngsters to be a bit older when they enter first grade. If they get better preparation beforehand, will the age matter as much?

EarlyStories remembers well what it's like to drum up school stories during the summer. Typically, education journalists focus on administrative changes and budget matters. That's why it was nice to see Gregory Trotter of the Springfield News Leader delve deep into an important early childhood initiative in the state of Missouri. The state lags in its support for early childhood education, ranking 33rd out of the 38 states that provide funding for preschool programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.

Trotter's story described "Kindergarten Camp,'' as "a Community Partnership of the Ozarks summer program and a pivotal part of a new federally funded community initiative designed to prepare more children for kindergarten.''

The story pointed out that about 20 percent of children in the Springfield Missouri area show up to kindergarten ill-prepared for learning, and described (by visiting the program and spending time in it) how the various lessons help get children ready for what they will experience when they enroll in school.

It's important to see such efforts highlighted in the state if Missouri at a time when the state's new education commissioner is touting the benefits of early childhood education. Journalists play an important role in describing how programs such as Kindergarten Camp work. How do they help kids get ready for school and why are they important? Is it the best use of public money in tough financial times? How well run are they and is the staff well trained and prepared? Kindergarten camps exist in many states, and are often well worth a visit and a story.

Tough economic times have made the concept of back-to-school shopping particularly painful for needy families. That's why it was at first heartwarming to read a New York Daily News story about a $200 gift to New York families who receive food stamps or welfare, courtesy of billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The gift was supplemented with $140 million in federal stimulus funds.

The News story interviewed parents who are plenty grateful for the cash, and who were planning to buy backpacks, school supplies, notebooks and clothing they could not otherwise afford. The money is intended to be a grant for children ages 3 through 17, and it comes with no restrictions.

But EarlyStories stumbled across one troubling quote from Ana Barcos of Corona, Queens, where according to the story some 200 people waited outside a check-cashing business.

"Times are really tough right now. The situation is bad with money. So it's easy to want to use the money for other things," Barcos said.

How can anyone be sure just how the money will be used?

Critics have complained that money should be used instead to create jobs or reduce property taxes, but EarlyStories wonders instead why the money wasn't instead doled out as gift certificates, to make sure the littlest learners come to school prepared with the supplies they need to learn.

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 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.

Typically, stories about pre-kindergarten focus on one school district or the cuts and issues facing one state. That's why EarlyStories is a big advocate of seeing the big picture, something that is particularly difficult for journalists who cover early childhood education as part of a larger K-12 system to do. Education Week had a story this week that does a good job of describing some of the new and major trends in early education that provide a context for what is happening locally.

The story noted that "the worst recession in decades has certainly taken a toll on state budgets,'' citing figures from The National Conference of State Legislatures showing that states faced revenue shortfalls of $143 billion collectively -- a figure that won't come as a surprise to those who have been covering statehouse budget battles. At the same time, though, President Barack Obama is attempting to push an ambitious early childhood agenda that will include many new sources of funding.

Education journalists should be looking for local angles and ways to follow the money within the Early Learning Challenge Fund bill which is expected to provide $8 billion over the next eight years to improve early learning programs.

A Washington Post story noted that bill will "help states improve a hodgepodge of early education programs from birth to kindergarten,'' via a state grant competition akin that will push reforms and aim "to raise the quality of child-care and preschool programs that often provide highly uneven educational results.''

Colleen Wixon explored at a very important issue this month when she examined what happens to children who don't attend pre-school -- in many cases because of the economic situation they find themselves in. Wixon's story in the Indian River Press Journal of Vero Beach, Florida, laid out the many reasons why children who skip preschool are behind socially once they enter kindergarten, and described how the hard-hit Florida communities she covers are feeling the impact of the economic downturn.

"Non-working parents are keeping their children home. Preschools and day care centers are seeing a decline in enrollment. Many day cares and preschools along the Treasure Coast are closing because of that declining enrollment,'' Wixon reported. Those facts alone are newsworthy, but she also reached out to experts who could help families understand just why and how early childhood education is important before the start of kindergarten.

The lag in pre-school attendance in the Vero Beach area comes at a time when more than 300 families are on the waiting list for subsidized child care in one of the counties Wixon covers; in another 800 families are on a list.

EarlyStories believes it is more important than ever for journalists to explain what should happen in a high quality pre-school so that parents who are strapped economically can make the best choices and understand the consequences -- and the choices.

It would also be useful for readers to hear from kindergarten teachers on their experiences.
Do they notice a big difference in students who have been to pre-school vs. those who have not? And what difference has Florida's free, voluntary prekindergarten made in terms of school readiness?

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.

Two recent articles shed light on some of the pressures our youngest learners are facing, not through any choice of their own. The first was a fascinating piece in Sunday's New York Times magazine by Paul Tough, the author of "Whatever it Takes.'', which focuses on the Harlem Children's Zone's efforts to improve education for children from birth on.

Tough's piece, entitled, "Can the right kind of play teach self control?'' examined a relatively new way of getting little learners ready for the world they will one day face, via a curriculum that addresses a cognitive ability known by the non-child friendly term "executive function.''

According to Tough, the "new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development, " although he acknowledged that the phrase "sounds more as if it belongs in the boardroom than the classroom.''

EarlyStories enjoyed reading all about the concept, but could not get past the photographs that told their own story: the children looked positively grim, and in some cases deeply unhappy.

On Monday, Meredith Kolodner of the New York Daily News broke a story about an assessment regime for three and four-year-olds in the city's public pre-kindergarten programs, aimed at getting information about developmental delays.

The story raised questions about the relability of testing for children so young, and included the voices of parents who wonder why their children would be tested.

Reading the two stories comes at a time when the press has been focusing on the need for early childhood education to become more playful, so it set up some interesting questions.

What do we want from our next generation of learners, and what are the best ways to get them there?

Diane D'Amico of the Atlantic City Press in New Jersey went where few journalists venture last week, when she took a close look at New Jersey's state nurse family partnership program. The story notes that by age three, children from low-income families "are lagging behind their middle- and upper-class counterparts in vocabulary development," and describes a program that is attempting to reach younger children.

It showed how a nurse with the program worked with a young mother throughout her pregnancy, encouraging her to graduate from high school and providing tools and tips, including a book, to help the mom give her baby a jump start on learning.

The issues D'Amico points out are timely, in part because President Barack Obama pushed an agenda that included an emphasis on early education. The higher education bill the House of Representatives passed in September includes $8 billion over eight years for the Early Learning Challenge Fund -- aimed at improving programs for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, D'Amico points out.

Journalists should be on the lookout for ways this money will be spent. D'Amico wrote about the state's nurse family partnership program, and Family Success Centers that provide various services; she even attended a Baby Bounce program at the Atlantic City library. Similar programs exist or may be starting throughout the U.S.

EarlyStories suggests reaching out to see what kinds of new programs or money might be available for youngsters, even before the enter pre-school. Who are the funders? What is the agenda and the reach? Are families taking advantage -- is there a documented need, or waiting lists? The EarlyEd watch blog is also a terrific resource for following early childhood policy and funding developments.

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.

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.

Journalists following early childhood issues should take a look at a new report released from Pre-K Now, which found that twenty nine states and the District of Columbia chose to increase funding for pre-kindergarten education or hold it study, despite the tough economic times their governments are facing.

The report includes a wealth of information on state budgets that will be helpful to education journalists, along with examples of how certain states are using money from the federal stimulus package to help pay for pre-k programs. It's a key issue at a time when President Barack Obama is pushing unprecedented federal investment in early childhood.

According to the report:
* Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia increased or are projected to increase pre-k investments by a total of more than $187 million.
*Thirteen legislatures increased investment in existing programs by nearly $130 million: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
* Two states that previously had no state pre-k programs approved pilot initiatives: Alaska and Rhode Island.
* Nine states and the District of Columbia anticipate increases through the school funding formula (Texas is included in this group as well but counted only once in the tally of 23 states with increased investments).

EarlyStories will be keeping a close eye on coverage of the new education agendas in New Jersey and in Virginia, two states where tightly fought governors elections went to Republicans. The New Jersey race between Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine and Chris Christie was particularly notable because of remarks Christie made during the campaign, attacking Corzine's record on early education spending and likening preschool to "babysitting.''

Christie has said he is in favor of authorizing more charter schools and establishing a private school voucher system; Corzine at one point hoped to bring all day pre-school to every district in the state, although budget realities interfered. New Jersey has become a national leader in providing high quality pre-kindergarten; what will happen now?

EarlyEd watch blog also did a good job of explaining the education landscape in Virginia, where transportation, taxes, and social issue took center stage, and where Democratic former state senator Creigh Deeds lost to Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

In the next few months, journalists covering both education and politics in the two states will have their hands full covering the transition to a new administration. With campaign rhetoric dying down, it will be time to truly listen and cover how the two new governors will approach publicly funded pre-kindergarten. Their agenda will likely be different from the one President Barack Obama has laid out; and is pushing for. What will it mean for children?

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.

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.

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.

With so much debate and discussion over charter schools lately, EarlyStories found it fascinating to read the New York Times style piece Sunday, entitled, "Scholarly Investments.''

First thought: What on earth is a story about charter schools doing on the style page? The answer of course, can be seen in the picture of Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, who helped found two Girls Preparatory Charter Schools, posing with six uniformed young students in the Bronx.

Turns out that well connected, socialite hedge fund managers like Curry are are embracing charter schools as their new cause; these maverick investors have decided they like this new model -- whatever that means. So now it's in vogue to be supportive of charters in the largest school system in the U.S., with more than 1.1 million public school children -- although according to the story, only about 30,000, or 2.5 percent of them, attend attend charters.

So why are the money folks choosing charters instead of embracing some of the other struggling public schools, many of which could use an infusion of hedge fund cash at a time of deep budget cuts?

Because, according to Nancy Hass of the Times, "their obsession — one shared with many other hedge funders — is creating charter schools, the tax-funded, independently run schools that they see as an entrepreneurial answer to the nation’s education woes.''

Curry himself explained that hedge fund mavericks see charter schools as “exactly the kind of investment people in our industry spend our days trying to stumble on.''

The story did not explain why the wealthy fund managers are attracted to the type of education that charter schools offer, or how it differs from what happens in some of the 1,600 New York City public schools. Are they excited about the quality of teaching and learning, and the success of students? It did point out that studies on the effectiveness of charter schools differ in their conclusions.

One manager suggested the attraction has to do with the way charter schools rely "on metrics and tests to measure progress,'' -- a concept that is also deeply ingrained in the public school culture in the aftermath of No Child Left Behind, and also part of U .S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's education agenda. (He is also a big fan of charter schools)

The hedge fund managers appear to be excited by the notion that charter schools are “scalable,” with models that could be emulated in many communities that have long waiting lists of parents looking for free alternatives. Charter schools, for the record, also pay their employees differently and don't choose their staffs from teachers unions.

There are many good questions that should be raised here, and the style piece attempted to raise some of them. EarlyStories can't help but want to see more journalists spending time in charter schools, starting in pre-kindergarten if at all possible, to let the public know how these schools are different. Are they changing lives for children? How so?

Head Start, which doesn't get a lot of media attention, is back in the news for offering preschool children in its program a chance to establish healthy eating habits. The federally funded program is now pushing fresh fruits and vegetables, along with low-fat milk,and making sure children spend time playing, according to an article in USA Today.

The article is based on a survey of Head Start directors that serve some 829,000 children, and had some frightening conclusions: Some 30 percent of kids in Head Start are overweight or obese. Findings were published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, based on the work of researchers from Temple University and Mathematica Policy Research.

Directors are aware of and concerned about these issues and are offering healthier food when they have their own cooks or work directly with food services, the article noted..

A key quote in the story summed up why it's important for journalists to look in on Head Start programs from time to time and find out what is actually going on in the classrooms of the largest federally funded early-childhood education program, which serves about a million low-income children:

"Currently, there aren't any federal standards for Head Start that limit kids' TV time, specify how much time they need to spend each day being physically active or the kind of milk that is served," said Robert Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics at Temple University in Philadelphia, the lead author of the study, supported by supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through two national programs, Healthy Eating Research and Active Living Research.

So what is happening in many of these centers? Are the kids watching television? Are there play areas or designated outdoor space?

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.

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.

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.

EarlyStories, like much of the world, has been struck by the heartbreaking photographs, images and stories about the lives of children after the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Today's New York Times recounted how the country's children -- who represent 45 percent of the population -- have lost parents, homes and schools and suffered grave injuries. They have nowhere to sleep and little food. The Wall Street Journal reported on the challenges facing an AIDS clinic that must rebuild; it included an interview with a woman who lost two of her children and described some of dire shortages the tragic country needs just to get through each day. And the Associated Press also focused on the plight of children.

The press is playing an important role here by bringing attention to the needs of newly orphaned and gravely injured children, including providing lists of resources on how to help.

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.

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.