De-legitimizing public education

...what Erica Goldson said in her June valedictory speech at Coxsackie-Athens High School in New York:

"We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

"Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

"I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system."

Full Washington Post post here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/de-legitimizing-public-educati.html

“Why Public Education is More Important Than Wall Street, and What We Must Do”

NIEER Early Ed news roundup - Volume 9, Issue 21

October 26, 2010 (Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, AL)
Community partnership a recipe for success
Gov. Bob Riley, who will hand the reins of state government over to someone else next year, said that for the state to make bigger gains in increasing the state's graduation rate there must be more investment in early childhood education.
October 24, 2010 (The Star Press, Muncie, IN)
Opinion: Early childhood education and the economy
In terms of investment, we found early childhood education outweighed virtually everything else government could do to boost long-run economic performance and enhance educational outcomes.
October 21, 2010 (Press of Atlantic City)
Preschool class open to abled, disabled kids
The class looks like a typical preschool, but the program has a crucial difference. It's an inclusion class of both able and disabled children, ages 3 to 5. And some of their parents have paid for them to be here.
October 21, 2010 (The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC)
Opinion: The payoff from early education
Just as parents baby-proof the top of the stairs to prevent a dangerous fall, policymakers must protect the economy from making a major misstep. Investments in early childhood education are the economic equivalent to investments in gates for stairs and covers for electrical outlets.
October 20, 2010 (The Virginian-Pilot)
Va. part of plan to improve military families' access to care
Virginia was chosen to participate because of its high concentration of military families, a network of community partners willing to work on improving education, and the existence of its Smart Beginnings programs and Star Quality Initiative.
October 19, 2010 (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Editorial: Education plan
The commission rightly emphasized expanded early-childhood education, including all-day kindergarten; better curriculum alignments between public schools and higher education; better use of technology; coordinating curriculum with the needs of the business community; improving teaching; and strengthening post-secondary opportunities.
October 19, 2010 (The Hartford Courant)
Governor's commission proposes dozens of education reforms
The Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement today proposed dozens of reforms designed to close the state's academic achievement gap, from providing quality preschool education for all low-income students to requiring high school students to pass a test before they can graduate.
October 19, 2010 (Los Angeles Times)
Proposal would restore state funding for child care
The program pays child-care costs for working parents who take jobs to move off welfare but can't afford day care. The governor's action means child care for 60,000 families will end Nov. 1 unless a stopgap measure is found.
October 17, 2010 (The Tennessean)
Follow-up: TN pre-K programs's effectiveness fades by 3rd grade
The Tennessee Comptroller's Office last week issued another in a series of reports on the effectiveness of pre-kindergarten education in Tennessee. The report shows students who participated in the state-funded pre-K program outperformed their peers in kindergarten and first grade. By second grade, the advantage fades, and it's undetectable by third grade.
October 17, 2010 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Report shows early learning programs are succeeding
The Pennsylvania Department of Education on Friday released a year-end report showing that Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts spent $86.4 million on early learning programs serving nearly 12,000 at-risk children ages 3 and 4 in school districts, Head Start, child care centers and nursery schools in 62 counties in 2009-10. The report noted that more than 98 percent of the children showed "age-appropriate or emerging age-appropriate proficiency" in literacy, numeracy and social skills after attending the programs.
October 14, 2010 (The Boston Globe)
Play school
Play is the occupation of childhood, the way young minds learn, authorities on development say. But as kindergarten programs grow increasingly academic, educators differ on whether preschool play should be molded and focused, or given free rein.
October 13, 2010 (Education Week)
Denver's Achievement Gap Narrows With Advanced Kindergarten
The Denver Public Schools' advanced-kindergarten program, now in its seventh year, draws families who want a faster academic pace for their children, and it helps retain some who might otherwise choose private schools or other districts.
October 11, 2010 (The Washington Post)
Opinion: Finally, Obama administration is putting Head Start to the test
A recent evaluation sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that at the end of the first year of school, children who had attended Head Start did no better than similar children who did not attend Head Start. The bottom line is that taxpayers get little for their annual investment of $8 billion in Head Start.

NIEER Hot Topics Volume 9, Issue 21

The Case for Data-Driven Reform is Gaining Steam
For years, experts have called for data-driven reform of early childhood programs. That push has gained steam in the wake of bold proposals from the Obama administration and the release of Investing in Children: New Directions in Federal Preschool and Early Childhood Policy, the NIEER/Brookings report, released to critical acclaim in Washington on October 13th. Drawing the attention of many is the recommendation from the co-editors, NIEER Co-Director Steve Barnett and Brookings Senior Fellow Ron Haskins, that calls for the federal government to waive some regulations for Head Start and other programs to foster innovation and more effective program delivery — and to conduct randomized trials on programs operating under the waivers. Lisa Guernsey, director of the early childhood initiative at New America Foundation, discusses the issues in her latest Early Ed Watch blog post.

Time for ECE Public Policy and Practice to Align Better with Research
Preschool in the U.S. narrows the achievement gap by as little as 5 percent — largely due to the prevalence of low-quality programs — at a time when research suggests they could be narrowing it by 30 to 50 percent. That assessment and recommendations to start early education on a new quality-based agenda are part of an article appearing in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The authors are Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia, Steve Barnett, Rutgers University (and NIEER), Margaret Burchinal, University of North Carolina, and Kathy R. Thornburg, University of Missouri.

1 in 5 New York City Kids Misses at Least a Month of School Each Year
The pattern begins in the early grades and continues from there: Last year more than 25 percent of school children in 12 of New York City's 32 school districts were chronically absent, missing more than a month of school per year. In five of those districts, 30 percent of kindergarten through fifth grade kids were absent more than 10 percent of the time. Those statistics and a set of recommendations aimed at addressing the problem appear in a new report from the Center for New York City Affairs.

What Works Clearinghouse: RDD Now On a Par with Randomized Trials
The U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse is broadening its definition of what constitutes the "gold standard" in research to include regression discontinuity design, a method that uses cut-off points to establish comparison groups rather than randomization. The clearinghouse says some single-case studies also make the grade. Some researchers welcomed the broadening of the standards but others urged caution. Speaking to Education Week, Jon Baron, president of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, pointed out that there have been few attempts to replicate the results of randomized trials with the other methods.

Colombians Greet NIEER Study with South American Hospitality
Do a study in a U.S. city and you get good cooperation if you do things right; do one in Santa Marta, Colombia and you get the keys to the city! That's the report from Milagros Nores who is just back from visiting NIEER's research partners in Colombia, where a new long-term randomized study of preschool education is set to begin. She writes about the study and conditions on the ground in Colombia in our latest post at Preschool Matters … Today!

School takeover proposals flawed

By ALISSA WETZEL
Viewpoint
South Bend Tribune

On Oct. 29, the Indiana State Board of Education met in Indianapolis to consider the future of two local high schools that produced low scores in standardized tests for five consecutive years, making them candidates for state takeovers. Of course, the board was not merely considering the future of Washington and Riley high schools, it was considering the fate of hundreds of local students and teachers.

Yet the options put on the table by Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett are troubling. One option would outsource the management of the schools to for-profit groups — a move that would result in a de facto privatization of public high schools. Another option would close the schools all together. Such proposals are deeply flawed.

Both of Bennett's proposals could result in a mass firing of teachers. Theoretically, teachers could reapply for their jobs. But in the face of Gov. Mitch Daniel's recent $300 million cut to the education budget, teachers with little experience would logically have a competitive advantage over more experienced, better-paid teachers. In the short term, teachers at the twilight of their careers could find themselves unemployed simply because they made the decision to devote their careers to teaching in a struggling school. In the long term, talented new teachers may avoid accepting jobs at the most at-risk schools because those schools would offer little, if any, job stability.

Either move would have the net result of breaking up schools that, for many students, provide much-needed stability and a safe neighborhood haven. Gone could be the sports team or extra-curricular activity that gave a struggling student a reason to stay in school, along with the caring teacher who played a critical role in turning a kid's life around. These are important elements that no standardized test can measure and the elements that would certainly be eliminated if schools were to close.

Also, these are the types of intangibles that a for-profit company has no incentive to pursue. A school is much more than a business and should be concerned with doing much more than making a profit and hitting a test taking metric. If struggling schools close or become run by outside management firms, a vital sense of community would be lost in a time when that is the very thing the most troubled regions of South Bend need.

Bennett alleges he is protecting students from ineffective teachers who have failed them. But bad teachers are not the reason city schools are failing. It's no secret that parental involvement is a major factor in student performance, so it's no surprise that the most troubled schools in South Bend and across Indiana are also in low-income, high-crime areas. Students enter high school with difficult home lives and under-involved parents.

To be sure, solving the real issues that plague struggling schools is costly and difficult. It involves common-sense approaches, such as individualized attention for troubled students and smaller class sizes for all students. But these are measures that are unappealing to a superintendent intent on targeting teachers' unions and a governor intent on protecting his fiscal record for an eventual White House run.

Recently, Bennett accused a South Bend teachers union of putting "adult comforts and desires over the needs of the students." What's really happening is that Bennett and his Republican allies are pursuing a political agenda aimed at weakening teachers' unions while avoiding the real reasons why some students fail and others succeed.

Alissa Wetzel is an Elkhart native. She lives in Indianapolis.

Chicago's school chief to hit the road

WBEZ News

Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman will leave his job on Nov. 29, after just one year and 10 months at the helm of the nation's third largest school district. 

Huberman’s announcement comes during a chaotic time, as the district prepares to negotiate a new evaluation system with the Chicago Teachers Union and battles a court injunction on the layoffs of tenured teachers. The news also comes as the No. 2 spot at CPS, the chief education officer, is also vacant.

full story

South Bend School Board Elections: endorsements

(part 4 of 4)

Don Wheeler

The three previous posts attempted to set the scene and assess the contest for the South Bend School Board.  Now I’ll give my views on the individual races.

Three out of the seven seats are contested -- Districts 1, 2 and 5.  The District 1 race features challengers Jay Caponigro and Nikki Hutchinson, and incumbent Sheila Bergeron.  Ms. Hutchinson is up against a well heeled challenger and an entrenched incumbent.  Though she seems a perfectly reasonable person to serve, it’s hard to see her having any chance at victory.  Narrowing to the two remaining candidates, the call is a bit closer than one might think.

Ms. Bergeron is easily the weakest of the incumbents.  Her stint as President was marked by out of control public meetings and other problems.  I’m sympathetic to the idea governing boards should evolve, but I also think challengers should show expertise and ideas.  This is a case where I think the challenger does.

Jay Caponigro has nine years of community connected experience in the educational realm as director of the Robinson Community Learning Center at the University of Notre Dame. In March, he became Notre Dame's director of community engagement, where he'll oversee the center and support the university's educational and community outreach efforts.  He strikes one as a thoughtful, careful person – clearly assets needed in a Trustee.

The reason that it isn’t as easy a call as one might think, is his connection to the local Democratic “machine”.  Also, one could worry about potential conflicts of interest due to his Notre Dame employment.

The latter could (conversely) be an asset.  Notre Dame has, for the most part, proved itself a responsible citizen of the community.  As to the former, one has to hope Mr. Caponigro will exert independence from Mr. Parent and the attendant organization.  If I lived in District 1, I would vote for Jay Caponigro.

The other two contests are more clear-cut.

In District 5, challenger Michelle Engel faces incumbent Marcia Hummel.  Ms. Engel touts her past experience as an attorney in South Bend city government.  That’s pretty much it.  She wants us to think she would make the board work better because she is an attorney.

She seems pretty unfamiliar with educational law issues, or how the Board operates.  It has been noted that she’s not attended a School Board meeting since she announced for office.  In four citizen forums, she’s only deigned to attend two – sending representatives to the other ones.

Marcia Hummel is arguably the strongest incumbent running.  She has consistently been the Trustee pointing out applicable state law – when the Board might go against it.  As its current President, meetings have returned to civil parliamentary discourse.  Ms. Hummel warned long ago of the danger of state takeover if aggressive measures were not pursued.  She was a voice in the wilderness then, but now we see she was right.  Ms. Hummel has been neither combative nor conciliatory – she has been the glue which held the body together.  We should be pleased she’s willing to continue this thankless job.  If I lived in District 5 I would vote for Marcia Hummel.

District 2 features a race similar to that of District 1.  Again we have a challenger with some hands on education experience in Michael Voll, facing a well-known incumbent, Ralph Pieniazkiewicz  and a well financed machine candidacy of John Stancati.  Mr. Voll has little chance given these circumstances.

Mr. Pieniazkeiwicz taught and coached in the South Bend School System for over thirty years.  As a Trustee, he has been a vocal advocate for early education, and the development of a more comprehensive vocational program for high schoolers.  This advocacy is still needed.

Mr. Stancati gives his reason for running in the South Bend Tribune:  “He said he became interested in the school board seat after reading that the state put three South Bend high schools on academic probation because ISTEP scores didn't meet state standards, including Riley, which is in District 2.”  I’ve now heard him at two forums - the Century Center, and more recently at Hamilton Primary Center – and he failed to go any further.  He also did not offer any significant proposals, seems unclear as to the source of school funding these days and responded to a number of questions by saying that he didn’t know much about the subject, so wouldn’t offer a response.  Some of these questions were given to him in advance.

It’s been pointed out that Mr. Stancati has not attended any Board meetings.  These might have been of some help in understanding some of the issues alluded to in the questions he had trouble with.

A campaign is like a job interview.  One should be prepared, research likely issues and be able to at least discuss them intelligently – even if he/she has not formed a definite view.  To do otherwise doesn’t indicate much commitment.

Mr. Stancati’s supporters tout his lengthy service as head of the South Bend Water Works.  (He retired about a year and a half ago).That’s not an organization with much of a reputation for customer service – though it seems better lately.  More to the point, it’s hard to see the relevance for a position as school corporation trustee.  He doesn’t speak well in public either – to the point of being difficult to understand at times.

In my opinion, Mr. Stancati is the weakest candidate in the entire field.  I will vote for Ralph Pieniazkeiwicz.

Links to earlier installments:

Part 1                      

Part 2

Part 3

The South Bend School Board Elections - analysis

Don Wheeler

In the background installment of this series, we explored local issues leading up to where we are now.  In part two, outside influences were explored.  Now I’ll attempt to tie these factors into the current race for school board trustee seats.

Three seats are contested this year:  The Adams High School District (District 1), the Riley High School District (District 2) and the Clay High School District (District 5).

As previously alluded to, this race features a slate of candidates sponsored by local Democratic Party regulars.  Since I hail from the Chicago area originally, I’ll use the term “machine” for convenience.  The machine candidates have been provided significant resources – both in terms of money and organization.  Should we worry about this?  Maybe.

If we think (and are given evidence) that the sponsoring organization has identified candidates who are clearly superior to their opponents and are beholden to no one, then this looks pretty good.  But one needs to consider the merits of both the sponsors and the candidates.  Clearly caveat emptor should apply.

The machine sponsored candidates are Jay Caponigro (Adams), John Stancati (Riley) and Michele Engle (Clay).  Caponigro has been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Leucke has sponsored at least one fund-raiser for Engle, and my wife and I recently received a letter from Roger Parent strongly endorsing Stancati.

It’s interesting that the Chamber only endorsed in one race.  (It was explained that endorsements must be unanimous.)  Even more interesting is the local NEA (our teachers’ union) has been silent.  The South Bend Tribune endorsed the machine slate recently – without offering much reason to agree with them.

There is certainly room for discussion about how much influence a city Mayor should have on a School Board and/or Superintendent.  Though it’s fashionable these days, the actual results are highly mixed.  Further complicating things, because the borders are different, many school corporation constituents aren’t eligible to vote in South Bend mayoral races – thus, the Mayor cannot be held to account by these folks.

Last July, Trustee Roger Parent had a Viewpoint article published in the Tribune entitled School trustee hopes to build on lessons of first 18 months which had to be viewed as a campaign piece.  That seemed curious, since he’s not up for election until 2012.  He indicated his purpose was to the outline the difficulties he’d encountered, identify what he felt he’d accomplished, and …?  Mostly he stated things nobody would disagree with while gently criticizing many oft heard points of view.  Political strategists would refer to this as “building value”.  If you view this July 2 piece, note the use of “I”, “I’ve”, etc., about a dozen and a half times - then do a word search for “we”.  Good luck on the latter.  In retrospect, it appears Parent wants to make this election about him and his allies.

So let’s do that.  As mentioned in an earlier installment, Parent raised and spent an unheard of amount of money for a non-paying Trustee position.  (Indications are machine candidate spending are at similar levels this time around).  Parent often made it clear that his campaign was a typical political race when it came to money – and seemed to exclude other considerations.  For example, when I complained that a local radio station was insisting on a $100 fee for attendance to what was being advertised as a candidates forum (a clear violation of equal time requirements), Parent’s take was that one had to spend money in campaigns.

Also mentioned previously, Parent was one of the few candidates to oppose the strategy of a deliberate search for a new Superintendent.  Robert Zimmerman had been dismissed – which had much of the citizenry in an uproar – but the naming of James Kapsa as Interim Superintendent had mollified many of these folks.  Now having the gift of some time, the School Board voted narrowly to do a conventional, nationwide search for a permanent Superintendent.   Outside funding was offered and under consideration.  At the time, no one knew whether Mr. Kapsa was interested in the permanent post – but I don’t think anyone thought he should not be eligible.

Parent was adamant that Kapsa should be named, which didn’t make any sense.  If Kapsa turned out to be the best choice after completing the search -and wanted the post - then fine.  But to not consider any candidates with actual track records before naming a permanent Superintendent seemed irresponsible at best.  A cynical person might wonder if Mr. Parent calculated Kapsa would feel beholden to him, if Parent engineered the appointment.  That’s not something any of us can know, obviously.

From the Parent Viewpoint:  “With the help of many people I was able to ‘encourage’ trustees to establish a New Tech high school.”  I like the use of quotations on 'encourage'.  It shows honesty.

The Trustees had been considering a New Tech program for years.  Current and prior Board members had visited operating programs, worked on many proposals and locations for a SBCSC program – but securing funding AND a solid concept simultaneously had eluded them.  Still, the general sentiment was to keep trying.

As agreement by a narrow majority of Board members seemed imminent, word has it Mr. Parent lost patience.  It was at that point he revealed his intention to “go it alone” (with backers) on a charter school based on the program.  This was enough, reportedly, to turn one Trustee’s vote from yes to no.  By this account at least, New Tech was delayed by Mr. Parent’s actions – rather than achieved.  Many would argue it was implemented in spite of him.

I want to stress that I believe Mr. Parent has good intentions.  But I have concerns, obviously.

The next installment will address the current races, and the folks in them.

Some thoughts on the South Bend School Board elections - part 2

Don Wheeler

In the background piece, I tried to set the local stage to where we are now.  Complicating matters, lurking on the periphery is one Tony (or is it toney) Bennett.

This Tony Bennett is not the renowned singer; rather, the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Indiana.  His conduct would seem to indicate he aspires to higher office than the one he holds, however.

Mr. Bennett is full of righteous indignation about the state of public education.  He blames local school boards and teachers unions for gross dereliction of duty and characterizes their decision making as being self-serving.  He claims he can swoop in and make all things as they should be.  His forums are characterized with catch phrases and zingy one-liners.  They are just for show.

The State of Indiana has many policies which make things very difficult when it comes to educating our young.  I’ve written a lot about this in the past.  As evidence, compare Indiana’s student outcomes with those of other states and it is pretty clear that our local challenges are not unique in the state.  But Mr. Bennett never discusses anything the state legislature can do correct this situation. Instead (as far as state policy goes), he’d prefer to distract us by screwing around with teacher licensing and things of that nature.

Mr. Bennett would have us believe that if his department takes over management of our High Schools on Probation, dramatic improvement will occur as a result.  He doesn’t explain how this magic will occur, but since he’s not a particularly imaginative fellow and pretty representative of the Daniels administration, he’ll likely pick an approach which is considered fashionable.  The most likely:  He will retain a for-profit management company to run the schools.  (This would be consistent with the Daniels strategy of privatizing seemingly everything).   Less likely, but possible, he’ll appoint some Hotshot who reports directly to him.

There’s a lot that could be discussed about these types of approaches – they’ve been attempted many times in recent years.  For an exhaustive analysis, I’d refer you to The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by former United States Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch.  Anyone who cares about public education - what works and what doesn’t - should read this book.   Spoiler alert:  The approaches described above have (up to now) not benefited children’s overall education.

There are two aspects shared by imposing these outside management strategies I think people need to consider carefully.  The first is that both are top-down concepts which, for the most part, leave the people actually working in the buildings out of any role in policy making.  Secondly, these typically make operations nearly opaque to citizens and the people in charge don’t have to answer to anyone locally.

I think it very likely Mr. Bennett will intervene.  My guess it’s in his political interest to do so.  So it becomes important to consider who sits on our school board in this context.

More to come…

Some thoughts on the South Bend School Board race - background

Don Wheeler

It’s pretty well known that I was one of fifteen candidates for two at-large School Board seats in 2008.  I was also seriously considering a run for a district seat in 2010.  That turned out to be too difficult with my other responsibilities.  But before I came to that conclusion I prepared myself for a run by watching local events, and reading about what other communities have attempted, and how those attempts worked out.

It’s easy to understand citizen frustration with our public school system, but in some ways this frustration lags behind events.  Test scores have generally improved and last years High School graduation rate was around ten points better than the year prior. 

Unfortunately, this frustration seems to have offered challengers the strategy of being “change agents’, without offering any serious proposals likely to create improvements.  The chorus seems to be “things are bad, but I’ll do better”.  They’d have us believe that they are inherently better, more capable people than those they would replace.   But they don’t offer much evidence they’re right about that.

In my view the operating problems of the South Bend School Board are unlikely to be mitigated by the results of the upcoming election.  But the possibility exists they may be exacerbated.

Despite the calls for a “vision” or similar expressions, the fundamental problem the School Board faces on an operational level is that they have no functional decision making model.  Instead, complicated, important, (generally) expensive proposals are rolled out piecemeal and in isolation.  In roughly a year’s time the School Board pondered the questions of The Early College program, the New Tech High School Program, shifting school scheduling from semesters to trimesters, and funding full day Kindergarten.  Again, all these were discussed independently- and outside the context of the already passed budget.

I don’t see how coherent policy can be made this way.  The Board needs to adopt a mechanism - which parallels their budget process – for policy.  There are organizations that specialize in helping governing boards do this sort of thing, and one should be retained for this purpose.

As to the issue of who sits on the Board, one member has consistently served as an agent provocateur.  Bill “Common Sense” Sniadeki has engaged in a stunning level of bad behavior – and he’s not up for re-election.  Unfamiliar with conventionally accepted civil discourse, disdainful of parliamentary procedure, Mr. Sniadeki was particularly disruptive when Sheila Bergeron chaired the meetings as President.  I was in attendance at two meetings where there seemed to be some choreography in the audience.  The group was appreciative when Bill S spoke and vocally disdainful when other members spoke in opposition.  These were like no business meetings I’d ever witnessed.

Mr. Sniadeki has voted in opposition to state law – he won’t vote in favor of low bids when the company bidding is not local.  (State law requires School Boards to accept low bids).  Mr. Sniadeki is known to leak information from Board Executive Sessions, (which is illegal), and security personnel are always just outside the door of these sessions, because at least some fellow Board members fear his temper.

The case of Roger Parent is far more complicated.  Former South Bend Mayor Parent raised and spent around $37,000 to win his seat on the Board.  The darling of the local Democratic Party machine, many people fear he intends to put together a cabal for which he is the leader.

Two-plus years ago the South Bend Community School Corporation Board narrowly decided to conduct a nationwide search for a permanent replacement for Dr. Robert Zimmerman – having already named James Kapsa as Interim Superintendent.  The reasoning was that the SBCSC had some seemingly intractable problems, and it made sense to many of us we should seek someone with experience dealing with similar situations.  Funding for such a search was offered from an outside source.

Mr. Parent, however, campaigned against such a search – insisting Mr. Kapsa was what we needed.  Though Mr. Kapsa had Superintendent Credentials, he’d never been one.  Also, as an insider, he seemed unlikely to shake things up in a way that most folks thought needed to be done.  To be clear:  No one suggested he was not a good administrator.

The other eventual winner of an at-large seat, Stephanie Spivey, campaigned advocating for the hiring of what she called a “turnaround specialist”.  She was adamant about it.

There had always been strong sentiment by some Board members to name Mr. Kapsa to the post permanently, and since the decision to search had been a narrow one, the sitting Board consulted the incoming Board members about the issue.  Obviously I was not in on these private discussions, but Ms. Spivey assured me her position had not changed – up to and including the day of the Board meeting.

She and I walked into the building together.  We parted company in the lobby – she to huddle with the Board members and I to find a seat in the gallery.  Imagine my surprise when the motion to name Mr. Kapsa (permanent) Superintendent came up, to hear Ms. Spivey speak in support of it.

So there’s a case to be made that the public should be somewhat wary when it appears that a highly influential person is attempting to “stack the deck” on a governing board, while arguably having the Chief Administrator in a position of at least some obligation.

This continues.

In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?

NIEER early ed hot topics 8/27

Race to the Top Winners: Pre-K Part of Their Plans but Not a Deciding Factor
Seven of the 10 winners in Phase 2 of the Race to the Top (RTT) competition addressed the early learning challenge priority in their applications even though this section didn't accrue points toward winning. Reforms cited ranged from improving the quality of state pre-K in Georgia to linking early learning standards with K-3 curricula and assessments in Massachusetts. As with any competition of this type, there were disappointments. New Jersey narrowly lost due in part to a data error in its application. Colorado also came close but lost, in part because the state's plan for developing a collaborative for school readiness content contributed nothing toward its point total. Lisa Guernsey discusses RTT in her Early Ed Watch blog post.

Research: Youngest Kids Get Mislabeled with ADHD
Two recent studies point to a tendency for the youngest children in class to be diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when their inattentiveness and impulsiveness is probably due to immaturity. Todd Elder, Michigan State University, found that the youngest kids in kindergarten were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than their oldest classmates. He estimates the costs of unneeded medication alone at as much as $500 million annually.

Another article in press at Journal of Health Economics studied children born just a few days apart, finding that those born before the kindergarten cut-off date had an ADHD diagnosis rate of 9.7 percent and those born after it had a 7.6 percent diagnosis rate.

Schott Foundation: Only 47 Percent of Black Males Graduate from High School
The 50-state report on black males in public education from the Schott Foundation says nationally, only 47 percent of this group graduate from high school. New York City, home of the nation's highest enrollment of black students, graduates 28 percent of black males. Among school districts with more than 10,000 black males enrolled, Newark, New Jersey has the highest graduation rate at 76 percent. Among states with more than 100,000 black males enrolled, New Jersey has the highest graduation rate at 69 percent. The report credits the state's "Abbott" school finance and education reforms for achieving these rates. The report makes an interesting juxtaposition to the news on Race to the Top (RTT) awards and raises questions about an apparent lack of attention to school finance in RTT.

Arizona's Home Language Survey Could Miss 18 Percent of ELLs
A Stanford University study of Arizona's home language survey, used to identify potential English Language Learners (ELLs), found that as many as 11 to 18 percent of students who are eligible for ELL designation could be denied services to which they are entitled if a single home language survey question is used to identify potential ELLs. The researchers said it is also highly unlikely that a fail-safe mechanism established by the state, whereby teachers can nominate potential ELLs for language testing, will successfully identify most students the survey fails to identify.

Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?
Parenting author Pamela Paul attempts to answer that question in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. Among her sources are Joan Luby, professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine; Daniel Klein, professor of clinical psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and Arnold Sameroff, developmental psychologist at the University of Michigan's Center for Human Growth and Development. Luby is one of the first researchers to systematically study the criteria for preschool depression. Diagnosing it in children so young is controversial.

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New on Preschool Matters...Today!

Three Easy Pieces (of Research) for Budget Deciders
In today's blog post NIEER Co-Director Steve Barnett points out three recent, easy-to-understand pieces of research that look at different impacts of investments on young children and underscores the importance of prioritizing investments in early learning and development.

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IN State Education Dept. needs to address its own deficiencies

Don Wheeler

I was heartened to read the editorial of the South Bend Tribune July 25, which declared "Early start is key to children's school success." Two years ago, as a candidate for South Bend Community School Corp. Board of Trustees, conversations with neighbors made it clear to me that almost no one knew that kindergarten is optional in Indiana. It was only a slightly smaller group that was aware the state didn't fully fund all-day classes for kindergartners.

Here's how my wife and I found out. After narrowing our options for our daughter's kindergarten year, we met with the Hay Primary Center principal. We wanted our daughter to be in a full-day class and asked him about the possibility.

He smiled a bit wistfully and said, "Any time I'm having a conversation like this with both a mother and father, I can be sure their child will not be in a full-day class." That's because full-day classes were either at magnet schools, which Hay was not, or were U.S. government-funded Title I programs. The principal had correctly assessed that our daughter was not a Title 1 student. Undaunted, we enrolled her there in afternoon-only kindergarten, and have not regretted it ever.

Thanks to the decision by the SBCSC board, principals won't have to say that anymore. But it should have been the state's responsibility to have made that happen. Other school systems unwilling or unable to do what SBCSC did still are still shortchanging their kindergartners.

The editors correctly point out that students can enter formal education as late as age 7 in Indiana. Our daughter turned 7 in March and was evaluated as having the reading skills of a beginning fifth-grader. She was one of four children in her 20-student first grade class judged to have achieved that level of competency. What's the likely outcome for kids just entering our school system at that age?

The National Institute of Early Education Research (of Rutgers University) exists to track what works and doesn't work in the effort to get our children off to good starts. Many states have had available state-sponsored preschool programs for quite some time — some over 10 years. NIEER's research shows that — particularly for children from challenging situations — early structure and nourishment of their innate curiosity pays big dividends.

Our child has many advantages. One of them was two years of private pre-school taught by professionals. Am I completely nuts to think that all kids should have access to resources like that?

Sadly, what I see from our state government is posturing and fingerpointing. In some ways this isn't new — I've seen little progress on this front in my 20 years as a resident. On the other hand, people who haven't done anything to improve conditions, yet who are imposing themselves as "the solution," strike me as throwing an anchor to a drowning person.

We have plenty of our own work to do locally. There's no doubt of that. Were we to have a real partner at the state level, they might realize the same holds true for them.

US SCHOOLS FACE PERFECT STORM

Early start is key to children's school success

The Editors
South Bend Tribune

It's not surprising that Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett has focused little attention on expanding early childhood education in his mission to increase achievement in Indiana schools.

The General Assembly, after all, is not likely to support adding expense for full-day kindergarten or pre-kindergarten in this troubled economy.

About 30 percent of Indiana kinder-gartners still attend kindergarten half days. And fewer than 20 percent of pre-kindergartners are enrolled in pre-school.


It all makes for a tremendous disparity among first-graders. Children who've had no formal lessons, who've not learned numbers or colors at home or been read to by parents enter the classroom alongside children with years of preschool under their belts, and parents who have exposed them to museums and travel.

Failing to level the playing field means some students will forever have been cheated out of a solid foundation on which to build a lifetime of successful education.

The solution is to mandate kindergarten for every child now, and to fully invest in full-day kindergarten and pre-school programs as soon as the state budget allows.

The governor, Bennett and early childhood experts from around the state should be teaming up to convince legislators that investing more heavily in early childhood education is smart.

Bennett has said that he doesn't think pre-school is a cure for what's ailing the state's K-12 schools — though he's a proponent.

He supports full-day kindergarten, too, as evidenced by the Department of Education's website. It lists eight benefits of full-day programs, including significantly greater progress in literacy, math, general learning and social skills.

Because of such benefits, South Bend Community Schools made the transition to a full-day program for all its kindergartners last year. The state pays schools the same tuition for kindergartners, regardless of whether they're taught for a full or half day. But school systems receive an additional $1,000 grant for each full-day kindergartner.

It isn't enough to encourage some schools to make the switch even though credible studies say full-day kindergarten significantly improves outcomes in the early grades.

And clearly, the status quo isn't good enough. IDOE earlier this year reported that 24 percent of Indiana third-graders were moving to fourth grade without demonstrating minimal proficiency in state English and language testing.

In response, the General Assembly charged Bennett with developing reading standards that every third-grader must meet before being promoted.

Increasing school accountability and raising expectations for student success are essential. We've argued in the past, however, that we believe providing more support for children as they begin their school career is preferable to rebuilding from failure.

Most children now enrolled in Indiana's federally funded pre-kindergarten classes have special physical or developmental challenges. Many more Hoosier pre-schoolers need and deserve this preparation.

Every child should be required to attend kindergarten.

And to us, universal full-day kindergarten plus pre-school adds up to a sure-fire formula for boosting student success.

NIEER early ed hot topics 7/16

Study: Georgia Child Care is Low Quality, State Pre-K Somewhat Better
On average, the quality of infant/toddler classrooms in Georgia child care centers is low and children in the lower quality classrooms likely experience environments that are inadequate for their health and safety. Such classrooms do not promote children's cognitive and social-emotional development, concludes a study by the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina. FPG also studied Georgia state pre-K, finding overall classroom quality was at the "medium" level but that the quality of instructional support was low. Even though many pre-K teachers had college degrees and reported participating in training, it has not yet translated into high-quality classroom practices, the study said. The data were collected in 2008 and 2009.

Precedent-Setting ELL Rules for Pre-K Slated to Take Effect in Illinois
When the Illinois Board of Education adopted rules requiring public preschools to identify kids who are English Language Learners and provide them with transitional bilingual education, some wondered if they would really take effect. After all, doing so would make Illinois the first state to take such prescriptive measures and some educators had pointed out some parents of ELLs say they prefer their kids taught in English. Education Week's Mary Ann Zehr reports the last hurdle to enforcement fell when a panel of lawmakers with the power to object to the rules issued a certificate of no objection. School districts will be required to select a screen for establishing ELL status that meets state standards and provide the transitional bilingual instruction if 20 or more kids in a center are found to be ELLs.

New Review of Curriculum Effectiveness Finds More Winners
A report from Johns Hopkins University evaluates the effectiveness of preschool curricula many of which also appear in the What Works Clearinghouse ratings. Several programs with low ratings from WWC, which has been criticized by curriculum developers, do better in the Johns Hopkins effort. Of the 28 programs included, 11 receive favorable ratings, with six showing "strong" evidence of effectiveness and five showing "moderate" evidence of effectiveness.

The challenges and limitations of these types of reviews are the subject of NIEER co-director Steve Barnett's latest Preschool Matters…Today! blog post.

First Quarter Brings Revenue Gains for States — With Caveats
States' overall tax revenues rose 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010 on a year-over-year basis, marking the first such gain since the third quarter of 2008, reports the Rockefeller Institute of Government. The gain does not suggest a broad recovery, however, because it was largely due to tax increases in California and New York. Revenues for the second quarter of this year will be weaker than the first if data from early reporting states are an indication. The institute forecasts states' full fiscal recovery will take years.

Celia Ayala Appointed CEO of Los Angeles Universal Preschool
Long-time education leader and teacher Celia C. Ayala is the new chief executive officer of Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP), the organization's board announced last week. Ayala has served as LAUP's chief operating officer since 2007, leading the organization's day-to-day operations, working with more than 330 LAUP network preschools to enhance and expand early educations services. She succeeds Dr. Gary Mangiofico, who had been CEO since 2007.

Next Week: 2010 U.S. Department of Education Reading Institute
The Early Learning and Development: Birth to Third Grade strand of the U.S. Department of Education's 2010 Reading Institute kicks off next Monday, July 19 in Anaheim, California. NIEER-affiliated presenters at the conference include Co-directors Steve Barnett and Ellen Frede, Distinguished Research Fellow Dorothy Strickland, and Scientific Advisory Board Member Margaret Burchinall, University of California, Irvine. View the agenda here.

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When did the AFT become Al Qaida?

NIEER early ed hot topics 6/25

VOICES Analysis Shows Contrast Between Federal, State Assessments of Reading
A new analysis of federal and state measures of children's reading proficiency shows the tendency of states to find that more of their kids are performing above average while the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows only one-third of 4th graders reading at a proficient level. Bill Bentley, CEO of VOICES for America's Children, which did the analysis, says the states show a "Lake Wobegone Effect" in which their children are above average and doing so is incentivized by federal dollars. He said the new common core standards represent a first step toward higher standards and true evaluation.

Study: Cell Phone Towers Don't Cause Early Childhood Cancers
Children born to mothers who lived near cell phone towers while pregnant had no higher risk of childhood cancer than those not living near towers, say researchers writing in the British Medical Journal. They examined the records of more than 1,000 children up to 4 years old who had leukemia or brain or central nervous system tumors, compared them to similar kids who didn't have cancer, and measured how far the pregnant moms lived from cell towers. They caution that their results don't say anything about whether exposure to cell tower radio frequencies might affect the kids' future propensity to develop cancer.

Texas Republican Platform: Repeal Government-Sponsored ECD Programs
The Texas state Republican Party has released its 2010 platform containing the following language: "Early Childhood Development – We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and Kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development." (NIEER notes that no state mandates preschool attendance.)

Money Saved From Wisconsin Child Care Fraud Effort Goes to Other Programs
Raquel Rutledge, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter who won a Pulitzer for her reporting on fraud in state child care, now reports that the $100 million in projected saving from the state crackdown is being used for other purposes such as keeping state parks and highway rest stops open.

Kudos: Governor Bredesen, Dolly Parton Joint Effort Tops 10-Million-Book Mark
The Tennesseean reports that thanks to a joint effort by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's Books from Birth Foundation and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, more than 214,000 kids age 5 and under have received more than 10 million books. A person making a $24 donation to the governor's foundation ensures that some child receives one free book a month in the mail for a year. All Tennesseans under age 5 are eligible to participate.

Make grades meaningful

The Editors
South Bend Tribune

Dislike for a plan to label schools with single letter grades should not be mistaken for dislike of clarity and accountability. We hope Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett realizes that.

Bennett is right to defend clarity and accountability. We join him in doing so. Where we disagree with the superintendent is in how he would report success and failure in schools.

For the purposes of this discussion, schools aren't buildings. They are people: children, teachers and administrators. All perform at different levels and with varying degrees of competency. Students are graded for their work. Bennett thinks teachers and administrators should be graded, too, and that their grade should take the form of a letter, A through F, that reflects the performance of their students. The letter would be applied to the school.

While we have no objection to grading educators, to label a school with a single symbol of success or failure is wrong. Simple though the idea is, it doesn't even merit points for clarity. That's because a single letter grade, based on student ISTEP scores, is too general to impart much useful information.

We hope the Indiana State Board of Education listened carefully to Mishawaka school board President Larry Stillson on June 16. He was one of two people representing the Indiana School Boards Association to the state board. Stillson was there not only to tell the trustees what's wrong with Bennett's plan, but to offer a better idea.

The school board president proposes that schools receive multiple grades in several areas, rather than be painted with a single broad ISTEP-based stroke. Not only would that impart useful information to anyone honestly trying to understand a school's strengths and weaknesses, but it would spare schools (and communities) glaring, hurtful and mostly meaningless labels.

If the state board is bent on finding a simple answer, it might not like Stillson's idea. To devise a plan for grading schools on a broad spectrum could be complicated. It would take some effort. But it would be effort well spent, not effort that would do more harm than good.

My comment:

Today's editorial is right on the mark. Tony Bennett's tenure has been characterized by shifting all responsibility away from his department and by making extremely complicated problems appear to have simple solutions.

I also appreciate the Tribune pointing out someone with a viable (in this case, better) alternative. We should all be prepared to do so when opposing a proposal or action. But it's good to notice when people actually do it. Hopefully, it will encourage them to continue doing so.

NIEER early ed hot topics 6/14

The 'Great Recession' Will Give Millions of Kids a Tougher Row to Hoe
After the country begins to recover from the "Great Recession," many kids whose misfortune was to be young during it will suffer lasting impacts, says the latest report from the Foundation for Child Development's Child and Youth Well-Being Index. It predicts the number of children in poverty will rise to 15.6 million this year, a jump of three million in just four years. More families in poverty means more kids entering school without the benefit of high-quality early education. In five years, when they enter fourth grade, they'll likely have lower reading and math scores. In another decade, they'll be more likely to drop out of high school, says the report's author, Kenneth Land of Duke University.

GAO Finds a Decrease in Child Care Subsidy Usage
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that examined trends in child care subsidy receipt found that from 2006 to 2008, the average number of children served by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) declined by about 170,000 children, or 10 percent. Among the reasons cited for the decline are state policies that can affect resource allocation, decreases in the number of regulated providers, increased requirements for participating providers, and rising unemployment's effect on work-related eligibility.

LAUP Study Finds a Higher Rate of School Readiness
A study of kids who attended Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) classrooms found that after one year of pre-K, 72 percent of children tested for near proficiency in school readiness skills, including social expression and self-regulation, compared to 22 percent when they started. The gains were particularly significant for English Language Learners (ELLs). They started the year with lower school readiness skills than their non-ELL peers, but after a year of LAUP pre-K, the gap had closed.

Common Core Standards Completed; State Adoption Comes Next
Now that the K-12 Common Core Standards for Math and Reading have been completed, the push is on to get the states to adopt them. Already, a number of education groups, including the Council of State Governments and National Association of State Boards of Education, have joined the coalition urging adoption. While 48 states agreed to participate in the effort to create the standards, that did not obligate them to adopt them. Former New Jersey education commissioner Lucille Davy has been hired by the Hunt Institute to spearhead its outreach effort aimed at helping states make well-informed decisions regarding adoption.

Regular Bedtimes, Adequate Sleep Linked to Better Literacy, Math Skills in Pre-K
A study of 8,000 kids who were assessed at age 4 found that among sleep habits, having a regular bedtime was the most consistent predictor of better scores in receptive and expressive language, phonological awareness, literacy, and early math. The data also showed that many children are not getting the recommended amount of sleep. The findings were reported at SLEEP 2010, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends preschool children get a minimum of 11 hours of sleep each night.

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NIEER early ed news roundup 5/28

May 28, 2010 (Erie Times-News, Erie, PA)
Erie business leaders urged to invest in early childhood education
Speakers at the region's first Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investments said that money spent on preschool education pays dividends in economic and work-force development.

May 26, 2010 (The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette, LA)
Pre-K progam puts students on right course
Data shows that students perform better in school after some early childhood education. Students are taught how to behave in school, basic skills, numbers, colors and precursors to reading during a year of pre-kindergarten.

May 26, 2010 (The Birmingham News)
Most Alabamians favor state spending for pre-kindergarten
A coalition dedicated to expanding quality pre-kindergarten education for 4-year-olds in Alabama has found voters support spending more money on the effort -- regardless of party affiliation. Jan Hume, executive director of the alliance, said the results were a surprise to pollsters -- Alabama support for pre-kindergarten education remains as strong as it was four years ago, even in the face of high unemployment and a tepid economy.

May 25, 2010 (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Pre-k program's popularity fuels waiting lists
Georgia's voluntary pre-kindergarten program started in 1993 with 750 students and now has some 81,068 students in public schools and private day care centers in all 159 counties. Waiting lists, however, are becoming more common, especially in the metro areas.

May 23, 2010 (The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, IA)
Should taxpayers foot the bill for preschool?
Preschool spending has climbed at a time when public schools have been forced to raise property taxes, lay off teachers and combine classes to deal with their most difficult budgets in years. Universal preschool is in addition to Head Start and other government-run preschool efforts that target low-income families.

May 20, 2010 (EmaxHealth)
Depression Among Preschool Children
Preschool children not only suffer with depression, their symptoms are often unnoticed and thus the condition goes undiagnosed. Recent findings on preschool depression indicate that it is not a temporary condition and that early detection is important.

May 20, 2010 (Babble)
Raising Bilingual Kids
These days most experts agree that the developing mind can easily handle the double input. And research is beginning to show that, in addition to the linguistic benefits, learning multiple languages might provide valuable mental exercise for kids that could have positive long-term effects.

May 20, 2010 (WFMY TV, Greenesboro, NC)
North Carolina ranks among nation's top two states for pre-K education
For the second year in a row, North Carolina ranks among the nation's top two states for preschool education. The state tied Alabama for first, scoring a perfect 10. It's also the fifth time the state placed in the top 10.

May 19, 2010 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
Meaningful Conversations Boost Kids' Language Skills
Parents who engage their young children in conversational give-and-take help their offspring gain a significant leg up in terms of language acquisition, new Dutch research reveals. The boost to childhood language proficiency appears to be predicated on allowing children to engage in so-called "serious" conversations with their family members -- dialogues that permit them to make meaningful contributions to the subject at hand.

May 18, 2010 (The Sentinel, Lewistown, PA)
Business leaders address early childhood education
Return of investment of early childhood education includes school success, graduation, work force readiness and job productivity, [former president and CEO of Weis Markets Inc. Norm] Rich said. "Investing in children is investing in America," he said.

May 18, 2010 (The Christian Science Monitor)
Report: Reading skills in early grades are crucial to success
A new report argues that third-grade reading proficiency heavily influences later achievement, including high school graduation. What's needed, say the report's authors and other education advocates, is more focus on children's 0-8 years, as well as a system that does a better job of integrating early-childhood education, K-12, parental support, and health and human services.

May 17, 2010 (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
States' budget problems cut into help for children
All over the country, the financial crisis has forced states to make cuts to close what the National Conference of State Legislatures found was an overall budget gap of $174.1 billion this fiscal year and has lawmakers looking to cut another $89 billion next year. That means slashing services to children, the one population they have long protected.

May 16, 2010 (The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, IN)
Editorial: Learning from the START
The economic tailspin forcing states to look closely at spending priorities didn't keep 29 states from increasing enrollment in their preschool programs last year. Regrettably, Indiana still languishes among the handful of backward states with no support for high-quality pre-K.

May 16, 2010 (The Charleston Gazette)
Op-Ed: Child's first years are key to success -- or failure
What West Virginia needs is greater investment in early childhood education, especially for the poorest and most disadvantaged of children. Almost one-third of West Virginia's youngest children under 5 live in poverty. If we do not address their needs, we will never achieve the prosperity we all desire.

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Resources

Child Development, Volume 81, Issue 3 (May/June 2010)
Among the articles in this issue are the results from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development that tracks children to the age of 15, finding that the positive effects from high-quality child care last into the teenage years. Another article discusses findings of a study looking at very young children's topographic representations of their own bodies, finding that children possess an explicit, if rudimentary, topographic representation of their own body's shape, structure, and size by 30 months of age.

Leadership Matters FY11
The latest edition of this annual report from Pre-K Now finds that if all of the governors' FY 2011 budgets were to pass as proposed, total state pre-K funding would remain roughly the same as FY 2010 – about $5.3 billion. Beyond the national total lie big variations, ranging from expansion plans in Alabama to elimination of state pre-K in Arizona. Nine governors propose expanding pre-K, 10 propose flat-funding it, and 12 propose cutting funding.

Listening and Learning About Early Learning Tour
This web page gathers in one place presentations made by prominent education experts who participated in U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services (HHS) recent Listening and Learning About Early Learning meetings. The presentations address four subject areas: Understanding Preschool–Grade 3 Structures, Workforce and Professional Development, Family Engagement, and Standards and Assessments.

Among the 16 presenters were Jerry Weast, superintendent of the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland; Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute in New York; Marcy Whitebook, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley; Eugene Garcia, vice president for education partnerships at Arizona State University (and a NIEER scientific advisory board member); Ruby Takanishi, president of the Foundation for Child Development; Deborah Leong, Metropolitan State College, Denver, Colorado (and a NIEER senior research fellow); and Linda Espinosa, associate professor, University of Missouri, Columbia (and a former NIEER co-director).

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NIEER early ed hot topics 5/28

Volume 9, Issue 11

May 28, 2010

To subscribe, http://nieer.org/resources/newsletter/ Contact: Carol Shipp (732) 932-4350 x225 cshipp@nieer.org or Pat Ainsworth (732) 932-4350 x229 painsworth@nieer.org Study Finds Young Children with Autism Use Different Brain Regions The Wall Street Journal reports that researchers scanning the brains of sleeping babies say autistic children as young as 14 months of age use different brain regions than more normally developing children. In typically developing babies, both the right and left temporal areas of the brain were active but in autistic children, the left temporal area, which deals with language, was far less active. While only 43 children were in the study sample, it appears to confirm why poor language comprehension is a red flag for autism in young children. There's No Benefit in Delaying Immunizations in Children Parents who delay children receiving a portion of the vaccines they are supposed to get out of fear that “vaccine overload” will negatively affect development are doing their kids no favors. If fact, they may be exposing them to disease, say University of Louisville School of Medicine researchers who studied data from speech, behavior and intelligence tests conducted years after children received their vaccines. Analyzing the data from more than 1,000 kids, they found there wasn’t a single variable where the kids with delayed vaccination did better than the kids who received 10 shots by the age of seven months. The authors also refuted the concept of vaccine overload. Their study is published in the May 24 online edition of the journal Pediatrics. Kids Who Were Cognitively Stimulated in Three Settings Did Better in Math Researchers who studied more than 1,000 children on the basis of the settings in which they were cognitively stimulated found that kids who were consistently cognitively stimulated at home, in preschool or child care, and in the first grade classroom had higher math achievement. Kids who were consistently cognitively stimulated at home and in preschool or child care had higher reading achievement. These effects were more pronounced for low-income children. GAO Sting Turns Up Fraudulent Enrollment Practices in Head Start Centers When the Government Accountability Office (GAO) used fictitious identities and bogus documents to attempt to register over-income children at Head Start centers in six states, they found that in eight out of 13 attempts, Head Start staff fraudulently misrepresented information, including disregarding part of the families' income to register over-income children into under-income slots. It its report, the GAO concluded over-income children may be getting enrolled in Head Start while legitimate under-income children are put on waiting lists. At no point was information submitted by the GAO's fictitious parents verified, suggesting parents are able to falsify earnings statements and other documents to qualify. Will Early Education Be a Part of ESEA Reauthorization? At least the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is considering it. This week, University of Virginia professor Robert Pianta, a NIEER scientific advisory board member, testified that "Incorporating high-quality early childhood education into reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would produce policies that would create a new portal into the education system." He and other experts, including fellow NIEER scientific advisory board member Lawrence J. Schweinhart from the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, went before the committee to address how federal policies can foster alignment between early childhood and K-12 education. A webcast of their testimony is available here. Annie E. Casey Foundation Calls for Renewed Emphasis on Literacy In its new KIDS COUNT Special Report, the Annie E. Casey Foundation calls for a renewed emphasis on reading success and spells out four steps aimed at achieving grade-level reading proficiency for all children by third grade. They include development of a coherent system of early childhood education that coordinates what happens from birth through third grade, parental supports, turning around low-performing schools, and solving the problems of chronic school absence and summer learning loss. The report provides state-level data to help parents, policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens rally around the effort.

Early Ed news roundup 5/15

May 14, 2010 (The Washington Post)
Study finds that effects of low-quality child care last into adolescence
Low-quality care in the first few years of life can have a small but long-lasting impact on a child's learning and behavior, according to new results from the largest, most authoritative assessment of child rearing in the United States.

May 12, 2010 (WFAA TV, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX)
DISD outlines pre-kindergarten expansion plan
The Dallas Independent School District is discussing whether to make pre-kindergarten available for a full day system-wide. Doing so would nearly double the number of full-day classrooms, but it could also mean cutting the number of teachers.

May 11, 2010 (The Washington Post)
Full-day preschool found to benefit boys, black students more
The study found that among African American students and boys in general, those who attended full-day pre-kindergarten classes outperformed their Head Start peers who had only half-day programs on reading benchmarks. But the results also applied more broadly.

May 11, 2010 (The Oklahoman)
Editorial: Oklahoma's pre-K, scholarship programs making marks
Oklahoma is the only state where almost every 4-year-old can attend a quality pre-K program, according to the report.

May 7, 2010 (The Baltimore Sun)
Editorial: Excellence at an early age
Last year, the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill directing the state education department to plan a gradual expansion of pre-K eligibility that would eventually include every child in the state. The first stage would have seen the eligibility limit on family income rise from 185 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty line, increasing the programs' current $101 million cost by $19 million.

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NIEER early ed hot topics 5/15

High-Quality Early Care Yields Gains When Kids Are Teenagers
The latest report from the NICHD child care study that has tracked more than 1,000 kids from birth to age 15 finds benefits of high-quality child care last into the teenage years. "The effects (from high-quality programs) didn't fade away," said NIEER Scientific Advisory Board member Deborah Lowe Vandell, the report's lead author and chair of the Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine. Although the effects were small, teenagers who had the higher quality care did better academically than those given low-quality care or no care outside the home.

The study, which appears in Child Development, also found that the more time children spent in child care outside the home, the more they were likely to engage in risky or impulsive behaviors at age 15 regardless of the quality of early care they had received. Those effects were also relatively small, and benefits did not differ between advantaged and disadvantaged children. The study's finding of persistent effects is consistent with the results of NIEER's meta-analysis of the entire literature, but also reinforces the notion that intensive educational programs are required if preschool is to make a substantive difference in the poor achievement of disadvantaged children.

Full Day of Head Start Pre-K Translated to Better Readers
Children were more likely to become better readers and need less in the way of special education if they attended a full day of Head Start pre-K in the Montgomery County, Maryland public schools, according to a research report issued by the district's Office of Shared Accountability. Pupils in the full-day program were 44 percent more likely to meet the district's reading benchmark Level 4 by the end of kindergarten than those in the half-day Head Start program. The full-day program favored African-American and male kids on meeting the reading benchmark.

Study: Latino Children's Social Skills Strong at Kindergarten Entry
A study in the May issue of Developmental Psychology reports that Latino children entering kindergarten have similar or only slightly lower levels of various social skills compared to white non-Latino children. The researchers also reported an association between Latino children's approaches to learning and their gains in math skills during the kindergarten year.

Vigorous Exercise Strengthens Hip Bones in Young Children
Researchers from the UK say they used advanced scanning technology to study more than 200 6-year-olds and found that there was a relationship between the amount time the kids spent in vigorous activity and the strength of their hip and thigh bones. The increased bone density resulting from the increased exercise was independent of factors such as diet, lifestyle, and physical size. They said the findings could inform public health strategies aimed at preventing osteoporosis later in life.

Universal Pre-K Part of Michigan State Board of Education Recommendations
The Detroit Free Press reports that the Michigan state Board of Education has unanimously approved a long-range plan for education that includes provision of pre-K for all 4-year-olds and mandated kindergarten for all children. The product of months of testimony and debate, the board's report says increasing the number of college graduates and reducing drop-outs are essential to reviving the state's economy. While the recommendations, which include tax increases, received bipartisan support on the board, they are expected to receive a mixed reception in the legislature.

The Hechinger Report Takes Media Outreach a Step Further
The Hechinger Report, a web publication recently launched by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, brings a new dimension to the organization's media-centric mission by providing articles written in collaboration with leading titles like Education Week, U.S. News & World Report, and The Washington Post. Richard Lee Colvin, Hechinger's director, says The Hechinger Report represents a change of focus that reaches beyond the organization's traditional mission of outreach journalists to "informing the public about education through quality journalism."

Among articles in the current issue are a piece about the declining fortunes of state pre-K by Liz Willen and another addressing whether President Obama's commitment to early education has waned by Linda Jacobson.

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New on Preschool Matters...Today!

NIEER Researchers Offer Insights
NIEER Research Project Coordinator Alex Figueras-Daniel reflects on a recent lecture by Linda Darling-Hammond on the NJ Abbott preschool program while NIEER Assistant Research Professor Dale Epstein tells us there's more than meets the eye in her post about the print and online editions of The State of Preschool 2009.

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