TED Talk on Learning from the Abecedarian Project
This is a story about the single most important feat of construction our society undertakes. It is about the assembly required in order to build physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially healthy children. It’s a process as complex as the most challenging feat of engineering, and a process that is easily thwarted by poverty and stress….
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…
“You Undermine the Very Thing that Produces that Value”
NPR’s story on the recent report, Worthy Work, STILL Unlivable Wages, includes several quotations from Deborah Phillips, one of the co-authors of the study: “There’s a disconnect between our 21st-century knowledge about early childhood teaching and these 20th-century wages,” says Phillips. “We desperately need educated young people to be working with young children, but they look at…