Job Opening: Early Childhood Portfolio Lead
EDC is looking for a Portfolio Lead (i.e., Director) for its Early Childhood Portfolio. EDC is a fantastic organization to work for, and we have a very strong portfolio with a terrific group of colleagues. This is a great opportunity for a senior EC leader. I’m attaching the announcement. An excerpt is below. This came…
Initiative aimed at helping children get a better start in life offers real promise
A strong editorial statement on P-3 by the Lancaster County newspaper, the Lancaster LNP: “It’s devastating to think that as early as infancy, a child might be deemed to be “at-risk” — that is, at risk of failing in school, of being trapped in poverty, of even facing a diminished life expectancy. ‘The achievement gap…
Why focus on Lancaster County’s youngest kids could break cycle of poverty
Last week I posted Thomas Friedman’s article about civic renewal in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. On Sunday Lancaster’s newspaper published an article about the county’s new P-3 initiative (which I’ve been supporting). Reporter Jeff Hawkes does a nice job using local examples to introduce P-3 improvement. See in particular: How Hawkes follows a family receiving home visiting services…
Kid-Centered Political Renewal
Lancaster County’s Purple Agenda
Woohoo, Lancaster County, PA! What Friedman doesn’t say is that Lancaster County is gearing up for a comprehensive P-3 initiative. More to come about the Lancaster County approach to comprehensive P-3 in the coming months. For the connection between the kind of bi-partisan, place-based collective impact initiative Friedman describes and early childhood/P-3, see A Purple Agenda…
Survey Finds Majority of K-3 Teachers Feel Unity With Preschool Educators
Marva Hinton of Education Week writes: “Sometimes there seems to be a disconnect between educators who work with children prior to elementary school and those who teach in the early grades, but new survey results find a strong connection between the two groups. The National Association for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC, recently released results…
Why the Wealth Gap Hits Families the Hardest
Pre-K isn’t an inoculation: What comes next matters
Important new research out of the University of Virginia. Provides additional support for P-3 approaches. The New America Foundation has a nice summary blog post. A few excerpts: “In a new study out of the University of Virginia, The role of elementary school quality in the persistence of preschool effects, the authors find that the quality…
The National P-3 Center’s New Framework in Action Series
The National P-3 Center is launching a new publication series, Framework in Action. Each brief in this helpful new series includes a short digest of the research, suggested starting points, common implementation pitfalls, indicators of progress, and examples of promising efforts and success stories. The Center’s Director, Kristie Kauerz, provides the following introduction: “The first in the…
Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention
“It’s a truism in child development that the very young learn through relationships and back-and-forth interactions, including the interactions that occur when parents read to their children. A new study provides evidence of just how sustained an impact reading and playing with young children can have, shaping their social and emotional development in ways that…