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The Way Forward: Reinventing Early Childhood Education After COVID-19

COVID-19 has exposed a fundamental truth about our systems of education, health, and social services: They are fragmented and siloed, thwarting efforts to improve the quality of learning and care for children. Nowhere is this clearer than in the schools, preschools, and community programs that serve the 44% of U.S. children under 9 identified as low-income. The lack of collaboration and shared vision among these systems means that the extraordinary efforts of people who work on the frontlines are severely handicapped in meeting the needs of children and families.

As we rethink national and state education policies, and as we rebuild schooling and caregiving, we must ensure that the schools and programs that serve children and their families work together at the local level where it matters most.

For over a decade, I’ve studied the work of innovative communities nationwide where just this sort of collaboration is in full force. Preschools, elementary schools, and community health and social service organizations join forces to create and carry out a clear equity agenda that focuses on improving the quality of life for low-income children and their families and children of color and their families. Their successes provide a road map to reinventing early childhood education that begins with three core design principles:

Connect Early Years and Early Grades. When early childhood and K–12 educators collaborate, they can ensure high-quality learning for children. Yet this seldom happens. Instead, we have created two systems with very different philosophies and practices for children of similar ages. The innovative communities that I’ve studied bring early childhood programs together with elementary schools to align curricula, work on how best to teach young children, and develop common approaches to supporting families. As a result, children’s learning can proceed smoothly, consistently, and successfully.

Deepen Partnerships with Families. It’s time to move beyond “random acts of family engagement” like occasional back-to-school nights. Research shows that families play a vital role in children’s success in school, and schools and communities must make two major shifts to support families in this role. The first shift is one of mindset: begin with respect for families and their contributions, be responsive to families’ cultural traditions, invite families to participate as full partners in school affairs, and promote families’ development as leaders. These changes must be coupled with new structures to support families with comprehensive services such as family liaison positions, family resource centers, and well-thought-out partnerships with health and social service agencies.

Strengthen Communities. Harvard’s Opportunity Insights project has shown that of all government policies, investments in low-income children have the highest returns and pay for themselves. The project’s researchers have also demonstrated that the neighborhoods where children grow up have enormous impacts on children’s future social mobility. They conclude that, “The broader lesson of our analysis is that social mobility should be tackled at a local level by improving childhood environments.” Here the first two design principles come together with a third: the most powerful way to improve childhood environments is to implement comprehensive strategies across the elementary schools, early childhood programs, and health and social service agencies that serve children and families in the same community.

Translating principles into action: How does life change for children in these communities? Communities in Maine, Nebraska, Oregon, and Pennsylvania are improving home visiting, family childcare, preschool, and Head Start programs. They are finding new, more effective ways to help children acquire key literacy, math, and social-emotional skills. Families are receiving the health, mental health, and social service support they need to build on their strengths and overcome challenges. Schools, preschools, and community agencies are coordinating their work: sharing data, aligning curricula, supporting children and families through the transition to kindergarten, and leading community-wide campaigns on parenting, school attendance, and early literacy. They are sustaining this work during COVID-19. These communities are demonstrating how to create coherent systems. They are showing us the way forward to better futures for children and families.

Join Us Thursday: Partnerships for the Whole Child (Panelists Posted)

I’m looking forward to moderating the first webinar in our 4-part series, School-Community Partnerships for the Whole Child this Thursday at 4:00 ET. Please join us as we learn about:

Boston’s innovative PreK – 2nd Grade curriculum, coaching, and professional learning model and its collaboration with community-based preschools,
The district-wide use of non-evaluative classroom observation tools to improve teaching and learning in the early grades in Lansing, MI, and
Woonsocket, RI’s transition to kindergarten partnership and its city-wide approach to social-emotional learning in preK and kindergarten classrooms.

The panelists for the first two webinars are posted here, and the remaining panelists will be posted soon.

Partnerships for the Whole Child: Webinar Series Registration

Register now. Terrific line-up of panelists. Critically important topic at this moment in time. Great experience working with these partners:

The AASA (The School Superintendents Association), NAESP (the National Association of Elementary School Principals), CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers), EDC (Education Development Center), New America, and NAECS-SDE (the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education) invite you to join us for a 4-part webinar series.

How can communities and states advance equity and build comprehensive approaches that promote whole child learning and development from birth through elementary school?

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fundamental flaws in the systems that support children and families in the United States. Addressing these weaknesses is essential to ending racial injustice and addressing inequality. This is a moment in time to consider how we can best set up early childhood educators and professionals to be successful both during the pandemic and as we rebuild systems in its aftermath.

Join us for engaging discussions on advancing equity and promoting whole child learning and development from before birth through elementary school. We will learn from innovative models from around the country, including CPC P-3, First 10, Maryland’s Judy Centers, and Metro Omaha’s Birth through Grade 3 initiative, and from trailblazing communities, including Boston, MA, Lancaster, PA, Oakland, CA, Orlando, FL, Woonsocket, RI, Yakima, WA, rural Maine, and others.

Hear from principals, superintendents, program directors, local and state leaders, and other experts on how these models combine a focus on teaching and learning, deep family engagement, health and social service supports, and continuous improvement.

This first webinar will take place on Thursday, November 12th at 4 PM ET and will focus on the following topics:

Aligning curriculum and instruction pre-K through elementary school
Ensuring successful transitions to kindergarten
Promoting professional learning across communities

Click here to register for all four webinars.

New Webinar Series: How School and Communities can Serve the Whole Child

Save the Dates. Such great work happening all around the country. We have lined up four engaging panels of fantastic leaders to share their expertise and experience. Our theme: Advancing equity through comprehensive approaches that address teaching and learning, deep family engagement, health and social service supports, and continuous improvement.

Excited to be working with terrific partners at AASA (The Superintendents Association), NAESP, CCSSO, New America, and the Early Childhood State Specialists in State Departments of Education to organize this event. Stay tuned for registration information.

Building State and Local Systems in Tandem

New America published my new report on state and local First 10 initiatives today.

In 2018, state leaders in Maine determined that their efforts to support children and their families were hampered by the lack of coordination among key stakeholders—early education and care providers, public school educators, and health and social services providers. Addressing these challenges would require new forms of collaboration both among state agencies and at the local level. In response, they created initiatives designed to work in tandem—a state inter-agency team and a companion initiative in 13 communities throughout the state.

Maine chose to use the First 10 framework to guide and structure this work. First 10 partnerships bring together school districts, elementary schools, early childhood programs, and community agencies to improve the quality and coordination of education and care for young children and their families. They work to improve teaching and learning, deepen partnerships with families, and provide comprehensive services for children and families.

Building Systems in Tandem: Maine’s State and Local Initiatives to Improve Outcomes for Children

State, Regional, and Community Initiatives in Maine and Pennsylvania

Learn about how state agencies, regional support organizations, and communities collaborate to improve outcomes for children and families. Lee Anne Larsen of the Maine Department of Education joins me in this NAEYC Virtual Institute video recording.

I begin with an introduction to the First 10 approach
Lee Anne discusses how Maine’s state and local First 10 initiatives work together
I share the story of First 10 in Pennsylvania as it moves from a state institute to a county United Way Collective Impact grant to a regional initiative in 13 communities
Lee Anne and I discuss challenges and lessons learned
Lee Anne closes with a reflection on the significance of First 10 partnerships in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

First 10 Community Partnerships: State, Regional, and Community Approaches to Improving the First Decade of Children’s Lives (NAEYC)

Access to High-Quality Early Education and Racial Equity (NIEER)

Excerpt from a NIEER special report:

“The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers has focused the nation’s attention on the unequal treatment of Black Americans. Black children experience unequal treatment beginning at an early age, which contributes to inequalities in learning and development.

By the time they enter kindergarten, Black children are on average nearly nine months behind in math and almost seven months behind in reading compared to their White non-Hispanic peers (See Figure 1). Math and reading abilities at kindergarten entry are powerful predictors of later school success, and children who enter kindergarten behind are unlikely to catch up.

High quality early childhood education (ECE) programs can help all children enter kindergarten with the foundational academic and social-emotional skills they need to succeed. However, access to high quality ECE in the U.S. is low and unequal. [Emphasis added.]”

Special Report: Access to High-Quality Early Education and Racial Equity (NIEER)

Racial Inequity and the First 10 Years: 4 Resources

To start off what will be on ongoing discussion thread on first10.org, here are four resources on race and equity in the early childhood and elementary school years.

Bias Isn’t Just A Police Problem, It’s A Preschool Problem (NPR)

4 Ways Racial Inequity Harms American Schoolchildren (NPR)

Equity in Early Childhood Education (New America)

A Message From NAEYC: We Stand Together (NAEYC)

A Commitment to Racial Justice and Equity

First 10 begins with a commitment to educational and racial equity. The goal of First 10 is for all children to learn and thrive. This goal encompasses academic and social emotional learning and physical and mental health as priorities. Realizing this educational equity goal requires that communities ensure that all children have opportunities and supports to enable their success and eliminate the predictability of success or failure that currently correlates with social, economic, racial, and cultural factors.

Published on June 3 by EDC’s President and CEO, Dave Offensend:

Once again, our country is grappling with its racist reality: the continuous and systemic oppression of Black members of our communities. Spurred by a new spate of high-profile incidents involving hatred and police brutality, people across the nation and around the world have taken to the streets to protest and show their outrage. EDC joins in that outrage and stands in solidarity with everyone committed to ending racism, injustice, and inequity.

As a nation, we still have a long way to go. The problems we are facing in the United States are not new, neither are the feelings of anger, frustration, fear, and anxiety that many of us feel today. Americans cannot sit idly by as such violence and injustice continues, and EDC will not do so either.

EDC will:

Continue to promote equity for all people in the work we do. We know how much work still remains. We remain committed to prioritizing and enhancing efforts to end racism, injustice, and inequity as expressed in our Equity Principles.
Encourage self-awareness of implicit biases that foster structural and societal inequities.
Actively promote equity, diversity, and inclusion within EDC, at all levels of the organization, in the ways in which we recruit and promote staff at all levels of the organization, and in how we interact with and learn from one another.

We appreciate that the problem of racism in our country has existed for centuries and will not be eradicated quickly or easily. Yet, we remain committed to being part of the solution. We look forward to listening, especially to our Black colleagues within EDC and the communities we serve, and continuing to work with our partners to develop concrete actions we can take together. I am confident that if we all remain committed to this course, we can provide a better future for America.

Need for a Child Care Sector Bailout: Elizabeth Warren and Others

Boston Globe

“One thing is clear: We can no longer afford to approach child care as an economic accessory. We must approach it as the oxygen on which every facet of our recovery will depend.”

See this opinion piece from the Boston Globe by Elizabeth Warren, Bruce Mann, Joseph Kennedy III, Lauren Birchfield Kennedy, Katherine Clark, Ayanna Pressley, and Conan Harris. While Massachusetts is referenced, the take-aways are national in scope.

https://go.edc.org/ffla