A Lesson For Preschools: When It’s Done Right, The Benefits Last (NPR)
From a recent NPR article: “Is preschool worth it? Policymakers, parents, researchers and us, at NPR Ed, have spent a lot of time thinking about this question. We know that most pre-kindergarten programs do a good job of improving ‘ specific skills like phonics and counting, as well as broader social and emotional behaviors, by…
Three Lessons: How States Can Support P-3 Efforts
This post is a cross-posting from Preschool Matters Today, the blog of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). Thanks to Michelle Ruess at NIEER for her support. In western Oregon, a regional early learning hub supports 30 partnerships of elementary schools, neighboring family childcare providers and community-based preschools focused on professional learning and…
The Power of a Good Kindergarten Curriculum
Last week approximately 35 Rhode Island teachers and coaches began learning how to implement an interdisciplinary kindergarten curriculum developed by the Boston Public Schools (BPS). This training is part of a pilot project sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) with the aim of supporting developmentally-appropriate, Common Core-aligned kindergarten teaching and learning. 23…
Why K-12 should be thinking ‘Birth-3rd’
Massachusetts’ early childhood childhood advocacy organization, Strategies for Children, has posted a thoughtful article on how states should incorporate Birth-3rd strategies into their plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Other states may find the recommendations to be of interest as well. As the article states, “It’s … crucial for our state ESSA plan to include…
Teaching Your Child Emotional Agility
“It’s hard to see a child unhappy. Whether a child is crying over the death of a pet or the popping of a balloon, our instinct is to make it better, fast. That’s where too many parents get it wrong, says the psychologist Susan David, author of the book ‘Emotional Agility.’ Helping a child feel…
How Three States are Building P-3 Systems
Alyssa Haywoode has done a nice summary of Building State P-3 Systems at Eye on Early Education.
A Working Theory of Action for P-3 Community Partnerships
I have now posted Version 2.0 of the Theory of Action and 7 principles. Please see this post for the updated version.
Building State P-3 Systems: Learning from Leading States
The Center for Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) recently released a report I wrote comparing P-3 System-Building in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The three case studies address a central question: How can states support P-3 system building at both state and local levels? See the Executive Summary at the beginning of the report for nine themes and…
The Good News About Educational Inequality
The authors of the report mentioned in the previous post below have a piece in this week’s NYT Sunday Review. See the whole article, but here is the conclusion: “As encouraging as this new evidence is, we have a long way to go. Poor children still enter kindergarten nearly a year behind their richer peers. Even…
Are Poor Students More Prepared for Kindergarten?
“For decades, as wealthy parents invested more and more time and money on enrichment for their young children, students in poverty fell further and further behind. New research, however, suggests that the trend is changing: The children starting their first days of kindergarten may arrive better prepared than prior generations—and students in poverty will arrive…