Head Start

Anyone who has followed early education issues knows there is a big disconnect between the ideal learning environments for young children, age 3 to age 8, and what they experience on a daily basis in their schools and pre-k or childcare centers. A relatively new program called FirstSchool, an initiative led by the FPG Child Development Institute and the education school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, aims to bring the ideal much closer to reality.

In the coming months, states will get a chance to compete in a $178-million competition to develop programs that support literacy development from birth through 12^th grade. The vast reach of the program – spanning the entirety of childhood and adolescence – marks a new moment for the U.S. Department of Education, which has typically carved up literacy programs by grade or age group.

Note: The video above features the panel discussion titled, “Leveraging Public Dollars: How?” from the Before Birth & Up Through Third Grade Forum on March 2. Videos for the other two panel discussions can be found on the right side of this page.

As budget cuts continue to loom, policymakers may feel resigned to take a defensive, "let's just get through this" position, instead of moving forward on innovations. This would be a mistake. Early education has always suffered from a lack of resources to serve the full population and may be working with even less in the coming years, but that shouldn't stop the field from continuing to press for reform of the education system.

It may take awhile to feel the full effect of the mid-term Congressional elections, but that didn’t stop several experts at an education forum in Washington, D.C. today from offering a bleak outlook on the chances for changes to one key education law: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

A recent podcast on the BAM Radio Network showcases a debate between two experts with different perspectives on government's role in supporting early childhood education.

Two Congressional champions of early childhood investments submitted a letter to colleagues in charge of federal appropriations yesterday, urging them to include the Early Learning Challenge Fund in the federal spending bill for fiscal year 2011.  The letter included signatures from 110 members of Congress, including six Republicans.

Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) are the top signatories. They sent the letter to Rep. David Obey (D-WI), Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), who lead the House Committee on Appropriations.

For years, early childhood researchers have debated the effectiveness of Head Start, a discussion fueled anew this year with the release of disappointing results from the long-awaited Impact Study.  And for years, advocates have promoted policy ideas that would establish more cohesive and coordinated systems to deliver programs to young children before they get to kindergarten. 

This month two researchers brought these two themes together and proposed that the federal government should waive some regulations – for Head Start and other programs -- to spur states to innovate and deliver programs most effectively.  

Amid this fall’s high-pitched debates over education reform, the early grades of elementary school – those grades that don’t come with high-stakes statewide testing – are not getting much attention. So when a high-level Obama Administration official recently made the case for elementary school improvements in a public forum, we took note.

Over the past decades, researchers have drawn new connections between children’s achievement in school and their social and cognitive development. But are prospective teachers aware of how this research might apply to the classroom? A report released last week says “no” and implores policymakers to take action.