Strategies from Conestoga Valley
Each month, we bring together First 10 partners from across the U.S. to share best practices via First 10 Network Meetings. In October, we heard from the Conestoga Valley team from Lancaster, PA. Conestoga Valley partnered with First 10 in 2022. They offer a great example of a supportive, dynamic team implementing creative strategies to…
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…
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…
In Washington, Good Grades for Universal Pre-K (NYT)
Nice article by Connor Williams. He begins: “Free public school starting at age four, or even three, is growing in many American cities. It’s gaining traction as a way to help young children learn the reading, counting and social skills that prepare them for kindergarten. It also promises to help close academic gaps between rich…
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…
“Want to Beat the Stock Market? Bet on Early-Childhood Education”
I’m posting this from Normal, IL. Over the next couple of days I’ll be visiting two of the CPC P-3 Centers that University of Minnesota professor Arthur Reynolds discusses below in an excerpt from a recent Education Week commentary. I look forward to sharing what I learn as part of an ongoing study of Place-Based Collaboration…
“What’s the Difference between Boston and Tennessee?”
In a word, quality. “Tennessee doesn’t have a coherent vision,” Dale Farran, a Vanderbilt professor and the Tennessee study’s co-author, told me. “Left to their own devices, each teacher is inventing pre-K on her own.” See David Kirp’s article, Does Pre-K Make Any Difference?, in response to the recent Pre-K study in Tennessee.
Birth–3rd and Leadership: Steve Tozer’s Message to the Birth–3rd Community
Research shows that leadership is the second most important influence on student learning in schools. Further, as Steve Tozer points out, leadership is critical to improving the most important factor—teaching. It is hard to imagine improving teaching and learning throughout an entire school or early childhood center without good leadership. Tozer has an important message for the…
Improving Quality by Assessing Needs, Focused Planning, and Targeted Support
Kimberly Haskins of the Barr Foundation has written a post on A New Model of Quality Improvement in Early Education, an interesting pilot project in Boston. Participating early education programs begin with a needs assessment that informs an improvement plan. The plans include targeted professional development and coaching to address the site’s identified needs. According to…
Putting Seattle’s Pre-K Ballot Initiatives in Context
While most of the country’s obsessive politics-watchers will be surveying a variety of hotly contested Senate, House, and gubernatorial races on November 4, the early education community will have an eye trained on Seattle, Washington. Voters there will have not one, but two early education programs on the ballot. See Connor Williams’ piece on New America…