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

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

Veteran Hartford Courant education writer Bob Frahm reports on the recommendation of a state-level study group to spend $100 million to expand children's services, including preschool classes, to make the state "a national model for early childhood education." The goal is to more than double the number of low-income children in preschool classes, train more preschool teachers and aides, and bolster the quality of preschool programs statewide, according to Frahm. The story notes the proposal will, as always, compete with other needs. "It really becomes a question of whether the people of the state of Connecticut are ready to pony up for this issue and raise taxes," state Sen. Toni Harp of New Haven notes.

What I missed in this story, though, was the sense that: 1. this is an issue very much on the frontburner in numerous states. A paragraph or so is all that would have been needed. and 2. any reference to the research on the effects of high-quality pre-k on poor kids. In other words, why is anyone suggesting spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

It did, however, include a legislator saying pre-kindergarten is important for preparing the workforce of tomorrow.

Washington Post uses the report of a committee on pre-kindergarten appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine to provide a good regional and national roundup of activity on the issue. When elected a year ago Kaine vowed to bring universal, voluntary pre-kindergarten to all four-year-olds in the state. But other issues, including highways, got in the way. The story notes that opposition is growing to what some legislators see as a subsidy for the middle class and one legislator even claimed that "frankly, there's no proof it works." Oddly enough, the legislator offering that confident, and misinformed, assertion was Majority Whip M. Kirkland Cox, a Republican who is a government teacher in Chesterfield County. If Mr. Cox didn't want to accept research widely available from places such as the National Institute on Early Education Research, he might consult this position statement from the American Federation of Teachers.

I don't think it would be advocacy for a story such as this to note that a number of studies have shown that high-quality pre-kindergarten does make a difference in kids' lives and that such programs provide a good return on investment, in terms of lowered social costs. Journalists shouldn't let legislators deny evidence, even if the implications of that evidence involve spending some dough.

Now comes a Wisconsin task force to say that the state is not doing enough to assess the outcomes of its state pre-school program for four-year olds. "There's no study or determination of whether we are getting for our dollars' worth and...whether or not four-year-old kindergarten is a cost-effective means by which we can educate our children," said the incoming Speaker of the Wisconsin House, Republican Representative Mike Huebsch. According to a report on WKBT television La Crosse, the task force wants monitoring of whether children are learning English, test scores, and whether state spending on special education is dropping. The broadcast quoted a pre-k center director who says, "I think the standards are important as guidelines but, it is very difficult in early childhood to say, 'You have to have a "C" or above average in whether you can tie your shoe or not."

Good way to show the limits of "assessing" four-year-olds. It would also be good for the story to have noted that Wisconsin spends about $4,200 a year on a half-day program, according to the National Institute of Early Education Research. (state profiles available here). That's not even half the amount the state spends per pupil on K-12 education and, though it seems paradoxical, high quality pre-k costs more, not less.

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

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

Latest federal data on participation of three-to-five-year-olds in child-care or pre-school or Head Start is available here. Data shows that the percentage of that age group enrolled in centers increased from 53 percent in 1991 to 60 percent in 1999, before decreasing to 57 percent in 2005. Despite the increase in state spending on pre-kindergarten, it's not keeping up with the population.

Well, here we are, the first working day of 2007. My resolution is to become more insightful into analyzing journalism about early learning, to work hard to find new brilliant voices out there on the web telling us about early learning, and to be more creative and forward-looking in suggesting ways for early learning to be covered. Oh, and lose 15 pounds and read more.

I really think that 2007 will be a banner year for stories involving early learning. The New York Times reported Dec. 29 that Democrats had picked up more than 350 seats and gained control of 10 state legislatures. That should bode well for increased investment in pre-kindergarten. Moreover, Republicans have been supporters of public funds for pre-kindergarten in many states and devoting public dollars to pre-kindergarten may be a popular issue for Republicans to support, in order to make gains in the 2008 election. This is an emerging story that bears watching.

The state pre-kindergarten program in Florida is generally derided for covering only three hours a day during the school year and not spending enough money to make the program all that effective. But, still, it's something. The Miami Herald reports that even though Broward County officials have placed ads on buses, on the radio, cable television and the newspaper, a lot of parents say they knew nothing about the program. ''It's not surprising, but it's a little disappointing how many people still haven't heard about it,'' said the coalition's executive director, Penny Westberry. Shows that newspapers can play an important role in telling parents about the services that are available and helping them learn how to sign up.

Edweek's ace pre-k reporter Linda Jacobsen has a roundup of current action to expand state spending on preschool. (I'm having trouble logging in but the story is at www.edweek.org, under pre-k). New Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick favors a $100 million downpayment on what advocates say they hope will eventually be a $500 million statewide program. Arkansas, Connecticut, and New York look like they'll be boosting pre-k spending this year too. Jacobsen says the national debate over whether such programs should be universal or targeted to poor kids continues. Margaret Blood of Strategies for Children in Boston "agrees that the research is still mixed on the benefits of public preschools for middle-class children." Steffanie Clothier of the National Conference of State Legislatures says sliding scale fees might be the way to go, financially as well as politically.

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

Gov. Brad Henry of Oklahoma announced a plan to increase education spending in the state by about 10%, or $360 million. He's also said to be on the verge of announcing an increase in spending on the state's pre-kindergarten program, which is highly regarded for quality. That program reaches 70% of the four-year-olds in the state, tops in the nation.

New NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer's first budget proposal includes phasing in full funding of the state's universal pre-k program, with a price tag of $645 million, by 2010-2011. OK, so it's three years away, and out of a budget of $120 million, maybe it's not a big deal, dollarwise. But, still, wouldn't it at least merit a mention? It is new, after all. I read most of the 63 stories about the budget announcement that a Google search turned up and I could find only one that devoted even a line to it. Lots of speculation about the politics, about the cut in property taxes, about the increase in education spending. But nary a word about a proposed major increase to a program that would benefit many poor, middle, and working class families. Now, if we were talking about $20,000 per year preschools for rich kids...then we'd see some ink on it. [OK, my bad, an editorial in the Buffalo News had these words as part of a list of Spitzer's proposals: "universal pre-kindergarten." So, it WAS mentioned after all.]

South Dakota is one of only 10 states without any statewide pre-kindergarten program. Sioux Falls business man Ron Moquist, who describes himself as politically conservative, wants to change that. Moquist headed up a three-year Chamber of Commerce research effort that looked at the potential of pre-kindergarten programs to offset the often-debilitating effects of child poverty. He tells Minnesota Public Radio in this story that:

"If you start from a poverty background you will have a difficult time in school. So what we said is that we've got to get to these kids sooner because so many of them are starting kindergarten 18 months behind their peers and most of them never catch up."

Kudos to MPR for picking up on this story. Business leaders and Republicans nationally are among those who support investing in education early, because the pay off is greater. Story also reaches out to a pre-k expert, who talks about what makes for a quality preschool.

The story of the rapid spread of publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs in the U.S. is an education story, to be sure, but it's also a story about the productivity of the work force, closing income gaps, improving health outcomes and so on. The "Economix" columnist for the New York Times, David Leonhardt, wrote a succinct, comprehensive, insightful piece on the Oklahoma pre-kindergarten program the other day--in the business section.

Leonhardt referred to an evaluation done at Georgetown University. Another one, done by the National Institute of Early Education Research, can be found here. Gov. Brad Henry said in his state of the state address this week that he wants to expand the program for four year olds so that it also serves three year olds.

Report by Leslie Postal in the Orlando Sentinel says entering Florida kindergartners are more ready than they were in the past to begin to learn to read. That's according to results on the school readiness test used by the state. Florida uses those results to judge the performance of preschools from the state's program for 4 year olds.

Advocates of high quality pre-kindergarten often say Florida's program falls far short of the mark. The Sentinel story also illustrates that when such evaluation data is available, it will be reported. The data does allow a conversation to take place about quality. But it's important for journalists and policy makers to keep in mind that the outcome measures are, to a large extent, determined by the characteristics of the children who attend

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry's plan to expand his state's highly regarded pre-k program for 4 year olds to serve 3 year olds has stalled in the state Legislature. Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee all voted against it, with their leader saying they had successfully blocked an expansion of government. Henry called it "pure politics."

Earlier this month, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a $100 million investment in early learning--$75 million for pre-k starting with 3 year olds and $25 million for full day kindergarten. Were the proposal to pass, it would mean that 11,000 more children from the Quaker state would have access to high quality pre-kindergarten. In addition, 65% of all eligible children would be able to attend a full day kindergarten class. (Preference would be given to communities with more than 30% of the children living in poverty.) Rendell added significant amounts to the state’s spending on pre-k since becoming governor four years ago. But still, only 31% of the state’s 3 and 4 year olds are receiving high quality early childhood education.

So, where’s the coverage? My Google search turned up a few stories that mentioned this new initiative in passing as part of a story about the governor’s budget announcement. It also turned up a commentary by far right columnist Robert Holland who offered up the usual complaint that expanded public spending on pre-k amounts to a raid on parental rights. Where’s the Inquirer? Post-Dispatch? Daily News?

Rendell himself said that legislators elected on anti-government spending platforms could prove to be an obstacle. Four years ago, a Rendell proposal for expanding public spending was turned into a tax credit for private companies that offered money up to start pre-k programs. So, there’s likely to be some political back and forth. Shouldn’t the media be out there explaining that before it happens?

Argus Leader reporter Terry Woster wrote a great piece on the debate over pre-k in South Dakota. Woster reports that a bill to establish state standards for pre-k has aroused the ire of pre-k opponents. The state is helping fund a tiny pilot pre-k program in Pierre. Critics say the standards effort, and the pilot program, will drive private preschool and day care operators out of business and that the state will either have to spend more money to offer the services or parents won't have any choice but to send their kids to government programs. Woster does a fine job of reporting various views without it seeming at all like a he-said, she-said cop-out. Nice job.

By the way, the six comments on the story on the newspaper's website were quite thoughtful. And two of them said they appreciated the paper's in-depth coverage.

New Mexico Lieutenant Gov. Diane Denish, one of the strongest forces behind the start-up of the pre-k program in her state in 2005, now wants the number of children served to be doubled.. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagovich wants to increase the state's spending on preschool by $70 million, opening up 12,000 slots. Some legislators in Missouri will be proposing expansion of state-funded preschool to all disadvantaged children. Finally, a consortium of colleges, the city of Tuscaloosa, the Mayor's office, and the Tuscaloosa school system are working on a citywide pre-k program. Editorial in the Tuscaloosa News says that, "In the long term, Tuscaloosa will be a better community thanks to this program."

According to the National Institute of Early Education Research, Alabama in 2005 ranked 37th in the percentage of its 4 year olds served. The state also cut its per-pupil spending on pre-k every year from 2000 tto 2005 and the elimination of federal child care funds available to poor working women were cut. Whenever journalists report on a new program or purported expansion of state spending on pre-k, it's important to say what the state is already doing. A doubling of 2% of the 4 year olds served may look better than it is, especially if the funds aren't doubled as well.

The fourth annual report from the National Institute on Early Education Research came out this week and it generated some good stories around the country. Nancy Zuckerbrod of the Associated Press gave a good overview, touching down in Virginia to review the program there. Natalia Mielczarek at The Tennessean in Nashville used the report as a starting point to report on Gov. Phil Bredesen's addition of $70 million to the state pre-k program the past two years. She also went out and talked to parents and teachers and visited classrooms. The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser carried a short Associated Press story. The Columbus (OH) Dispatch's Catherine Candisky used the report to explain the complexities of the program in her state and a proposal by Gov. Ted Strickland to put a little bit more state money in.

Surprisingly, though, none of the stories picked up on this element of the report:

Total state spending for prekindergarten was nearly $3.3 billion, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year. However, inflation-adjusted spending per child declined in 25 of 37 states (Florida was new). In other words, real spending per child declined in twice as many states as it increased. Worse yet, nominal spending per child (that is, without any adjustment for inflation) declined in 14 states. After adjusting for inflation, funding per child fell to the lowest level since NIEER began collecting such data. In 2001-2002, states spent $4,171 per child in today's dollars; last year they spent $3,482 per child.

Given what states are spending, and given that that amount is decreasing in real terms, it seems irrelevant and even a bit misleading for NIEER to assert that "high quality" preschool has returned "$17 for every $1 invested." That figure is based on a long-term study of a boutique program in the 60s that was unlike anything that exists today.

Education Week's Linda Jacobson offers a well-reported, thoughtful roundup of the issues facing Head Start. [free registration required] Journalists in states where state-funded pre-kindergarten is expanding should set this aside electronically or in hard copy as a reference document and story list. How is the expansion of pre-k creating competition for Head Start? What is the culture clash in Head Start centers that also receive state money? [Hint: preschool teachers have to be persuaded to brush the teeth of four-year-olds.] Is the expansion of state pre-k causing greater racial and economic isolation in Head Starts? Is gentrification in cities undermining Head Start programs? Are Head Start programs failing to serve children speaking Spanish, African languages, Asian languages? No shortage of good stories.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is in a tight spot. She's caught between a here-and-now plunge in current tax revenues and the need to prepare children of today as best she can to function the world of the future. She wants a $1.5 billon tax increase to offset a deficit over two years of $2 billion. To get the additional revenues, she's threatening to force massive cuts in health care and education starting June 1. State Supe Mike Flanagan has told school districts to start cutting preschool immediately. Actually, that's a shrewd move. Cut those preschool classes and send Michigan parents who depend on them into an instant frenzy, which could pressure the Michigan Legislature to go along with the tax hike Granholm wants. "We can invest in order to pull this state out of this economic slump or we can disinvest and further the spiral downward," Granholm said in seeking to get the Legislature to act.

The National Institute on Early Education Research has weighed in, with an op-ed arguing that cutting preschool is like a farmer "eating his seed corn."

Easy quick-hit story would be for a journalist to go out to one of the school district preschools and talked to a dozen or so parents dropping off their children about what they'd do if, starting June 1st, their kids had nowhere to go.

The Southern Education Foundation today will release a report that will say that the region is ahead of other parts of the country in terms of its pre-kindergarten programs. The report "pulls together and synthesizes the findings of every major independent study of state-supported Pre-K across the South in the last ten years. These reports measure the current and future impact that Pre-K can have in improving Southern education and the region's quality of life." This comes from the Dawson County Times in Dawsonville, Dawson County, Georgia.

Journalists in the South who write on this report should also check other sources of information, such as the National Institute for Early Education Research on quality questions, and reports turned out by the advocacy group Pre-K Now, especially those analyzing the political leadership of governors and others in the states. Also keep in mind that 3-5 year olds can be found in many settings--Head Start, family care, child care centers, preschools in churches, preschools in public schools, for profit preschools and so on.

Southern Education Foundation reports that the South is leading other regions in the quality of pre-k programs and the number of children enrolled. The press release to the report says that "The report also analyzes the uneven development of Pre-K within the South and identifies common challenges that Southern states will face in taking Pre-K to scale across the region." The Foundation previously had done a number of studies of state programs in the region. The report received a lot of attention from both publications and television outlets.

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

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

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

Over the past three years Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has steadily increased his state's spending on high-quality pre-kindergarten classes. Last week the governor addressed a group of editorial writers who gathered at Teachers College in New York City for a two-day seminar sponsored by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media that dealt with early education issues. Pre-k advocates talk a lot about the studies that tout the long-term returns for investing in pre-kindergarten. But Bredesen, who has a degree in physics from Harvard, said those studies were not what persuaded him to push pre-k. What did the trick, he told the editorialists, was conversations with teachers around his state.

I went around the state and I talked to teachers and I asked them, "If you had one more dollar to spend on education, how would you spend it." When you forced people to pick one thing, it's amazing how many pick pre-kindergarten. It seems like there's a broad consensus.

Rather than plunge into a universal pre-k program all at once and launch poor quality programs with the intent to improve them later, Bredesen decided to establish high-quality programs and roll them out slowly. The Tennessee program employs only certified teachers, keeps class sizes small, and uses only approved curricula. Surprisingly, Bredesen said, the biggest political fight had to be fought over quality. Day care centers and private pre-k programs did not employ certified teachers or pay decent salaries and so they saw the state program as a "threat to their livelihood."

Bredesen said that he hopes that any parent in Tennessee who wants to send their child to a state-funded pre-kindergarten will be able to do so. Right now, he said, the state is about 40% of the way there. But he said it was a "realistic goal" that can be reached in about three and a half years.

More about the seminar over the next few days.

Nicole Christian wrote a compelling editorial in the Detroit Free Press this past weekend, arguing that even though strong evidence for the effectiveness of high quality pre-kindergarten eminated from the state, the state's political leaders have not built on that legacy. She acknowledges that the state is struggling economically, as the auto industry tries to avoid complete collapse. But she says state political leaders could set what she calls a "committed, consistent political tone" in favor of expanding pre-kindergarten. Such a tone would inspire corporate and foundation leaders to get on board and create momentum. That's the strategy used in a number of other states that are now ahead of Michigan, which has sacrificed its early lead in the area.

Out in Spokane, Gary Crooks wrote an editorial in the Spokesman Review making the case that Idaho, one of 11 states that do not invest in pre-kindergarten programs, ought to learn a lesson from other states. He cites the case of Oklahoma, another conservative, relatively poor state that has made a commitment to preschool and the results it is getting, The editorial concludes by saying "let's hope the legislature can close their own learning gap."

The annual political action report from the universal preschool advocacy group Pre-K Now shows spending continuing to rise. The group reports that 36 states have committed an additional $528 million annually to expanding UPK. That brings state spending to $4.8 billion nationally for FY 2008. Only one state plans to cut spending. Which one? Florida. The state was already known for having the stingiest per-pupil spending in the country and for the low-quality of its program. Perhaps because of the low-quality, enrollment in the program was less than expected. So, the state Legislature can brag about raising per pupil spending by $117 while cutting overall spending by $14 million. (That's actually something to be proud of. Some of the states that have gotten credit for increasing pre-k spending in recent years have seen enrollment increases that diluted the effects of the increase and actually reduced per-pupil spending.) If the state keeps quality low enough, no children will participate and the state can really save some dough. By the way, the Agency for Workforce Innovation is the state agency that operates public preschool in Florida. The news release can be found here.

State pre-kindergarten news:

Virginia's Democratic governor, Timothy Kaine, gained a majority in the state Senate but the Republicans still hold an edge in the House. Makes his work to expand spending on pre-k, despite state budget troubles, more difficult.

Michigan's budget woes may slow growth of pre-k enrollments there.

California's staring at a $10 billion budget deficit, causing Gov. Schwarzenegger to order agencies to cut 10% from their budgets. Los Angeles Times story doesn't say it but obviously everything will be on the table, including the pledge to increase spending on pre-k.

Dems and Reeps in Tennessee are fighting over whether to expand the state's pre-k program beyond poor kids to all kids. Alas, the plea for bipartisanship from the political leaders from both parties who gathered in Norman, OK this week is yet to be heard in TN. Gov. Phil Bredesen, a strong advocate for pre-k, said the national campaign for president is making politics in his state more partisan. Bredesen spoke last year to editorial writers at a conference organized by the Hechinger Institute in collaboration with the National Conference of Editorial Writers. He said then he wanted to roll out universally available high-quality pre-kindergarten over the next three and a half years. He started small with the pre-k program and expanded it over time to maintain high quality. The Reeps in TN apparently haven't heard that message either. They say they don't want to spend more than the $80 million the program costs now to subsidize "glorified day care." Now, were I reporter in Tennessee, I'd test Bredesen's statement as well as those of Republicans. Is the current program glorified day care or is high quality pre-kindergarten?

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley picked up a couple of important endorsements for his plan to triple state spending on pre-kindergarten. Riley, a Republican, is meeting resistance from his own party in the state and Republicans are dragging their heels in South Carolina and Tennessee as well. The Head Start association and the organization of private providers in Alabama are both on board with Riley now. Why is this signficant? The reason is that Head Start is often wary of pre-k proposals, because they tend to be better funded. And the private providers usually balk because they fear losing their paying clients to a free service. For example, Gov. Phil Bredeson in Tennessee told the Hechinger Institute last spring that one of the biggest hurdles he faced in expanding pre-k there was the private providers group.

The tension between these groups can be found in just about all the states that are expanding their pre-k spending so it's worthwhile for journalists to pay attention to the compromises that result. In some states, such as Massachusetts, these groups have found common ground. That's interesting too.

The Associated Press coverage of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's budget announcement highlighted two of his ideas related to early education--a tripling of the state's investment in pre-kindergarten and expanded support for the Alabama Reading Initiative. (You will recall that the reading initiative in Alabama, as in many states, has gotten support from the federal Reading First program, which the Democrats in Congress cut by more than two-thirds.) But Riley is no big government, budget busting Republican. He also wants to cut income taxes to spur the state's economy.

Editorial writers at the Rapid City Journal are pushing for voluntary pre-kindergarten school standards in South Dakota, one of only nine states that doesn’t provide state funding for pre-k.
Pre-kindergarten standards have been a tricky topic for journalists in the state, even though, as the Feb. 13 editorial pointed out, a poll by the advocacy group Voices for Children found that 73 percent of likely South Dakota voters support them.
The editorial favors a measure that would allow the State Department of Education to establish standards for preschool accreditation and staff training. It came out a few weeks after the South Dakota Senate voted 23-11 for the measure known as SB26, which now goes to the House for a vote.
. On the news side, the paper has covered heated sessions on the topic including comments from opponents like Senator Bill Napoli, a Rapid City Republican,
who said pre-school owners should decide how pre-schools are run and that it is “flat out wrong for the state to get involved in people’s private lives yet again.’’
The editorial disagreed, noting the law “keeps participation in pre-kindergarten programs voluntary and does not intrude on private providers who don’t access public funds,’’ while bringing public accountability to programs that do utilize them.
“Not everyone, including some private daycare businesses, think government should be involved in regulating pre-schools,’’ the editorial notes.
As the debate continues, it will be interesting to see more coverage of pre-classrooms in the state and how the approach to education differs – along with an explanation of what the standards might change.

A group calling itself "Americans for Prosperity-Kansas" gets today's star sticker for one of the more creative anti-preschool arguments I've encountered. The group's model budget contends that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' proposal to increase spending by $3 million on pre-kindergarten for low-income children is a "'hidden' subsidy for public education." The group says an unnamed study had found that children attending pre-k or day care the previous year do not gain socially or cognitively and "in some measures end up lagging behind their peers who enjoy the attention of their parents exclusively." The money, the budget says, would be better spent highlighting the important role of parents.

Couple questions to ask: What "study" are they referring to and is that the actual conclusion? Did the "study" control for income? Parents who can care for their children may be poor but more likely they are parents affluent enough to not have to work. That's not an option for most parents.

This is the Kansas arm of a national anti-tax group. Ideological consistency is sometimes difficult, however. To maintain its anti-public education stance, the group's Missouri arm applauds legislation that would give parents of children with special needs the final say as to whether their children are educated in public or private settings. This is certainly not an easy issue and the federal IDEA law governing special education gives parents a role in determining how their children are educated. But school districts across the country are struggling with the enormous cost of these private placements, which can cost upwards of $40,000 or more a year and which, by the way, are paid for with public money. It's a dilemma, to be sure, but one the group doesn't acknowledge.

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen keeps stumbling into opposition as he pushes voluntary, full-day pre-kindergarten program for all county school systems in the state. On the surface, it would seem to be a natural extension of the state’s high quality program and Bredesen's already acclaimed efforts to expand pre-K.
But not so fast, the Tennessean reports. Bredesen, who invested $80 million for the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten program during the 2007-08 school year, is facing opposition from Republican legislators who say the program’s success is untested and are making their voices be heard as well.
Bredesen wants to earmark another $25 million to pay for 250 new pre-kindergarten classrooms before opening it up to all 4-year-olds in Tennessee. The Tennessean last month reported that Bredesen has been surprised by the opposition of Republican lawmakers and their remarks likening pre-kindergarten to glorified day-care, an argument that has come up in several states. Bredesen is fighting back; last month he met with editors of the Times-News in Northeast Tennesse to defend his education program and budget requests.

The state of Florida has the second-largest pre-kindergarten enrollment in the country, but that doesn’t mean journalists – and the public – should not be asking questions about the quality of the offerings.

The opinion pages of the Daytona News Journal online debated the issue this week, first with a piece by Monesia T. Brown, director of the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Brown touted the success of the program in a Florida Voices piece noting that the state’s voluntary pre-kindergarten served more than 124,000 children last year.

Two days later, a piece by Roy Miller, president of the Children’s Campaign Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group, noted that “quantity should not be confused with quality.’’

Miller contends that Florida’s pre-kindergarten program lags behind other states in meeting national standards of quality and that 4-year-olds are being expelled at a high frequency. Both pieces provide a roadmap for the kinds of questions reporters should be asking about Florida’s program as it moves forward.

The annual “State of Preschool” yearbook from the National Institute of Early Education Research is out today and, as usual, there’s good as well as disappointing news for those who favor universal access to high quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

First the good….

Enrollment was up by 80,000 nationally in the 2006-2007 school year and, reversing a four-year-trend, inflation-adjusted per pupil spending was up too: by $32. The gain is small but it’s better than the decline in per-pupil spending that occurred in each of the past four years as enrollments grew quickly. Despite the slight uptick, per pupil spending still remains below what it was in 2002, according to NIEER’s Steve Barnett.

Biggest percentage gain in enrollment—52 percent—was tallied in Tennessee, where Gov. Phil Bredesen is fighting Republican opposition to continue to expand the program. More here. Even as enrollment grows in Tennessee, the state is maintaining high standards. Tennessee’s program meets nine out of 10 NIEER quality benchmarks. Only two states—North Carolina and Alabama—meet all 10 benchmarks. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Bob Riley is battling his own party as he tries to expand enrollment in the relatively tiny program.

Now the bad….

Kansas met only three of the 10 quality standards. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is trying to expand and improve that program. (Again, fighting Republican resistance.) Even more worrisome to Barnett is that the state programs of California, Texas and Florida, which collectively serve nearly 40% of the American four-year-olds in state-funded preschools, met only four of the 10 quality standards.“Those states could really result in such a dismal picture for so many of America’s kids,” he said.

So many questions surround newly sworn-in New York Governor David Paterson that reporters have yet to examine his ability to carry out disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer's universal pre-kindergarten promises.

As recently as September, Spitzer visited schools in Yonkers to tout an additional $79 million his executive budget invested in pre-kindergarten, along with his promise to expand pre-kindergaten access for every child in New York State within four years.

Spitzer resigned last week after being caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a prostitute. On Tuesday, just 24-hours after being sworn into office, Paterson held a press conference to acknowledge infidelity in his own marriage.

When and if the storm surrounding Paterson's admissions subside, attention must focus on New York's $4.7 billion budget deficit and the April 1st budget deadline. Paterson has already proposed to cut $800 million in agency spending in the upcoming fiscal year.

One of the first reporters to notice possible dire consequences for education is Diana Costello of the Journal News in White Plains, who notes that a change in governors comes at a rough time and may derail promises Spitzer made.

Karen Schimke, president and CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, hopes the press will scrutinize problems that have dogged pre-k expansion in New York, from lack of space to access for working parents and the inability of school districts to plan and implement pre-k programs.

"Bring on the questions," says Schimke, who is a great resource for journalists on early childhood education in New York. "Sixty to seventy parents of kids in New York State have mothers who work. What about full day programs? The research is very clear – a half day is better than none, but full day is best of all."

Like many education advocates in New York, Schimke is patiently waiting for the next round of questions -- and hopes they will focus on issues that really matter to New Yorkers.

The word “rigor,’’ is one of the new buzz words in education, used to describe everything from stringent new graduation standards many states are adopting to advanced placement courses that give college credit to high school students. Lately, the word has crept into the pre-k lexicon with little explanation.

In Washington D.C., for example, pre-kindergarten is about to get a lot more rigorous, according to a Washington Post article.

And…what exactly does that mean?

Earlier this week, the article points out, the D.C. Council committee unanimously approved legislation that would “increase the rigor of the curriculum for early childhood education throughout the city.’’ A quick google search found the term creeping into the pre-k conversation throughout the U.S.

The Post article did a fine job of describing some of the hurdles to expanding pre-kindergarten in the District of Columbia, where about 12,000 children are enrolled and another 2,000 or so are not being served. However, it did not question, examine or explain what a “more rigorous.’’ program would look like.

Shakespeare instead of sand box play? Early SAT preparation? Pre-pre-calculus? Degree requirements for teachers? The question really should be, does the program reflect high standards? And what does that mean? What is the student teacher ratio, for example? Is there a curriculum? What are kids expected to know and do?

Journalists – and the public – should challenge words that don’t say a lot. The next time a pre-k program promises to be “rigorous,’’ find out what it means.

Reporters covering pre-kindergarten often find obstacles to expansion programs, from budget cuts to lack of space that prevents all children who want a spot from getting one. Carrie Melago of the New York Daily News found another barrier this week, imposed by the New York City Department of Education: Language.

Nearly one third of the more than 1.1 million students in New York City public schools are immigrants and the proportion is rising steadily. Some 42% of New York City public school students reported speaking a language at home other than English last year.

Yet when directories and applications for a new, centrally managed pre-kindergarten process that requires parents to rank their top choices went out this week, they were posted online in English only. The action upset advocates for immigrants who worry that parents who can’t get the information won’t register their children for pre-kindergarten.

The New York City Department of Education promised to make the documents available in eight languages by next week: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. They also said their translation unit can help parents in the meantime.

The other day I urged reporters to ask careful questions about the quality of a pre-kindergarten, and to go beyond simply repeating findings on a report. Last week, a story came up in Tulsa, Oklahoma that truly begged the quality question.

The Tulsa Tribune reported that a pre-k site was shuttered after three pre-kindergarten kids wandered off and ended up at a Sonic Drive-In about two blocks south of the YWCA.
(The ones that got away?)

To her credit, Tulsa World reporter Shannon Muchmore followed up the story, obtaining inspection reports from the Department of Human Services that showed the YWCA site had no recent violations.

So how did the three little ones manage to scamper off? According to Muchmore's story,
two YWCA employees, a certified teacher and an assistant teacher, were watching 20 children at the time. That's within the DHS-recommended ratio of one caretaker per 15 children.

The site is shuttered while the investigation continues. An explanation is called for, especially because Oklahoma has been considered a pre-k leader, according to Pre-K Now, the public education and advocacy organization.

How do you measure the quality of a pre-kindergarten environment where kids can run out the door, only to be found several blocks away?

Charles B. Reed, who oversees 46,000 faculty and staff and 450,000 students on 23 California campuses, weighed in on the future of the littlest Californians in an op-ed piece that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.

Reed has his hands full managing young adults at the country's largest senior system of public higher education. His plea, though, was aimed on giving a better beginning to those he hopes will become future students. Reed noted that solid pre-kindergarten programs can pay long term dividends in the years to come -- and that only about half of eligible, low-income, preschool-age children in California receive a publicly subsidized pre-K start.

Reed noted two recent reports on this issue worthing taking a look at: the first from the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence and a second was convened by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

The report found that the achievement gap in the K-12 years begins when kids first enter kindergarten class -- and that those who start behind, stay behind. "Without a strong beginning, these children can only grasp at an elusive dream,'' Reed writes.

The Jackson Clarion Ledger published an editorial last week urging better funding for pre-kindergarten, noting that Mississippi is one of only 11 states without a state funded program.

The responses posted at the end of the editorial made it clear how much opposition remains in the state, ranked 48th in the nation in per pupil spending and 48th in student achievement.

“Government baby-sitting,’’ one individual wrote. “Early childhood indoctrination for the socialist USA. Get them on the big yellow buses to send them to the fascist-run propaganda factories ASAP. Sorry, send your children. Leave mine alone.’’

Such remarks should be worrisome to pre-kindergarten advocates in the state, where Republican Governor Haley Barbour has resisted funding expansions like nearby Tennessee.

Advocates who support the Quality Act of 2008 are now hopeful that lawmakers in the large rural state will include $5 million in the budget to improve existing centers. Money would be earmked for three programs approved in 2006 but never funded: an early childhood grant program, a child-care resource and referral effort, and a “quality step system,” which would pay bonuses to providers who meet higher-than-minimum standards, according to an article in this week's Education Week.

One person who responded to the editorial wanted to know what other states that fund pre-kindergarten are actually getting for their tax dollars. Another complained that the state can’t “get it right,’’ with its K-12 students.

The opinions expressed freely are a window into an issue that merits thorough coverage and exploration.

Stories about parents camping out on streets overnight to get their children into a quality pre-kindergarten program are easy targets for the media. It’s not hard to get quotes from exhausted and annoyed adults who have slept outside for several nights in search of a coveted spot in a quality program for their progeny.

That's exactly what reporters for 11 HD News in Atlanta Atlanta Journal Constitution did last week. The photos really bring this story home.

The hope, desperation and anger on those Georgia sidewalks and in the campers and RV's parked nearby speaks volumes about the value of a solid educational beginning for young children and the need for a better system of signing up. In Atlanta, parents sign their kids up on a first-come first-serve basis for pre-k, and camping out to be first is an accepted practice.

Atlanta’s Superintendent of Schools Beverly Hall apparently disapproves of it and had sent out a letter schools discouraging it. But it came too late for the parents who had spent the night on the sidewalk to be the first on line, only to have police barricades blocking them from entering the school.

The process is an education itself. But is it the right kind of education?

At Early Ed Watch, Sara Mead notes statements Sens. Clinton and Obama made over the weekend before Tuesday's primary regarding investing in high quality early education. Clinton repeated her support for universal prekindergarten. (She favors providing states with incentives to invest their own money in high quality programs.) Obama linked high quality early education to improving the global competitiveness of the American workforce. Mead notes that North Carolina and Indiana have two very different approaches to prekindergarten. North Carolina is one of the nation's leaders and Indiana doesn't spend a dime on prekindergarten.

Ann Doss Helms of the Charlotte Observer posed some interesting questions in a Sunday story on Bright Beginnings, a pre-kindergarten program in Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools with a big promise -- to transform the lives of at-risk children and help them succeed later on.

Her story found the $23 million a year program has not kept its promises and that the school system cannot say what its academic impact has been. The Chief accountability officer of the district told Doss Helms that analyzing the success of the pioneer class -- now high school freshmen -- isn't on their radar, at a time when long-term research on the impact of public pre-kindergarten is lagging. A sidebar to the story shows how little data a researcher hired to analyze the program has received.

As states and governors consider investing public funds in pre-kindergarten, it's critical for journalists to follow-up the way the Doss Helms has done and hold the programs and public officials accountable. The questions her story poses -- including what factors determine and shape a student's success, and what influence a strong pre-kindergarten program might have -- must be part of the public dialogue.

While some states are pushing for all day kindergarten, Texas and Florida are jump-starting pre-school, trying out children as young as 2 and 3-years-old with the help of a $6 million grant from the University of Texas.

A piece by Staci Hupp in the Dallas Morning News noted that pre-school is "moving to the potty-training set,'' and took a look at a new project coming to Dallas that aims at training child-care workers to connect with children early to help boost their success in school later on.

Dallas is home to a fast growing Hispanic population with children younger than 5 making up the largest age group. The city also has a disproportionate population of poor children who are more likely to start pre-school developmentally behind and the hope is that starting children younger by building their vocabularies and school routines will only help them give them a better academic start.

It will be interesting for reporters to visit these early start programs and talk to some of the caregivers and teachers. What kind of structures and curriculum are in place, and how is the program being evaluated and measured? What are the expectations, and what are the hoped for -- and achieved -- outcomes? Is anyone measuring progress once they do start school, and if so, how? What constitutes success for the potty-training set?

(Montana excells in beauty, lags in pre-kindergarten programs)

Sara Mead of New America Foundation did a great job of highlighting two states in the news politically, but way behind in early childhood education. Both South Dakota and Montana, which held primaries this week, do not have any state pre-kindergarten program, nor do they have full-day kindergarten, she notes in her blog: Early Education Watch.

South Dakota's efforts bear watching as well; in February, a Zogby poll released by South Dakota Voices for Children found that 73 percent of voters in the state support a stalled plan to create standards and accountability for pre-kindergarten programs. The program Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is also pushing South Dakota to fund pre-kindergarten.

One reason these western and largely rural states are so interesting to keep an eye on is the attitudes of residents -- and politicians -- who oppose pre-kindergarten. And it is precisely why continued journalism -- and education -- about what pre-kindergarten can do matters so much.

(New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson says pre-kindergarten is working)

Pre-kindergarten is not often a favored topic of business writers, and even reporters who cover K-12 are so often bogged down in covering district politics, test scores and the comings and goings of superintendents that they don't have much time to devote to pre-kindergarten.

That's why it's a nice surprise to run across stories in places like the New Mexico Business Weekly, which ran a piece on June 4 highlighting a study by the National Institute for Early Education at Rutgers University, which found the state's pre-kindergarten program helped boost math and reading scores for participants.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson hailed the study, noting that it highlights why the investment the state made in early childhood education in 2005 is paying off, as Sara Mead noted in Early Education Watch.

(Pre-kindergarten might keep kids -- and their parents -- in Maine)

The Kennebec Journal in Maine picked up an interesting pre-kindergarten trend this week, with a surprising finding. At a time when student enrollment is on decline in this northern New England state, more children are signing up for pre-kindergarten.

The enterprising story by Keith Edwards found that the number of students in a new pre-kindergarten program in Augusta is growing, good news in a state where the school-age population is on decline overall, according to numbers from the Brookings Institution . The worrisome numbers have forced schools to consider closing and consolidating at a time when there are 13,000 fewer students in Maine schools than a decade ago. The decline is fueled by the lack of growth industry in the state, where so many rural towns are no longer home to robust lumber, dairy and other industries.

It took some reporting on Edward's part to discover the new enrollment growth, and to note that a new free public pre-kindergarten program could be a contributing factor. According a principal quoted in the story, such programs can help families connect with schools and decide they want to stay in a school system where their child is receiving attention and encouragement and early on feels like part of a community.

(Different cities are trying new things to get kids ready for school)

I came across two very different stories about pre-kindergarten today, both illustrations of good intentions -- getting children ready for school. One illustrated a program that is working well, the other highlighted once again the tremendous problems New York City is having just getting kids registered.

St. Louis is offering a mini-program that teaches children to stand in line, raise hands and recognize numbers and letters. The story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch noted that some students need a little more help making the transition to school, and the month-long programs some school districts offer can give them a great start by the time they arrive in the fall.

I couldn't help note the contrast with a New York Daily News story that once again highlighted the mess New York City finds itself in, after using a new selection process to fill 15,000 pre-kindergarten seats.

The story showed the real impact this misguided process is having on children and families, who can no longer get a spot in neighborhood schools just steps from their home in many cases. Across the city, siblings are shut out and even families and students who registered on team and followed all the proper registration steps must tell their children they cannot go to pre-school next year after all -- even when the building is next door.

(Poll shows public favors public pre-kindergarten investment)

Candidates take note: Americans want publicly funded pre-kindergarten and believe in a federal role for it, according to a bipartisan poll from Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc. and American Viewpoint. Nearly 7 in 10 voters said they wanted more federal support for state-funded pre-kindergarten. Highlights of the poll can be viewed here:

The poll released on Tuesday surveyed 800 registered voters and another 200 “swing voters,’’ and found strong support for federal investment in pre-kindergarten – particularly among such voters in the South, where governors like Phil Bredesen of Tennessee have been struggling to finance ambitious pre-kindergarten agendas.

The findings were hailed as good news by Pre-K Now, the Washington D.C. based group leading the movement for high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four-year-olds in the U.S.

The results should serve as a reminder to journalists that pre-kindergarten is well worth covering as both an education and a political story. Simply reporting the results, however, is not enough. The findings should be a starting point for visiting high quality pre-kindergartens to see what is working, and for asking follow up questions about how graduates fare.

(Poll finds deep concern with quality of education, preparation in U.S.)

At a time when many states are debating or having difficulty financing publicly funded pre-kindergarten, some troubling -- but hardly surprising -- news about U.S. education was revealed in a poll released by the Associated Press and carried in USA Today and other newspapers on Friday.

Half of Americans surveyed found U.S. Schools are doing only a fair to poor job of preparing students for college and the workplace, even though education ranks behind only the economy and gas prices as a top issue for Americans.

Another half said the U.S. education system is falling behind that of other countries, and six in 10 said the quality of American schools has declined in the past 20 years.

The AP survey of 833 adults and 854 parents, financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by the consumer information company Knowledge Networks, follows a poll of kindergarten teachers in 2004 that found kids who did not attend quality pre-kindergarten arrive at school unprepared.

(In New Hampshire, the Long Wait for Kindergarten Continues)

At a time when some states are pushing for publicly funded pre-kindergarten and promoting its value, New Hampshire is struggling to get a new requirement of public kindergarten for all off the ground. The state has been locked in an interesting battle over who should pay for kindergarten, which the state legislature included as a requirement for all schools in their definition of an adequate education that was adopted last year.

An Associated Press piece this week noted that that Gov. John Lynch extended the deadline for starting programs and agreed to provide financial help to the towns trying to start such programs.

There are fascinating stories to be told behind this kindergarten battle in New Hampshire, the only state in the U.S. that does not offer public kindergarten in all of its school districts. The state whose motto is "Live Free or Die,'' -- and whose residents often reject any programs that will raise taxes -- is also home to a fast growing population of young families who have moved to southern New Hampshire from the Boston area in search of more affordable housing and a better lifestyle. Many are shocked to learn they must home school their children for kindergarten or find private day care options.

National Public Radio did a terrific job in 2005 of describing the disbelief and anger of many parents who showed up to their local elementary school to register their children -- only to learn there is no kindergarten.

The law signed last week extending the deadline and giving communities without kindergarten another year to offer programs means more delays-- and more families with fewer options for giving their child the best start in school.

(presidential candidates views on public funding for pre-kindergarten disappointingly vague)

While Presidential candidate Barack Obama offered his perspective on learning more than one language at an early age last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was readying his speech before the NAACP convention, which he delivered on Thursday.

Not one mention of his views on pre-kindergarten, a disappointment to advocates and duly noted and commented upon by Sara Mead in Early Education Watch. Mainly, McCain used his speech to make clear his support for school vouchers in largely minority and underperforming school systems -- an idea Obama is adamantly against.

"For all the best efforts of teachers and administrators, the worst problems of our public school system are often found in black communities," he told nearly 3,000 members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gathered at its 99th annual convention, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Both candidates have yet to full flesh out their views on early childhood education; Obama has said he'd put billions of dollars into early childhood education to make sure minorities and poor youth "are getting the help they need,'' and wants to increase Head Start funding, but specifics are yet to come.

Mead has her own ideas about some early childhood proposals should believes McCain might support; she's also taken a good look at Obama's.

(The trends in child well-being are well worth watching, as they reflect larger social and economic changes.

While studies are often just a starting point for journalists, it was surprising to find so little coverage of the new Duke University ">study of children's well-being underwritten by the Foundation for Child Development.

The study, released at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. last week, found that progress in American children's quality of life has stalled after an eight-year upward trend -- and that a worsening economy is likely to negatively affect U. S. children for years to come. Areas to watch range from infant mortality rates to publicly financed childcare and health and education programs.

One interesting finding -- the eight year upward improvement trend may have been related to a post 9/11 sense of common purpose in the country. Another important -- and somewhat frightening -- trend to watch will be the many ways an economic downturn may worsen conditions for children.

The study is an excellent starting point, and hopefully will spur coverage and original reporting about these trends throughout the U.S. One mention came in a Houston Chronicle blog item. The study raises critical questions and introduces data that should be localized by journalists.

At the very least, much of the data can be incorporated into important stories on everything from birth rates and infant mortality to pre-school enrollment -- which, by the way, improved according to the report.

(Praise, Caution for Alabama's Pre-kindergarten expansion)

An editorial in the Montgomer Advertiser on Sunday hit the right note of praise and skepticism regarding Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's plan to expand a pre-kindergarten program that is considered one of the best in quality, but that simply isn't reaching enough children.

Riley's expansion will bring the number of children served up to 3,384, but as the editorial points out, that's far less than the state needs. The editorial told the public of the importance of quality, including low student-to-teacher ratios, highly qualified teachers and a program that evaluates the academic, social and basic health needs of children.

At a time when so many states are expanding their programs, it's important for the local press to stay on top of all new developments, and not simply praise or criticize politicians for their efforts to expand pre-kindergarten.

Journalists must understand both the fiscal challenges their state faces along with what makes an effective pre-kindergarten program, how many children it will reach and what the obstacles to success and expansion are. There are legislative reports and several sites that help define what a quality pre-kindergarten looks like that are worth consulting for broader perspective.

This editorial showed homework was done.

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

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

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

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

(They may like the same snacks at U.S. children, but British kindergartens may be more prepared academically, reporter finds)

Associated Press education reporter Nancy Zuckerbrod had to ask herself a very important question this month as she prepared to move her kindergarten age daughter to London, one that has implications for the way U.S. pre-schoolers learn.

Was the year Zuckerbrod's daughter spent mastering monkey bars and drawing planets in her Washington D.C. area pre-school doomed to leave her behind compared with her peers in London, who were expected to master fractions, telling time, counting in 5's up to 50 and more academic tasks? And if so, what did that say about the quality of pre-school in the U.S. compared with early education in England?

One important point Zuckerbrod raised: U.S. fourth-graders were not found lagging behind England on recent international reading studies . So what distinguishes the way the two countries teach early education and how different are the goals? Zuckerbrod, who decided against the teacher's suggestion of leaving her daughter behind for another year, now has a front row seat to answer some of these questions first hand. It will be interesting to see any follow-up that includes research, data and some questioning of the different approaches.

The pressure is on to draw attention to pre-kindergarten issues at upcoming conventions

Looks like early childhood education -- something advocates fear has not been on the radar for presidential candidates -- may get some attention at the upcoming conventions after all.

Congressional Quarterly is hosting an event on the topic at the Democratic convention in Denver on August 28. Known as a bruncheon, the event will allow convention attendees to hear more about an issue some feel has been left out of the campaign debate, or at the very least obscured by other issues.
.
Democrat Barack Obama has called for an expansion of Early Head Start and Head Start; while Republican John McCain has said little about where he stands on pre-kindergarten issues, although he has vowed to "place parents and children at the center of the education process by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children.''

Sara Mead of Early Education Watch has kept a close eye on both, and said she's encouraged by a draft of the Democratic platform that has a section focused entirely on early childhood issues. She's also weighed in with several suggestions for McCain's education agenda.

Pre-K Now, meanwhile, is pushing to remind presidential candidates "of their responsibilities to our kids,'' by asking anyone on their list to sign their message -- or send one of their own in advance of the Democratic and Republican conventions

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

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

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

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

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

The Journal News of Westchester County, New York reports that 10 years of data from the Yonkers school district shows children who attended
preschool scoring well above their peers who did not attend, based on their scores on mandated English and math exams. The newspaper reports that "their performance improved regardless of ethnic group, disability, gender, English-language proficiency or whether they received free or reduced-price lunches..."

Yonkers is expanding its pre-k program this year. But the mayor of Yonkers says money may not be available to sustain that expansion, unless the state contributes more. New York provides only about $3,500 per pupil, which forces local districts to bear some of the financial burden. That's something many New York districts resist.

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.

Education reforms may be limited by tough economic times, but several state officials are putting their weight behind recommendations contained in The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and its “Tough Times, Tough Choices,’’ report.

Journalists from anywhere in the U.S. can call in between 10 and 11 a.m. on Thursday morning, Oct. 30 at 800-954-1051 to take part in a conversation that will include governors, state education commissioners and other policy leaders from a range of states. The press conference comes at a time when many states, including New Yorkand New Jersey, are seeking federal help to prevent devastating budget cuts.

The report, first released in December 2006, urged drastic changes to the U.S. education system and warned that it is way behind other countries. The report also recommended that states put in place a system of high quality early childhood education for all four-year-olds and for all low-income three-year-olds.

The call will provide journalists with an opportunity to ask about states and their commitment to pre-kindergarten programs in tough economic times. With many governors already scaling back planned expansion, what comes next? The report initially recommended a system of high quality early childhood education for all four-year olds and for all low-income three year olds.

The press conference itself takes place at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. at 529 14th Street N.W., Washington, D.C.

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy and co-chair of implemention, says states who take the recommendations seriously can build “internationally competitive education systems…their students will be competing with the best anywhere in the world.’’

It’s not clear yet which aspects of the report will be adopted, but so far, Utah, Massachusetts and New Hampshire are committed to building support for the new agenda, Tucker says.

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.

A new era is about to begin, and as usual, Sara Mead at Early Education Watch is keeping on eye on the post-election developments in early childhood education. While it will be months before newly elected President Barack Obama details how he will carry out his early childhood pledges, it's important for journalists to be reminded of what he said -- all the better to watch what he does.

Mead points out where Obama has stood on education issues in her post today. Education Week also took note of the education agenda ahead, while Alexander Russo of This Week in Education weighed in with a round-up of commentary on what the new president faces.

Closer to home, New York Times writer Lisa Belkin, who writes a new blog called "The Mother Lode,'' for the New York Times, focused on the dilema parents faced this week -- whether or not to allow their kids to stay awake and witness history.

It remains to be seen how educators coped with all the nodding heads and blinking eyes post-election day. I keep picturing a classroom filled with sleeping children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An editorial in the Anchorage Daily News took Governor Sarah Palin to task for missing a statewide conference on the future of Alaska's educational system last week. Palin, the former Republican candidate for Vice President, skipped the conference to speak in Miami about the future of the Republican Party. The editorial urged her to come home and start focusing on the needs of the state.

While Palin gave her talk about national issues, her home state was in the midst of charting the future of its educational system. For the record, Alaska is one of only 12 states that has no state-funded education system for pre-kindergarten students. One of the goals that came out of last week's education summit included a committment to offer state-funded preschool to every three, four and five-year-old in Alaska. A plan to evaluate pre-school programs to make sure they are adequately preparing children for school also emerged as a goal during the conference Palin missed.

The goals are just a starting point and still need to be adopted, possibly refined and publicized. Some will also require funding that may not be available. It isn't clear where Palin stands on any of them.

On the stump as a vice-presidential candidate, Palin, the mother of an infant with Down syndrome, made some proposals about the education of children with special needs. Without giving specifics, she also noted that education "is near and dear to my heart.''

Turns out a puppet named Twiggle the Turtle has an important lesson to teach us about how preschoolers learn: Social skills matter.

An Associated Press story this week described the results of a study by Karen Bierman at Penn State, who took at a look at Head Start programs in Pennsylvania. The study concluded that weekly social skills lessons and sessions with puppets like Twiggle can teach young children specific problem solving skills and improve both vocabulary and behavior.

I particularly liked the story's use of examples to bring the study alive. A description of Twiggle's emotional reaction after a friend knocked over his block tower, for instance, helped illustrate the unpredictable nature of 4-year-olds. As part of a conflict resolution lesson, an older, wiser turtle puppet urged Twiggle to go inside his shell after having his blocks knocked down -- and then to take a deep breath and talk about his feelings.

The teachers then urged the students to cross their arms to be like Twiggle in his shell, which, according to Bierman, became a habit more helpful than the old "use your words,'' approach.

The study -- funded by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies -- divided about 350 students from 44 Head Start classrooms. About half of the four-year-olds were in classrooms that added puppets and problem solving skills sessions.

The study is another reminder of the need for reporters to go and visit preschool classrooms and find out what is being taught -- and why. It comes at a time when educators are under pressure to show that preschools provide a strong academic foundation. As Bierman noted in the article, though, a focus on the just-the-facts in preschool will miss "the engine that's going to drive the desire and motivation for learning."

Score one for Twiggle.

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 New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, whose new book on successful people, "Outliers: The Story of Success, is atop the New York Times' bestseller list, writes in this week's edition about how hard it is to tell in advance who is going to make a good teacher (or NFL quarterback.) All the usual proxies and requirements--certification, advanced degrees, cognitive aptitude--do not seem to predict classroom success, he argues. Yet, given that improving teacher effectiveness is critical to improving educational outcomes for children, Gladwell says teachers should go through a demanding weeding-out process, similar to what's used to choose financial advisors. Only those who hit certain benchmarks will be kept on.

It's a fascinating article, even if it does seem, as much of Gladwell's writing does, overly simplified and wide-eyed at ideas that are commonplace, especially to experts in the field. The best part was a passage featuring Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Gladwell reports the commentary of Pianta and a colleague as they watch videos of good teachers and weak teachers. How instructive that would be!

Go to the jump for an excerpt:

Sam Dillon's front-page piece in today's New York Times offers education journalists a guide to the early care and education stories that will bear watching in the coming year and also a list of some of the key experts and resource people.

Over the past few weeks I've talked to a number of Washington education folks involved in the transition and they all have told me that, whatever the economic situation, President-elect Obama's plans to invest in early education will very likely go forward. If the federal government does become a significant source of funding for preschool, it would redefine the relationship between the federal government and parents and families.

A little more on the sources in the article:

Barbara Bowman happens to be the mother of Valerie Jarrett, a key Obama adviser. She also is a legendary figure in the field of early childhood education. She was one of three founders of the Erikson Institute, the nation's premier graduate school for child development, was a 2005 winner of the McGraw Prize and today is the head of the Chicago Public Schools' Office of Early Education. Chicago superintendent of schools Arne Duncan, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Education, no doubt learned a lot from Dr. Bowman and now will be charged with helping carry out the president's agenda on that issue which, by the way, Duncan had a big hand in developing.

Cornelia Grumman, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune editorial writer, heads up the First Five Years Fund. The fund is dedicated to promoting investments in expanding early learning services for children birth to age 5. She keeps close track of what's going on nationally on these issues.

Libby Doggett, the executive director of Pre-K Now, will be a good source on how the federal efforts connect with what states are doing in preschool. Pre-K Now advocates for universal pre-kindergarten.

Bruce Fuller of the University of California, Berkeley is a good source as well. Fuller will voice concerns about using public funds to make preschool available to all, regardless of income. This will be something to watch in the administration's specific proposals. Most state programs now are targeted to the poor.

Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College is a leading policy expert on early education who has studied pre-kindergarten quality extensively. Look for a paper from her on how the federal government can invest in high quality programs out soon from the Center on Education Policy.

Kelly Smith of the Forum in North Dakota did an excellent job of setting the stage for what could be an unprecedented push for pre-kindergarten in North Dakota. The issue is important in this rural state because it comes at a time when 90 percent of the students are now enrolled in full-day kindergarten, and educators are expressing worries they will be at a disadvantage if they haven't had some form of schooling before. It's not clear if that argument will sway lawmakers, but it certainly sets up an interesting story idea.

What are kindergarten teachers seeing in the students who arrive with no classroom experience? How can they see and measure a lack of preparation and does it impede student progress on other important early learning skills?

North Dakota is one of only eight in the U.S. that does not fund any pre-kindergarten and lawmakers and others in the state are once again pushing for change. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven recommended in his budget a plan to spend $3.5 million reimbursing school districts for half-day, two-day-a-week preschool programs, which would help about 7,000 of the state's 4-year-olds. As the state weighs other priorities, it will be interesting to watch what happens to the governor's pre-kindergarten plans.

Could cookies, milk and sandbox play give way to a regime of veggie sticks and jumping jacks?

Paige Parker of the Oregonian notes that food and exercise regimes may be the last thing on the minds of parents looking for day care. But perhaps they shouldn't be. One third of 2- to 5-year-olds enrolled in a state nutrition program in Oregon are overweight or obese in a state where about 53 percent of children younger than 5 are in child care settings, Parker reports.

Oregon officials have come to believe they can reduce obesity rates by targeting the way children eat and exercise outside of their own homes. A statewide obesity prevention task force is recommending the upcoming Legislature require state agencies to develop standards for healthy eating, along with the amount of time spent engaged in physical activity or in front of a screen while in child care settings.

Part of their thinking may have been influenced by a study of South Carolina children that found kids in child care settings were sedentary, on average, for 42 minutes of every hour.

They engaged in a little less than eight minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each hour -- the equivalent of one hour of heart thumping activity for an eight-hour day, says Stewart Trost, one of the study's authors and now an Oregon State University professor.

Nationally, 26 percent of children that age are overweight or at risk of being overweight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2006. So it is worthwhile finding out if any other states will follow Oregon's example. Journalists have been on top of the trend of public schools providing healthier lunches for students in elementary schools and beyond, but are any other states trying to put their youngest charges on a diet?

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.

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.

First Lady Michelle Obama made it clear she shares her husband's priority of expanding early childhood education programs on a symbolic first visit to the U.S. Department of Education.

She told employees: "I am a product of your work,'' the department's website proclaimed on Tuesday.

Obama chose the Department of Education for the first of her planned federal visits, according to CBS News, where she noted to applause that early childhood education programs would be preserved.

"....All of you know here the importance of investing in early childhood education, and imagine what we can do with millions of dollars of more investment in this area,'' she said. "We can expand opportunities in low-income districts for all students, and particularly for students with disabilities.''

The visit comes at a time when the Senate is debating President Barack Obama's $885 billion stimulus plan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a time when both print and broadcast media are both cutting back on education coverage, Early Stories was pleasantly surprised to find a local television station intensely covering an important early childhood story that goes beyond a quick take on cute kids. (Although the kids featured are awfully cute.)

Channel 3000 in Madison, Wisconsin has consistently covered a longstanding proposal to create a kindergarten program for 4-year-olds that has been beneficial elsewhere in the state but is costly. Consideration of the proposal comes at a time when the city of Madison -- like municipalities across the U.S. -- is struggling financially. Parents, taxpayers and school officials alike are rightly questioning both the costs and the benefits.

The station has been covering this story intelligently for several years, taking on angles and questions of enormous importance to parents and educators, from what is the right age for kindergarten to how early programs specifically address children's social and emotional needs. There are also links to research and issue papers that detail how the funding would work. The public deserves information and answers -- it's too bad more local television stations don't take them type to give these kinds of issues serious treatment.

It was interesting reading about the town of Hudson, New Hampshire in an Associated Press article that ran in USA Today and many other papers.

The story is about the only town within the 48 states that doesn't offer free public kindergarten, and does not want to unless the state provides more money for it.

Apparently the "Live Free or Die," state is only now beginning to require that its school districts provide public kindergarten.

The town of Hudson has filed a lawsuit seeking to block public kindergarten in its schools, and I was fascinated to find out why. However, the article does not quote anyone who is against kindergarten, instead citing as the reason a constitutional amendment in 1984 to the New Hampshire Constitution requiring that the state pay for any new mandated programs.

Early Stories thinks an opportunity was missed here to introduce research about the importance of full day kindergarten, and to explain the opposition. A little research turned up some more informative stories on the topic: a piece in the Boston Globe last month quoted a Hudson school official balking at kindergarten "as an unfunded state mandate,'' along with the Hudson superintendent calling it "a matter for the voters to decide.''

And, as is often the case, those who are against it cite money. The superintendent noted that in tough economic times, paying for kindergarten "could be a disaster in the making,'' although I did not see any figures for how much it would cost taxpayers and what the school board might have to cut to make room for kindergarten.

I also uncovered a forceful editorial in the Nashua Telegram, urging the Hudson school board "to abandon its ill-conceived court challenge,'' calling it "a foolish waste of the town's time and money.''

The story got picked up all over the U.S. and is worth a follow-up. But I would like to hear more from both sides. It's hard to imagine a town
fighting against free public kindergarten. I'd like to hear some of the voices next time explaining why, along with some education research that explains what children get out of kindergarten and why it's important.

Early Stories 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.

Although the increase in Head Start funding will be smaller than the NHSA wants, and maybe even smaller than the House of Representatives wants, it will still be an increase. Steve Barnett is very concerned about the $40 billion the Senate compromise cuts from direct aid to states to prevent reductions in services. He says the number of children in publicly funded pre-kindergarten classes is now about the same as are in Head Start. States are already slashing spending on preschool and more are no doubt on the way. Won't that make it all that much harder for parents to get a job?

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.

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.

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

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

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

As President Barack Obama pledges to invest in early childhood education, it's important for journalists to keep the focus on the thousands of children across the U.S. who could truly benefit from public pre-kindergarten programs but are not being served.

That's what WYPR radio reporter Joel McCord did this week by spending some time with four-year-old Wyatt Fowler and his mother in Prince George's County, Maryland. You can listen to the program here:

Wyatt's parents don't earn enough to send him to private preschool, but they earn too much to qualify for state or federal subsidies. So his mother is trying to get him ready for kindergarten on her own.

"He's not getting that interaction with other children his age to know how to act in a group of peers, to know how to sit and take direction from another adult besides myself, to be able to know a consistent routine and follow it,'' Donna Flowler told McCord. She also told him that the two years one of her older sons spent in pre-k greatly improved his academic performance.

The stories of individual kids and families really bring home how and why such programs are important. There's lots of coverage of the push for universal pre-k from advocates and lobbyists in Maryland, which offers a state-funded program for at-risk four-year-olds.

There's a big expansion push now, a universal pre-k bill in the General Assembly that comes at a time when the state -- like many others in the U.S, -- is experiencing a budget crisis.

There's plenty of coverage about the state's finances, but not enough stories about children like Wyatt, who was playing at his mom's knee instead of learning to identify letters, sing songs and play early math games with children his own age.

As the House Committee on Education and Labor begin hearings this week on early childhood education, it's a good time for journalists to think about visiting centers of early learning, including Head Start and Early Head Start.

Questions about the quality of programs abound at a time when President Barack Obama's stimulus package includes some $5 billion to grow Early Head Start and Head Start and to expand access to quality child care and early learning.

These excellent questions about how to assess the quality of programs come courtesy of the First Five Years Fund, whose goals include increasing the number of policymakers, private foundations and business leaders who believe in the value of supporting young children early.

On this list are some red flags for the kinds of things you don't want to see when visiting an early childhood center:

What you don’t want to see:

Inattentive, overwhelmed, or unengaged staff
* Unengaged teachers sitting on the side of the classroom but not participating
* Shouting, swearing, or other displays of hostile discipline
* Infants and toddlers crying without being attended to

An unsafe, unhealthy, or un-stimulating environment
* Small, cramped centers or homes without designated appropriate spaces for different ages
* A center or home that smells of urine, has visible safety risks, or is unclean
* Frequent use of television or video to occupy children
* Children easily distracted or frightened by visiting strangers

Activities and routines that are too chaotic or too inflexible
* Children wandering aimlessly, left unsupervised, or displaying unchecked aggression
* Children restrained in car seats or in high chairs at times other than meal time
* Children spending a lot of time waiting around for turns
* Children expected to sit at desks, perform highly structured tasks, or other forms of age-inappropriate expectations

What you want to see:

Educated, attentive, and engaged teachers and staff
* Teachers with four-year degrees and specific training in early childhood education
* No more than 8 infants and toddlers and no more than 20 preschoolers in a classroom
* Teacher to child ratios of 1:3 for infants and 1:10 for preschoolers
* Teachers who crouch to eye-level to speak to children and who hold, cuddle, show affection, and speak directly to infants and toddlers
* Families and teachers exchanging information about the child's development and learning progress

A safe, healthy, and child-friendly environment
* A room well-equipped with sufficient materials and toys
* Classrooms in which materials and activities are placed at eye level for the children
* Materials and toys accessible to children in an orderly display
* Centers that encourage safe, outdoor playtime
* Frequent hand-washing by children and adults
* Visitors welcomed with appropriate parental consent

Stimulating activities and appropriately structured routines
* Children who are engaged in their activities
* Children offered breakfast and lunch and a time to nap
* Children participating with teachers and each other in individual, small-group, and large-group activities
* Children receiving a variety of stimuli in their daily routine using indoor and outdoor spaces and age-appropriate language, literacy, math, science, art, music, movement, and dramatic play experiences
* Preschoolers who are allowed to play independently

It's not always easy for busy journalists to find the time to go out and visit pre-schools and Head Start programs, but stories describing what actually happens in these programs go a long way toward helping the public understand what policies are actually working, and where drastic improvement is needed. At a time when the U.S. is poised to invest significant public dollars in early childhood programs, journalists can shine a light on how its littlest citizens are learning -- or not.

The Anchorage Daily News published an interesting editorial this week criticizing the state's lagging response to providing publicly funded pre-kindergarten. Alaska is one of only 12 states in the U.S. that does not provide programs for its youngest residents.

The editorial follow a statewide summit on pre-kindergarten in November where educators and advocates pushed for improving Alaska's offerings, and comes as President Barack Obama is touting the importance of early childhood education. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who while stumping as a vice-presidential candidate called education "near and dear to my heart,'' -- did not attend that summit meeting.

Palin's budget proposal did not go as far as advocates had hoped, calling only for a state-funded pilot that would serve about 500 pre-kindergarten children. The state's superintendent has called for federal stimulus funds to be used for new preschools for low-income students, while other educators want Palin to push harder for expansion.

"The state should take advantage of opportunities to fund preschools -- proven to give kids a stronger start,'' the editorial noted. It also pointed out that "well-run preschools can improve the odds children will succeed in school.''

Palin, for her part, has criticized the stimulus package as too large and said it would not be fair to Alaskans "to create expectations about programs that wouldn't be sustainable.''

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?

EarlyStories has been urging reporters to think hard about dueling trends in pre-kindergarten education as long planned expansions run into hard fiscal realities. The National Institute for Early Education Research has explored the issue in depth. Their annual survey of state-funded programs, released in Washington D.C. on Tuesday is a must read for journalists, especially because it provides state-by-state snapshots. NIEER, based at Rutgers University In New Jersey, has produced an annual report on state preschool programs since 2002.

NIEER found ample evidence of the growth of pre-kindergarten programs, as follows:
• Enrollment increased by more than 108,000 children. More than 1.1 million children attended state-funded preschool education, 973,178 at age 4 alone.
• Thirty-three of the 38 states with state-funded programs increased enrollment.
• Eleven states improved the quality of their preschool programs, based on quality standards developed by NIEER. One fell back.
• State funding for pre-k rose to almost $4.6 billion. Funding for state pre-k from all reported sources exceeded $5.2 billion, an increase of nearly $1 billion (23 percent) over the previous year.

But the report also noted that the economy has taken a toll on expansion, as Sam Dillon of the New York Times noted. Nine states have announced cuts to state-run pre-kindergarten programs while legislatures continue to debate cutting others.

As the debate over the value of spending money on pre-k programs continues, Congress is raising federal funding for preschool while President Barack Obama continues to promise new investment in early childhood education. That means reporters will be monitoring state budget cuts, use of stimulus money to boost early childhood education and long-planned state expansions all at the same time. In this confusing and quickly changing landscape, the NIEER report is an especially helpful tool.

EarlyStories was hoping Florida journalists might pick up on this week's NIEER 2007 report card, which found that Florida's voluntary pre-k program is among the poorest quality in the U.S. The state earned high marks for access, as it is open to every 4-year-old, regardless of income. News about the program is hugely important in Florida's tough economy, where more and more parents are taking advantage of it; some 61 percent of the state's four-year-olds enrolled last year.

The Tampa Tribune noted in a piece this week that Florida educators are worried that the findings did change much over the course of a year. EarlyStories would now like to see journalists spend some time examining Florida's pre-k programs and explaining to the public how to tell the difference between a high and low quality program.

It's not enough to tell us that a program is of poor quality. What are the kids -- and teachers -- doing, or not doing? Are they being prepared for kindergarten? Are they learning letters, numbers and sounds or just playing on a playground? How is quality measured -- what do the standards look like -- and how can parents steer clear of poor programs? What -- if any -- efforts are under way to improve Florida's pre-k's?

The NIEER report should be a starting point for journalists. What are the stories that come next?

President Barack Obama, who has been pushing a major investment in early childhood education, provides some more details in an interview with Fortune Magazine about why corporate leaders -- who have been something of a target in the sinking economy -- will advocate for investing in education.

"We cannot ignore the fact that our education system is not adequately preparing our workers for a 21st-century economy," Obama said in an interview with Fortune's Washington editor Nina Easton. "Our businesses cannot compete and win in the global economy without a more effectively trained workforce - especially in areas like math and science. That is why so many corporate leaders are advocating for more effective investments in education - from early-childhood education to cultivating more homegrown engineering talent."

Obama's remarks come at a time when businesses have been active in promoting preschool and early childhood education; some examples include Billionaire oilman George Kaiser, who has put up funds in Tulsa Oklahoma. while rallying other business leaders, to Robert H. Dugger, managing editor of Tudor Investment Corp. in Washington, D.C.

Obama has said early childhood initiatives will help reduce welfare, healthcare costs and crime rates, but how real and substantial will the business community's involvement in education be? It's a question that is well worth asking and following as the Obama administration is poised to push for the largest new federal initiative for young children since 1965. Will corporate leaders follow through -- how large will there investment be, and will they retain an interest in the quality of new programs and initiatives?

EarlyStories keeps a close watch on the way journalists cover -- or ignore -- early childhood issues. The majority of stories we see tend to focus on funding battles, so it comes as a nice surprise when we come across stories that take us into classrooms. It's especially critical at a time when federal stimulus dollars will funnel $100 billion into early childhood education, public schools and colleges -- the largest one-time amount earmarked for education in U.S. history.

Ryan Blackburn of the Athens Banner Herald in Georgia this week wrote the kind of story that allows the public to get a sense of what is happening inside a pre-kindergarten program and why it might be important. The story included an interview with the teacher describing exactly what students should know by this time of year -- for example, they should be able to recognize small from large and be able to name the things they see in at least 30 pictures.

The small, but nonetheless important detail gives the public a sense of what students should be learning in pre-k, and it describes how the teacher is tracking the progress of each student to decide if they need extra help in a summer program before they start kindergarten.

"In kindergarten, there's less self-directed play, called center time, than pre-K students are accustomed to,'' Carolyn Wolpert, an Early Reading First coordinator, told Blackburn. "There's also more math and science concepts they must learn, so the more chances they get to prepare for the first day of class in the fall the better off they'll be.''

So now the reader can understand what children need to be ready for kindergarten. For another illustration of how critical the early years are, check out Maria Glod's Washington Post story about student performance on on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, showing that nine-year-olds posted the highest scores ever in reading and math in 2008.

But as Sara Mead over at Early Education Watch notes,"the real test is whether the today's 9-year-olds will sustain their pre-k and elementary school learning gains into middle and high school. It's too early to say with any confidence that they will (our middle and high schools do need to improve their performance) but it's also much to early to assume they won't. Educators and policymakers must work to continue to build on the improvements we have made in the preK-3rd years, by expanding access to quality pre-k, full-day kindergarten, and implementing aligned, high-quality curriculum and instructional programs across the preK-3rd continuum..."

That gives journalists a charge: visit these classrooms and find out what the teachers are trying to accomplish. Follow up, and see how the children who attended the programs do when they get to kindergarten, and ask teachers if they have noticed a difference. Ask for studies, and try to find out if school districts are tracking progress -- and if so how. All this will go a long way toward helping the public understand what happens during these critical early years.

Education journalist Emily Alpert of the Voice of San Diego expertly questioned the elements of a new and changing landscape for early childhood funding in a story this week, aimed at helping the public wade through some confusing new developments. It's a story that differs from state to state, but is well worth pursuing.

Alpert wondered how and why early childhood centers are being forced to make major spending cutbacks in a worsening economy, just as they are receiving a new influx of federal stimulus money. As the Obama administration prepares to make a major investment in early childhood education, early childhood providers are experiencing an unprecedented push and pull.

As a result, Alpert wrote, many centers are "in the paradoxical position of juggling expected cuts with investments in better programs and training, benefiting some families and not others. The fates of different preschools and their different programs will vary dramatically depending on where they get their money, and whether they can find ways to tap the stimulus."

In California, pre-school funding is complicated ; other states are in the process of trying to expand their offerings while facing resistance from politicians and taxpayers and deep budget gaps. It can be confusing for journalists and the public to explain cutbacks that are happening just as new money comes in to boost Head Start and other early childhood programs; see Early Ed Watch for a good explanation.

States vary widely when it comes to offering pre-k programs and spending, and the landscape is shifting quickly in the worsening economy. The National Institute for Early Education Research offers excellent profiles of each state, but there's no substitute for visiting centers and speaking to directors the way Alpert did.

From Alpert's story:

"Scott Moore, senior policy adviser for the nonprofit advocacy group Preschool California, summed up the feeling among preschool providers in a word. "Schizophrenic," he said.

Moore told Alpert, in a quote that truly summarizes the conflict and confusion over funding: "It is the strangest time. On the one hand, it is so thrilling to have a president who is passionate about early childhood education. On the other hand you have our state budget crisis, which is real and must be faced. People are scared. It is very difficult to predict how things will end up."

The public should be kept informed of these dueling trends, and that means journalists must keep asking.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finn responded here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll ask and try to answer:

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

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

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."

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

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

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

The reaction to the cuts?

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

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

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

EarlyStories 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.

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

What will that mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the country's top experts on early childhood education made an interesting observation during a discussion of equity in after school programs this week: Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, the co-director of the
National Center for Children and Families noted at a forum sponsored by the Campaign for Educational Equity that after school programs have a lot to learn from what has happened with early childhood programs in the U.S.

Brooks-Gunn, the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at TC, found similarities while working on study of after school programs that "remind me of early childhood education, like a time warp.'' Both are moving toward improving quality as well as "continuous improvement.''

The packed forum at Teachers College included observations by TASC (The After School Corporation) and prompted an interesting discussion of how and if after-school programs can level the playing field for disadvantaged youth -- especially because their participation in such programs is so low.

The forum came during a week after school programs or the lack of them has been in the news, due to a report by the After School Alliance , which found that some 15 million children are alone and unsupervised after school, and that the parents of some 18 million would enroll their children in after school programs if they were available.

EarlyStories enjoyed the discussion, especially because it prompted an opportunity to think about where early childhood education has been and where it is going in the U.S. After school programs, like early childhood education, can play an enormous role in the lives of children, yet neither issue gets the attention it deserves from the media.

Remarks made at the forum also led to the re-discovery of an important resource for education journalists and others trying to get a helpful overview and handle on early childhood issues: a June 2009 report entitled "American Early Childhood: Preventing or Perpetuating Inequality?"

The report is authored by Brooks-Gunn' colleague, Sharon Lynn Kagan,, who is also the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy at TC and with Brooks-Gunn co-directs the National Center for Children and Families.

A re-read of Kagan's report served as a reminder of why what happens in the early years is so critical right now. The report spells out both important historical developments in early childhood education as well as sketching out the urgency of the current landscape.

As Kagan noted, "...expectations and investments are soaring now as never before....domestically, early childhood is on the agenda of every governor; bills are in the hopper in early every state legislature...internationally, other nations look to America to see if and how we are education our youngest children."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

EarlyStories 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is sad fact of life that in a time of economic crisis, as states are scaling back on promised expansions of publicly funded pre-kindergarten, that a few upscale Washington D.C. parents are whining.

In some ways, it's even sadder that their concerns have become a story, but indeed they provide a window into the unfounded fears that may accompany thinking about education.

And why are these parents whining, according to the Washington Post? It seems that a blog posting about the new academic focus in kindergarten set off waves of fear about how prepared their offspring might be, according to the Post's Valerie Strauss.

Strauss writes that parents have been begging school directors to let their 1 1/2 -year-olds into programs for 2-year-olds. In interviews with a few dozen preschool directors, Strauss learned that parents have been, among other things, demanding to know why their 2-year-old isn't being given the alphabet to copy over and memorize and enrolling their 3-year-olds in so many activities "that the kids are falling asleep on their preschool desks.''

Why all this anxiety? "Unknowing parents see their kids playing at a water table and think they are wasting their time,'' Strauss notes.

To her credit, she notes that there is an enormous amount of research showing that play has great developmental benefits.

In this case, it seems like the pre-school directors need to do some educating of parents. Several told Strauss they were afraid of offending them. As educators, they need to be clear about how and why play matters, and if they don't explain and defend the value of play, they might as well just start assigning homework to two-year-olds.

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.

At a time of unprecedented federal involvement and investment in education, coverage of the issue is so lacking it makes up only 1.4 percent of national news coverage, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.

The report, entitled: "Invisible: 1.4 Percent Coverage for Education is Not Enough,'' finds scant coverage of critical issues like teaching, learning and curriculum; most stories "dealt with budget problems, school crime and the H1N! flu outbreak,'' according to the report, funded with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The findings are not surprising, coming at a time when newspapers are under pressure simply to survive and other news outlets are struggling due to declining ad revenues and other economic pressures. And there were some bright spots: local reporting still produces quality journalism about important education topics in cities like Providence, Minneapolis and and Phoenix.

At EarlyStories, we often lament the lack of substantive reporting on pre-kindergarten and early childhood issues; the Brookings report did not isolate the issue, but noted that budget issues dominated coverage of pre-school programs. The report zeroed in on wire service coverage of education and noted that much of it "focuses on stories that have nothing to do with education itself,'' and instead are about crime, sex and scandals involving educators.

You can watch a webcast of the event, which includes recommendations, on the Brookings website:

At a time when public policy discussions are focused on state funding for pre-schools, it was interesting to see a San Francisco parent call for more programs that charge $10,000 or less. It seems that residents of the city by the sea are taking out second mortgages in some cases to afford preschool feels of between $12,000 and $20,000.

Those prices are daunting, of course, but anyone familiar with the insanity of preschool in Manhattan might consider such numbers a bargain.The highly coveted 92nd Street YMCA nursery school program, for example, charges $24,380 for a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. program; some city nursery schools are charging close to $30,000 for full-day programs.

The upscale urban programs in New York City promise prestige along with sandbox play and alphabet training of course, and parents appear far more concerned about getting in than about the pricetag.

It's not so clear that the same is true of early learning centers in San Francisco; William Shireman wrote in his Chronicle column that "paying these prices is criminal,'' and noted that the kids who most need preschool aren't able to afford it. Shireman's argument is a good one for publicly funded, free pre-school, but he said he'd settle for more preschools "with fees of $10,000 or less that offer safety, warmth, love and a smart curriculum for children from all kinds of families. Not through subsidies but through well-designed programs and regulations that enable and encourage affordable preschool and child care, and give parents a choice."

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.

Picture this: A four-year-old boy is isolated in a library during the two and half hours he is supposed to be in pre-school, and is on the verge of being kicked out completely.

And just what did this four-year-old do to face expulsion? It's about his hair, according to articles in the Dallas Morning News.

Taylor Pugh is in Big Trouble for making an end run around the dress code rules at Floyd Elementary School in Mesquite Texas, the kind of place where students "can't go to class out of dress code,'' according to the associate superintendent. It's also the kind of school district that sent a 19-year-old boy home back in the seventies because his hair touched his collar, and told a boy wearing skinny jeans he had to change or go home.

EarlyStories likes to remain neutral and balanced, but can't help in this case wondering why the length of a four-year-old boys hair -- and in this case the boy is of Native American heritage and has a legitimate cultural reason for keeping his hair long -- should prevent him from getting a pre-school education.

Where is the outrage? Free Taylor Pugh!

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

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

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

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

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

A potentially fascinating fight could be underway in Tennessee, where Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, who has pushed to expand pre-kindergarten in the state, is finding himself at odds with the state's teachers union.

At issue, according to several accounts, is Bredesen's plan to have student test scores account for at least 50 percent of how teachers are evaluated. The Memphis Commercial Appeal noted that he called for a week-long special session of the legislature in hopes of getting the law that bars use of student data in teacher evaluations changed. He's also asking for the support of business leaders to try and change the law.

Bredesen's goal is one governors and educators in cash-strapped states across the U.S. can relate to -- the deadline is looming for states that hope to get a piece of the $4.35 billion in stimulus dollars outlined as part of President Barack Obama's Race to the Top plan that could give Tennessee as much as $400 to $500 million. States must meet criteria for reforming their education system to get the money, though, and that's why Bredesen is pushing to take advantage of the state's vast collection of student performance data that measures academic gains.Under state law, that data cannot be used to evaluate teachers for either licensure or tenure.

Bredesen has had to scale back some of his plans to expand state-funded pre-kindergarten in the state, which has been hailed as a national leader. Bredesen wants to expand the program, but first he is calling for changes in state education law, including requiring student performance data to be used in evaluating teachers and requiring annual performance assessment of teachers.

States that win the competitive grants will get much needed cash to improve their education system. But can Bredesen meet his goals without support from the teachers union?

EarlyStories will be keeping a close eye on what happens in Tennessee.

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")

EarlyStories has been waiting, watching and wondering what would happen to Taylor Pugh, the suburban Dallas boy suspended from prekindergarten because of his long locks. With so much national attention focused on the issue, it seemed the school board in Mesquite might, perhaps, back off and decide the time spent in a classroom would be more important than the length of his hair.

Not so. On Monday, night, the board voted unanimously to enforce its ban; they offered a compromise that would have allowed him to braid and pin his hair up, according to the New York Times, which caught up with little Pugh's plight.

Quote of the day comes courtesy of school board member Gary Bingham, an insurance agent who told the New York Times: “It’s a trade-off....do the parents value his education more than they value a 4-year-old’s decision to make his own grooming choices?”

EarlyStories would like to reframe the question: Is the length of a child's hair more important to the school board then the benefits of early education?

And add one more: Are the clocks in Dallas still set for 1963? The desire to enforce its ban on what they still call "Beatles haircuts,'' can mean only one thing: They are still mad about the moptops.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Teach me something."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.