New Birth-Third Alignment Partnerships Announced
Congratulations to the twelve communities that recently received Birth-Third Alignment Partnership grants from the Department of Early Education and Care. Momentum around Birth-Third continues to grow in Massachusetts, and we are expanding the base of experience that all communities can draw on and build from as they work to improve children’s early learning experiences. The graphic below…
Magic Tree House author Mary Pope Osborne in Pittsfield on May 17
DATE: MAY 17, 2014 TIME: 1:00 – 3:00 P.M. ON SAT. MAY 17TH The Pittsfield Promise is offering a FREE presentation for families, children and educators with Mary Pope Osborne, the #2 Children’s Author in the World, and author of the Magic Tree House Series. Saturday, May 17th from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. at South Congregational Church at 110…
Communities of Practice in Lowell: Supporting Family Child Care and Center-based Providers
As discussed last week, there are multiple entry points for understanding Lowell’s Birth-Third work—the Leadership Alignment Team, the use of the CLASS tool, the emerging school readiness agenda—but a good place to start is with Lowell’s communities of practice. Supporting family childcare providers is a logistically more challenging and less common component of Birth-Third initiatives.[1]…
Building a Common Vision of Quality across the Birth-Third Continuum
Birth-Third projects often begin with a focus on aligning community-based preschool and kindergarten. For the leaders of Lowell’s Birth-Third initiative, it was important from the outset that their project be broader in scope, spanning the Birth-Third continuum by developing meaningful roles for family childcare providers, community-based preschools, and elementary schools. Lowell’s leaders wanted to build…
Joint Professional Learning in Somerville and Springfield
Last week’s post described how both Somerville and Springfield have developed professional learning initiatives that bring together prekindergarten and kindergarten educators. The work of Somerville’s Kindergarten Readiness Group and Springfield’s Birth-Third PLC begins to suggest what the content of these workshops can be and what the participants get out of it. These examples also raise a number…
Bridging the Public/Private Divide
Joint Professional Learning for Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers Birth-Third is about improving the quality of education and care at three developmental levels—ages 0-3, 3-5, and 5-9—while improving alignment across these levels. A central alignment challenge is the divide between preschool and K-3 education, and particularly between community-based preschool and public elementary schools. Preschool teachers have…
A Community Commitment: Berkshire Priorities and the Pittsfield Promise
The accident of birth is a principal source of inequality in America today. American society is dividing into skilled and unskilled, and the roots of this division lie in early childhood experiences. Kids born into disadvantaged environments are at much greater risk of being unskilled, having low lifetime earnings, and facing a range of personal…
The Boston K1DS Project: Implementing a New Curriculum in Community-based Preschools
On a recent visit to the Paige Academy preschool in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, a group of students sit clustered on the rug in front of teacher Sister Paige.[1] Sister Paige leads the students in counting up to 10, with the whole class yelling the even numbers and whispering the odd ones. After a…
“Improbable Scholars” author David Kirp in Somerville
Somerville is graciously sharing a video of David Kirp’s talk about the Union City, NJ success story: https://vimeo.com/89543325. Also see the links below for Kirp’s NYT op-ed and Somerville Mayor Curtatone’s article on the Universal Kindergarten Readiness plan. Here is a link to Somerville’s plan. For additional resources on Union City see PreK-3rd’s Lasting Architecture: Successfully Serving Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students in Union…
National Leader Kristie Kauerz In Springfield: “This is Our Window of Opportunity.”
The Case for Improvement and Alignment Springfield held a Pre-K through Grade 3 conference on November 4 as part of its Birth through Grade Three Alignment Partnership work. The conference brought together senior district leaders, principals, preschool directors and teachers, and representatives from community organizations. The centerpiece of the day was a presentation by Kristie…