The First 10 Network is Underway: Our First Community of Practice Webinar

A community of practice brings together people around a common interest to share best practices and create new actionable knowledge. We launched our community of practice with a webinar that brought together representatives from our six First 10 states to hear from two groups that are successfully building partnership systems to support young children. Our…

Inaugural First 10 Newsletter

With the launch of our new National First 10 Network in March, we have created a newsletter for First 10 colleagues and friends. We will share resources and news of interest via the newsletter. In our inaugural issue sent April 5, we spotlight the work that East Providence (RI) is doing to share its progress…

A message from EDC about COVID-19

  With the hope that some of these resources may be useful to you in these challenging times, I’m sharing this email from Dave Offensend, EDC’s President, about a website my colleagues have created. Dear Friends, The crisis that faces our global community today is unparalleled in the way it is affecting everyone around the…

The Important Role of the Transition to Kindergarten for Low-Income Children

Drawing on his new report, Connecting the Steps: State Strategies to Ease the Transition from Pre-K to Kindergarten, New America’s Aaron Loewenberg writes in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity:  “Transition activities such as teacher home visits; parent orientation sessions; and collaborative meetings and trainings between principals, child care center administrators, and pre-K and kindergarten teachers are…

New Case Studies: PreK-3rd Alignment

The U.S. Department of Education recently released a set of case studies of PreK-3rd Alignment and Differentiated Instruction. The case studies are of the Boston Public Schools, the Chicago Child-Parent Centers, Early Works, FirstSchool, and the SEAL program. The alignment efforts in these programs all emphasize developmentally-appropriate instruction and focus on building students’ vocabulary, oral language…

Roundtable Discussion: Why Does Investing in Young Children Matter?

EDC recently published a short Round Table discussion on early childhood. Topics include the role of pediatricians in supporting social-emotional development, early childhood education in developing countries, and new research by James Heckman. I close out the Round Table with a discussion of community partnerships. https://go.edc.org/q4ys

Building State P-3 Systems: Learning from Leading States

The Center for Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) recently released a report I wrote comparing P-3 System-Building in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The three case studies address a central question: How can states support P-3 system building at both state and local levels? See the Executive Summary at the beginning of the report for nine themes and…

K-3 Quality Matters Too, Says New Policy Report

As important as preschool is, the quality of the early elementary years is also critical and shouldn’t be ignored, says a new report by the Education Commission of the States, a education policy think tank. From Education Week’s Early Years blog: http://goo.gl/KsEDts