Keeping Our Eyes on Both Birds in Early Childhood Education

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jack McCarthy

There is a growing consensus in the United States that early childhood education is important. The newest Education Commission of the States report highlighted that “total state funding for preschool programs increased by $767 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year to a total of nearly $7 billion.”

It’s the rare issue in U.S. politics with bipartisan support– 22 states with Republican governors and 10 states with Democratic governors (plus the District of Columbia) increasing funding for pre-k programs in 2015-16.

And it’s not hard to figure out why. When you listen to early childhood advocates, it sounds like investing in early childhood education is like investing in a super policy. It can close the achievement gap by getting all students on the same level from the start. It can close the gender pay gap by allowing mothers of all races and classes to continue working after having kids.

If we just invest in early childhood, then we can quickly, simply and easily, kill two birds with one stone.

Turns out, like everything else, it’s not quite that simple.

Early childhood education does have the potential to do two things at once. But only if we keep in mind that our policy has two goals.

First, there is the achievement gap. The first five years that you are alive are the most influential of your life. These are the years where your building blocks are set up, the years your brain’s architecture is shaped. In the first five years, your experiences have a direct impact on how well you develop learning skills as well as social and emotional abilities.

The achievement gap is largely a result of just how different experiences are for low-income students in the first five years.

Tracking families from every socio-economic group, research has shown that children born into low-income families heard, by age three, roughly 30 million fewer words than those from more affluent backgrounds. Stanford University analysis found an intellectual processing gap that appears as early as 18 months as a consequence.

Underserved students also begin school with much less well-developed background knowledge, numeracy, comprehension and behavioral skills than those acquired by classmates with parents of greater means. Because disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten millions of words behind their peers and lack early learning skills, they perform much less well at school. Those negative effects last a lifetime.

The achievement gap is the result of socioeconomic circumstances setting students’ building blocks up very differently.

Debates about early childhood education often concentrate on the best way to increase access, which is important. But the conversation needs to distinguish between effective early learning and childcare. Effective early learning drives school readiness by developing cognitive and social-emotional skills.

Parents need a safe, affordable place for their children while they work. Society needs many of these children to be more prepared to succeed in school, careers and life.

Effective early learning should be defined in terms of important measurable outcomes that lead to success in school.  Programs need to constantly focus on assessing children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills and adjusting classroom interventions to address any shortcomings.

People in New Jersey saw the effect of focusing on quality first hand. In 1999-2000 the state began implementing NJ Supreme Court mandated high-quality preschool education in 31 of the highest poverty districts in the state. At the time, less than 15% of pre-K classrooms had a “good” or “excellent” quality rating. Nearly 25% had a “poor” rating.

The state focused on improving that quality through high standards, professional development, and a continuous improvement system. By 2007-08, the vast majority of classrooms had a “good” or “excellent” rating and very few had a “poor” quality rating.

A longitudinal study concluded that high-quality pre-K in New Jersey helped to close the achievement gap by about half over the next few years, with the gap closing more and more each year. In addition, the high-quality pre-K is estimated to have reduced grade repetition from 19% to 12% and special education from 17% to 12% through the fifth grade.

There’s a reason it’s referred to as effective early learning. And effective early learning is found all over the country—schools that focus on high standards, professional development, and continuous improvement systems are pretty apt at achieving high quality. It’s just that when people demand early childhood education, they tend not to demand those key aspects along with it.

But here is where the second goal comes in—closing the gender pay gap. According to the National Women’s Law Center, on average, childcare costs more than rent. As a result, women, especially women making the minimum wage, tend to drop out of the workforce when they have children. And, after caring for those children for years, it’s that much harder to move back into the workforce at the same rate of pay as when you left.

We need to remember that while there is a difference between school that is focused on learning and school that is a place for children to go, there is a paramount need for a place for children to go in this country.

If we ignore quality in favor of access, we risk early childhood education being unable to close the achievement gap. If we ignore access in favor of quality, we risk early childhood education being unable to close the gender pay gap.

The solution is to use the bipartisan support and the money states are investing in pursuit of both access and quality. To provide childcare while not ignoring any and all opportunities for effective early learning within it. Doing so can maximize the return on our investment and solve both problems at once.

The first five years are the most critical of a child’s life. And, the first five years are critical for their mother’s lives as well. Let’s keep both people in mind when investing in early childhood and we’ll all benefit from the result.

 

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Jack McCarthy is President and CEO of AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation and AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School. Jack advocates passionately to influence early education policy and practice to help close the achievement gap before kindergarten.

Why preschool is a necessity, not a luxury

A guest column by Jonathan Gillentine

America needs high quality preschool programs to help address achievement and opportunity gaps affecting young children. In communities with extensive needs, these children and their families have few options for essential learning experiences that set a foundation for success in school.

Recently Congress has put forward bills that will eliminate Federal Preschool Development Grants, which since 2014 have helped 18 states establish new public preschool classrooms and have added supports to existing programs in communities that have the highest needs.

Why is preschool so important? As a preschool teacher with over 20 years of experience, I know that preschool offers learning opportunities that help kids grow in language development. In our classroom we used exciting events to expose children to meaningful language that they used to describe and understand their continuously growing world. They learned words like stabilize, alternate, spigot, momentum, and compost, plus many others.

Preschool also offers kids the opportunity to understand scientific and social concepts through which they begin to develop intellectual capacity. Teachers ask many open-ended questions of children to promote high-level thinking as they explore: How are you going to create a house for your toy cat? What does it need? or Why do you think the bugs are eating this plant and not the others around it? Such experiences are vital in that they promote independence; children see themselves as capable of finding answers rather than only looking to the teacher for ideas on what to do next.

Furthermore, preschool helps children develop a repertoire of skills they can use to solve social problems. Children can learn at a young age both to ask a peer to stop doing something or to invite a peer to help them. In my class, instead of refusing to share an item, children learned to say, “I’m using this now, but when I’m done, you can have the next turn.”

They also learned to understand the feelings of others by looking at facial expressions and body language. This helps form a sense of empathy. A child who can say, “It was an accident. Are you okay?” often doesn’t need a teacher to assist in resolving hurt feelings. This builds a sense of social and emotional competence. Considering the level of turmoil we face in this country concerning interpersonal conflict, providing children with skills and support to peacefully and respectfully resolve their differences is an invaluable investment.

Yes, adding preschool to federally supported programs won’t come cheap. Costs for qualified teachers and assistants, materials, and equipment quickly add up. But we know that the money we invest in preschool programs provides a significant return – in lower rates of remedial and special education, in better health of our citizens, and in higher rates of employment as these children reach adulthood.

Congress must continue to fund the Federal Preschool Development Grant Program. It is the only hope some of our children have for getting a running start at a successful, productive life.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Dr. Jonathan Gillentine serves as Early Learning Specialist for Windward District in Kane`ohe, Hawai`i. He is a veteran teacher of 35 years, including 20 years as a preschool inclusion teacher, serving young children with developmental delays and children in Head Start. Gillentine is a National Board Certified Teacher, an America Achieves Teacher Fellow, and a Hope Street Group Hawaii State Teacher Fellow.

Here Are 4 of My Thoughts on Whether Universal Pre-K is Necessary

In his State of the Union address, President Obama brought up the topic of universal Pre-Kindergarten learning and praised the programs already in place in states like Florida, South Carolina and New Jersey. He connected Pre-K initiatives to his Race to the Top program that has the lofty goal of making the U.S. the worldwide leader in college attendees and graduates.

His administration claims that the academic skill sets needed to reach that goal must have their foundation before Kindergarten and that the responsibility for that lies in public funding.

But is this true? Here are my thoughts from an educator’s view.

1. First, it’s no secret that the U.S. lags behind other developed nations, especially when it comes to science and math. To compete as a nation on a global scale, this generation of K-12 (or P-12) students simply need to know more than their parents did as children. This fact has led to some passionate discourse both for and against more stringent academic standards that start in early childhood and extend into the college years.

2. Universal Pre-K programs tend to benefit disadvantaged and at-risk students the most. Children from middle-to-high class socioeconomic backgrounds do not feel the positive effects of preschool as strongly as their low-income and minority peers. In families where at least one parent can be home with children in the early years, and able to do basic learning activities with them, the impact of Pre-K programs are virtually non-existent by the time the child is in mid-elementary school. Children that participate in play-oriented preschool programs but have attentive parents that expose them to minimal learning fare just as well, or better than, peers who attend regimented Pre-K programs.

3. Socialization and preparation are two other reasons for pre-Kindergarteners to attend school. Of course, academics are not the only benefit to Pre-K programs. Socialization and an idea of what to expect when the school years come along are also an integral part of the Pre-K process. Kindergarten used to be an adjustment year for children, but now kids who arrive in these classrooms are expected to know much more.

4. Be aware of how preschool can affect these same children when they reach kindergarten and beyond. As I have said before, being prepared for the next school year is also an important part of the Pre-K process. Kindergarten used to be an adjustment year for children, but now kids who arrive in these classrooms are expected to know much more. Common Core standards exist at the Kindergarten level, with the expectation that these students will know how to read simple sentences competently, do basic addition and subtraction problems and understand basic time concepts. States that already have tax-funded Pre-K programs test Kindergartners and report back to the preschool provider the results. In some cases, future funding rests on whether or not the Pre-K program adequately prepared enough students for the academic rigors of Kindergarten.

So then the question becomes one of impact. Will universal learning at a younger age make a big enough difference long-term to justify the added cost and resources? How much time do children really need to learn what they will need to know to compete globally?

Parents seem to be split on the issue, with one side affirming the need for stronger academic standards and the other side bemoaning the difficulty of material their young children bring home from school. Districts throughout the country have listened to parents’ complaints when it comes to implementation of all-day Kindergarten (versus the traditional half-days) and some parents have even decided to homeschool their children because they so strongly disagree with the academic rigor. Given this cultural climate, I wonder what is to be expected when more states roll out

Pre-K programs? Right now it is voluntary for families – but will that always be the case?

Is universal Pre-K a necessity – and if so, are American educators, parents and young students really ready for it?

Leave a comment—I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.