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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NIEER Releases Yearbook Findings, Calls on Obama to Create Early Education Fund

NIEER co-director Steve Barnett released findings of The State of Preschool 2009 at a press conference today at the AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Barnett said this year's yearbook data show that, nationally speaking, the recession is affecting states' ability to continue the trend toward expanding pre-K that has predominated in recent years. "The immediate future of pre-K seems much more perilous than past trends might suggest," he said, pointing out that some states have cut pre-K enrollment to levels not seen in years and that so far, 11 states are considering pre-K cuts for 2011.

Barnett outlined the difficult choices middle-income families, who have the least access to public pre-K, are facing in providing for their young children. He reminded President Obama of his campaign promise to guarantee access to quality, affordable early childhood education for every child in America and called on him to create an Early Education Fund designed to help states provide more services. Investing $1 billion in the fund would, by Barnett's calculations, enable states providing matching funds to serve an additional 500,000 children.

Joining him at the podium were Marci Young, a project director for the Pew Center on the States, and Julia B. Isaacs, The Child and Family Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The new edition of the yearbook, the news release, and parent videos are available on the NIEER web site. Barnett wonders about the future of state pre-K in our Preschool Matters…Today! blog post.

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Early education news roundup

April 22, 2010 (The Kansas City Star)
Missouri Senate approves plan to merge education boards
Missouri senators have endorsed a plan that would merge the state's two education oversight boards into one responsible for education from kindergarten through doctoral programs.

April 21, 2010 (Lansing State Journal, Lansing, MI)
Focus on early childhood education still urged
But even as educators and others recognize the importance of focusing on early childhood enrichment, tight state and local budgets are making it tough to maintain current programs and start new ones.

April 20, 2010 (The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA)
Expert says the path to literacy starts with babies
Word play through rhyme, poetry, song and repetition is important because it reinforces the patterns and parts of word sounds. This is known as phonological awareness, which children need in order read.

April 20, 2010 (WJXT, Jacksonville, FL)
Advocates Fear Voluntary Pre-K Cuts
With every letter and every activity, the goal of Voluntary Prekindergarten is to get children ready for elementary school at no cost to parents. But a new proposal to slash VPK funding could affect children and the quality of their education.

April 19, 2010 (The Providence Journal, Providence, RI)
Child care found wanting in R.I.
A first-ever study of childcare centers in Rhode Island shows that only 10 percent of preschool classrooms and 4 percent of infant-toddler rooms provide "high-quality" programs that nurture development through purposeful interactions between adults and youngsters.

April 19, 2010 (Los Angeles Times)
L.A. study affirms benefits of preschool
Children enrolled in Los Angeles Universal Preschool programs made significant improvements in the social and emotional skills needed to do well in kindergarten, according to a study released Monday. The gains were especially pronounced for English language learners, the study showed.

April 18, 2010 (Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, MA)
Preschool years can be 'perfect storm' for language learning
The stories show that many preschool children focus intently on the words they hear and that most are primarily dependent on parents for clarification. Preschool years can, in fact, be a "perfect storm," a short window of opportunity in which factors come together so parents can best provide the basis of language growth.

April 16, 2010 (Chicago Tribune)
Early education program may face big cuts
The governor's proposal would slash the state's early childhood education block grant by 16 percent, which means 6,000 students in Chicago public schools could be shut out of the Preschool for All program, which targets academically at-risk children. Though not mandatory, Preschool for All is hailed for giving 3- and 4-year-olds a jump-start with its 2 1/2 hours a day of free instruction.

April 15, 2010 (Brattleboro Reformer, Brattleboro, VT)
Taking care of business
Just like every other division in the Agency of Human Services, early child care is facing cuts as the state tries to balance its budget. Early child care advocates understand that money is tight in Montpelier this year, but this week they are reminding lawmakers and business leaders that dollars taken away from programs around the state trickle up into other parts of Vermont's economy.

April 13, 2010 (Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo, MI)
Ready or not for kindergarten: How to assess your child
Kindergarten readiness isn't strictly a matter of age, say the experts. Instead, it involves a combination of cognitive, emotional, social and physical factors that can affect a child's academic success.

April 11, 2010 (The Topeka Capital-Journal)
Early childhood dollars targeted
Proposed cuts to early childhood programs have come as lawmakers grapple with how best to eliminate a budget shortfall in Kansas exceeding $400 million. Both House and Senate proposals for closing the budget gap include cuts for early childhood education.

NIEER early ed hot topics 4/28

News Alert: NIEER's New State of Preschool Yearbook to be Released May 4th
The new edition of NIEER's annual State of Preschool yearbook will be released next Tuesday, May 4 at the AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. As anticipated, the new edition fills in the blanks about how pre-K is faring as the states cope with the recession and it also represents a new high in terms of data collected. Our research staff has added new categories on curriculum and family involvement to our state-by-state database. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Science Article: Teacher Quality Moderates the Genetic Effects on Early Reading
An article in the journal Science reports that when children receive more effective instruction in early reading, they will tend to develop at their optimal learning trajectories but when instruction is less effective, children's learning potential is not optimized and the genetic differences that make it possible for some kids to read better than others are left unrealized. Said another way, poor teaching impedes the ability of children to reach their potential. In conducting the study Florida State University researchers followed 280 identical and 526 fraternal twin pairs in the first and second grades.

K-12 Common Core Standards Need Work, Say Early Ed Professionals
The K-12 Common Core State Standards proposed for comment by the Center for Best Practices at the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have received plenty of feedback from the early education community. The mainstream consensus seems to be that while they are step in the right direction, there needs to be significant modification to accommodate children's learning in the early years. This week, NIEER co-director Ellen Frede's blog post is about achieving a "Goldilocks" set of standards in Preschool Matters … Today!

Florida’s VPK Program Escapes Big Budget Cut
The Florida Senate has agreed to a House plan that cuts the state's Voluntary Prekindergarten Program by less than 1 percent rather than the 15 percent called for in a previous legislative proposal. The old proposal would have forced programs to increase class sizes to as many as 24 kids in a pre-K classroom. Nationally, Florida ranks near the bottom in state spending for pre-K. Current funding is about $20 million less than it was when the program was launched in 2005 even though VPK now serves about 40,000 more kids, reports the Orlando Sentinel's Leslie Postal.

Illinois ELL Rules Would Require Bilingual Education in Some Pre-K Classrooms
Education Week reports that if approved by the state board of education, new rules proposed by the Illinois education agency would require districts to survey parents of preschoolers to determine language spoken at home, screen the kids for English proficiency, and provide transitional bilingual education in preschools where 20 or more pupils with limited English proficiency speak the same native language.

The Economy: Revenue Declines Less Severe, A Glimmer of Recovery
After undergoing a record five consecutive quarters of declines, tax revenues to the states are currently at roughly the same level as they were 10 years ago, while during that period the nation's population has increased by approximately 10 percent, says a new report from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. However, the severity of the declines has moderated. The National Association of Realtors reports that home purchases increased by 6.8 percent in March and home prices rose 4 percent. Meanwhile, the Labor Department says initial claims for unemployment have begun falling.

Obama Administration Decides to Do Some More Listening
The U.S. Department of Education is embarked on a listening tour to discuss critical topics in early learning. The meetings, which some see as a reaction to criticism that the Obama blueprint for re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is light on early education, take place in Washington, D.C., Denver, CO, Orlando, FL, and Chicago, IL.