Early Ed Watch

Early Ed Roundup: Week of May 12 - May 16

Christina Satkowski — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:30:00 -0400

Full-Day-K Booming in Iowa, Massachusetts

If you build it, they will come. The Des Moines Register published a story this week about the West Des Moines school district, which will be doubling the number of its full-day kindergarten classrooms next year to accommodate the 600 students who enrolled for the program. Only 17 children had their names on the sign up list for half-day kindergarten. Heading east, 95 percent of kindergarten parents in Lexington, MA opted for a full-day program next year, the first year that FDK will be offered in the district. Like their counterparts in Iowa, Lexington administrators are facing challenges of finding teachers and classroom space to accommodate the higher enrollment.

Pre-K on Page One

USA Today highlighted the wopping 63 percent increase in public pre-k enrollment between 1995 and 2005, and in the process painted a portrait of pre-k in America that we don't often see in major dailies. Referencing a recent RAND report, the article emphasizes the importance of providing adequate state funding to ensure high quality standards in pre-k programs.

Report Calls for Fine-Tuning Florida Pre-K Evaluation

A new report from the Florida legislature's accountability office raises questions about the assessment that the state is using to hold providers in the state's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) program accountable. According to the report, more than 60 percent of children who attended Florida's VPK program were ready for kindergarten, and VPK participants had a higher level of kindergarten readiness than children who did not attend the program. The effect of VPK was especially pronounced among low-income children and English-Language Learners. But the accountability office is concerned that flaws in the assessment may lead to providers being inappropriately labeled as low-performing when they are not. In particular, the report expresses concern that providers serving minority and low-income are disproportionately labeled as low-performing. The report recommends changes in the readiness rating methodology, as well as additional assistance to help low-performing providers improve.

Cost-Effectiveness and Trade-Offs in Early Education

Sara Mead — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:58:00 -0400

Two new studies released this week aim to help policymakers make sound choices about early education investments.

In Meaningful Investments In Pre-k, researchers from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimate what it actually costs to provide quality pre-k programs. To estimate the costs of quality pre-k programs, the IWPR researchers identified the characteristics of high-quality pre-k programs—qualified teachers, small class sizes, appropriate educational materials, and so on—and arrived at research-based estimates of what it actually costs, on a per-child basis, to provide those things. They also estimated the cost of appropriate facilities and of state-level support and oversight infrastructure needed to ensure pre-k quality.

The researchers estimated the cost of pre-k at a variety of quality levels, varying quality in terms of both teacher qualifications/compensation and class size. They also estimated the difference in costs of half-, full-, and extended-day programs. Estimates ranged from a low of $3,214 dollars per child, per year for half-day pre-k programs taught by teachers with a CDA (a child development credential that is less than an associate’s degree) in classrooms of 20 students, to a high of $13,649 per child, per year for extended-day pre-k programs, taught by bachelor’s degree teachers paid under public school salaries, in classrooms of 15 students.

The sad reality is that most states are spending nowhere near this much money per pupil on pre-k, even compared to more modest quality standards. Pre-K programs in 10 states are spending less than even the $3,214 per child IWPR estimates is necessary to provide just the lowest-quality pre-k! The National Institute for Early Education Research estimates that only 19 states are spending enough money to meet quality standards, and all but 4 of those provide only half-day programs.

Fortunately for policymakers seeking to raise quality, the IWPR study also provides estimates of the marginal cost to improve state pre-k quality standards. For instance, for a full-day program with associates degreed teachers and classes of 17 students, it would cost about 12 percent more to raise teacher education requirements to a bachelor’s degree, while it would cost about 8 percent more to reduce class size to 15. These estimates can be useful for policymakers weighing the costs of different policy alternatives.

What the IWPR study doesn’t provide, however, is information on cost effectiveness of different quality improvements: That is, if I’m a legislator seeking to improve pre-k quality or access in my state, what investments give me the biggest bang for my buck? Should I invest marginal dollars in class size reduction, or on raising teacher credentials, or should I leave quality be and increase the number of children served?

A recent RAND paper on the Economics of Early Childhood Policy notes the lack of adequate evidence to answer these questions. We know what the characteristics of high-quality programs are and, to some extent, what they cost. We also know that very high-quality programs have been demonstrated to have clear impacts in terms of improving children’s school and long-term outcomes, and generating positive returns for society as a whole. But we don’t know what kind of returns marginal investments in improving quality produce, nor do we know which marginal quality improvements produce the greatest marginal benefits. We also don’t know whether or not there is a minimum threshold for quality below which early educational investments do not produce positive returns. These are critical questions for policymakers seeking to make smart early education investments with limited public resources. Developing better evidence on cost-effectiveness of different marginal early education investments should be a research priority for the early childhood field.

The RAND report is worth a read because it steps back from the common rhetoric about return on investment from early education programs to take a hard look at the economic theory of what we mean when we say that early education programs produce returns on public investment. Researchers Rebecca Kilburn and Lynn Karoly also dive into the tough questions of trade-offs that policymakers must make between different types of early childhood investments, as well as between quality and quantity for any given early childhood investment, and offer a variety of frameworks for researchers, advocates, and policymakers to think about these investments. Ultimately, they conclude that policymakers need to think about early childhood investments as a portfolio, allocating funds to a variety of strategies that contribute to desired outcomes for children, rather than focusing on a single approach or considering early childhood programs in separate, isolated silos.

One of these studies answers some important questions that policymakers have in creating early education programs, but in the process, it also raises some. The second study raises similar challenging questions, as well as some others around trade-offs for early education, and, while it does not provide answers, offers some useful frameworks to start working on them.

Hey You Guys!!!!!!!!!

Sara Mead — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:45:00 -0400

The New York Times reports that PBS is bringing back The Electric Company, a beloved 1970s-era children's television show that uses SNL-style sketches to help children develop literacy skills. The Electric Company was produced by Children's Television Workshop (since renamed Sesame Workshop, which will be producing the new show), the same organization that produces Sesame Street. While Sesame Street is focused on preschool aged students, The Electric Company is pitched to early elementary school students ages 6 to 9. Among other accomplishments, The Electric Company launched the career of Morgan Freeman, appearing here as recurring sketch character Easy Reader.

No word yet on whether Easy Reader will make a reappearance in the new show (possibly reincarnated as a Greenpoint hipster?), which producers are reconceptualizing in an effort to appeal to children who now have a much greater wealth of afterschool entertainment options.

As the most recent Future of Children noted, TV-watching per se isn't necessarily bad for preschool (over two years old) and elementary-aged children (although all things in moderation). And quality educationally-oriented programs can actually have positive impacts on children's learning. Sure, kids today have a lot of entertainment options--Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, DVDs--that didn't exist in the 1970s. But a lot of what's out there is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories--not to mention the many non-age appropriate things kids can find on afternoon TV these days. Parents and policymakers are concerned about protecting children from bad influences on TV and in the media, and debates about how to do that can become contentious. But unfortunately we tend to overlook the equally or more important flipside--providing engaging entertainment alternatives that children will find just as or more appealing than less salubrious options, while also reaping educational benefits. In that context, the return of The Electric Company is something to celebrate (and not just because I enjoyed watching it myself as an elementary schooler!).

No word yet, however, on when we can expect a reappearance of 3-2-1 Contact. Given that they've been namechecked by a well-known indie rock band, would it be too much to hope for the Bloodhound Gang to get their own show?

The Leaky PK-16 Pipeline

Sara Mead — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:55:00 -0400

Louisiana has the most extensive and concentrated network of oil and gas pipelines in the world. We wouldn't put up with losing 85 percent of the oil through leaks in the pipeline along the way. But we lose 85 percent of children in the education pipeline before completing post-secondary education — technical school, community college or the university.

That's Dr. Phillip Rozeman, a member of the Louisiana State University-Shreveport Foundation Board, writing in the Shreveport Times. One of the reasons that we lose so many children from the educational pipeline today is that the pieces of that pipeline aren't properly connected to one another: early childhood programs aren't aligned with pre-k, which isn't aligned with early elementary school, where curriculum, standards and teaching techniques often aren't aligned from grade to grade. That creates gaps in the educational system and in children's learning as they progress from grade to grade--and too many children slip through those gaps in our educational system. How to respond? Alignment: building connections between learning expectations and children's experiences in each grade with the grades that preceded and follow, so learning builds seamlessly on what children already know, and children master the knowledge and skills they need before they move on to the next level of schooling.

Of course, alignment is tough when whole pieces of the educational pipeline are missing to begin with. Louisiana does better than most states when it comes to early education: The state supports three different pre-k programs, all of which rate well in terms of quality, and cumulatively these programs serve one-quarter of Louisiana's four-year-olds. That makes the Louisiana better than average when it comes to pre-k, but it still leaves a lot of children unserved--including all the state's three-year-olds. Our prescription for Louisiana's leaky educational pipeline? Invest in pre-k as part of an aligned P-16 system, with a particular focus on quality and alignment in the PK-3 years.

Featured Abstract: The Anemic Response to Skill Premium Growth

Sara Mead — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:45:00 -0400

A new paper by Joseph G. Antolji, Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange looks at whether or not American youth have responded to increasing economic rewards for skills and education by investing more in skills and education:

We examine changes in the characteristics of American youth between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, with a focus on characteristics that matter for labor market success. We reweight the NLSY79 to look like the NLSY97 along a number of dimensions that are related to labor market success, including race, gender, parental background, education, test scores, and variables that capture whether individuals transition smoothly from school to work. We then use the re-weighted sample to examine how changes in the distribution of observable skills affect employment and wages. We also use more standard regression methods to assess the labor market consequences of differences between the two cohorts. Overall, we find that the current generation is more skilled than the previous one. Blacks and Hispanics have gained relative to whites and women have gained relative to men. However, skill differences within groups have increased considerably and in aggregate the skill distribution has widened. Changes in parental education seem to generate many of the observed changes.

In other words, they haven't, at least not as much as we might expect given the significant increase in labor market returns to skills and education. In fact, about two-thirds of the increase in young people's skills since 1979 is due simply to the fact that their parents are more educated, and inequities in skill distribution have increased.

In another article, the authors look at possible explanations why the response might have been so anemic. One potential answer is that many young people's ability to increase their investment in education and building their skills is constrained by their earlier educational experiences--in other words, children who did not get a high quality early education earlier in their preschool, elementary, and middle school years lack the skills and preparation to seize educational opportunities in high school and college:

Research summarized in Cunha and Heckman (2007) suggests that part of the explanation might be that parental investment during early childhood shapes the potential to acquire additional skills later in life. Parents might not have responded to the increase in labour market returns, perhaps because they were not fully aware of the large increase in the returns to skills or because their children’s labour market success might not be the primary motivating factor in determining the time and resources they devote to their children.

To enable more young people to respond to incentives and upgrade their skills in response to demand, we must improve early childhood and elementary school education, and also improve education and support for parents, so that they understand the economic realities facing their children and have the resouces and skills to support their children's learning in early childhood and beyond.

Early Ed Roundup: Week of May 5 - May 9

Christina Satkowski — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:13:00 -0400

Plan Underway to Consolidate California Preschool Programs

California State Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell joined California lawmakers on Tuesday to unveil a legislative package that would combine the state's five early education and family programs into one, to be called the California State Preschool Program. The new program, which would include the existing California State Preschool Program, Full-Day State Preschool, the Pre-Kindergarten and Family Literacy Program, Pre-Kindergarten and Family Full Day, the General Care and Development Program would have an $816 million budget, making it the largest preschool program in the country. Local government officials praised the plan, which is designed to help streamline services and cut administrative costs. Currently some local educational agencies administer all five programs at once; with the new umbrella program they say they can redirect funding once used for paper-pushing towards instruction.

Bright Horizons Bought Out by Boston Firm

Bright Horizons, a for-profit childcare company that operates more than 600 centers (many employer-sponsored) in the U.S. and abroad, accepted a buyout offer this week from Boston-based Bain Capital Partners. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents Bright Horizons childcare workers, sent a letter to company executives seeking reassurance that the $1.3 billion deal will not lead to cuts in staffing or program quality that would ultimately affect children and their families.

Budget Cut in Connecticut Hits Early Reading Program

Connecticut school districts could lose $20 million in early literacy funding. Last year the state passed a two-year budget plan that funded the decade-old Early Reading Success program for the 2007-08 fiscal year but not for 2008-09. Legislators promised school administrators that they would restore funding for the program this year. But this year, facing a $67 million budget deficit, Governor Jodi Rell and legislative leaders are pursuing a "do nothing" budget--meaning no money for new programs--that fails to fund the Early Reading Success program. Coming on top of cuts in federal Reading First funding, this could mean serious reductions in the early literacy programs and support Connecticut schools can offer, and school officials worry that loss of the Early Reading grants could result in lower student performance.

Degrees of Appreciation

Christina Satkowski — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:26:00 -0400

It's National Teacher Appreciation Week, the time of year when we thank teachers for the hard work they do to educate the nation's children. But which teachers are we talking about? Research shows that early education is just as important the K-12 years, providing an important and fundamental base for success in the later grades. Yet our early education teachers rarely get the amount of recognition they deserve. Here are two ways to appreciate the nation's pre-k educators:

Expect More. Teacher quality is a crucial component to an effective pre-k program. Yet while most K-12 teachers are required to have completed a B.A. degree, yet fewer than half of states with a pre-k program require their teachers to meet such quality standards. The Head Start program, which enrolls more than 900,000 three- and four- year olds, only requires teachers to complete a Child Development Associate's (CDA) degree. By requiring all pre-k teachers to hold the same credentials as their colleagues in K-12 - and helping them complete these certifications - we recognize that they just as important as the teachers in higher grades. One great idea is to create a "Highly Qualified Early Educator" standard as a part of No Child Left Behind's Title V, which would establish pre-k educators as an important component in a comprehensive early education program for grades PK-3. Backing up initial certification with continued professional development is also important, to ensure that pre-k educators have access to the best methods in early childhood instruction.

Give More. Pre-k teachers don't get enough support in their jobs, contributing to a high rate of professional turnover in pre-k classrooms. The median yearly salary for preschool teachers in 2006 was $24,784, half of what the average elementary school teacher earns. Additionally, since many pre-k instructors are not a part of local public school systems, they do not get the same professional benefits as other teachers in their communities. By integrating pre-school teachers into a PK-3 education system, and giving high quality pre-k teachers the same benefits accorded to K-12 instructors, we will ensure that children have motivated teachers and a consistent learning environment.

A commitment to pre-k teachers is also a commitment to our kids. We need to recognize our dedicated pre-k educators by creating a uniform system of PK-3 quality standards, which will translate into higher quality class time for our kids. Check out our policy brief "Teacher Quality in Grades PK-3: Challenges and Options" for more about how we can direct federal policy to appreciate the importance of pre-k teachers.

Bangalore's Growing Preschool Market

Sara Mead — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:50:00 -0400

It's become a cliche among politicians and early education supporters to argue that the United States needs new early childhood investments to prepare our youngsters to compete with workers in India and China--or "Beijing and Bangalore" as Barack Obama recently said. But, as a recent article about preschool franchising in India reflects, parent demand for quality early education options is growing in India and China as well.

Currently, the preschool industry in [India] is estimated to gross about Rs4,004 crore ($985 million). The sector is likely to cross Rs13,821 crore by 2012, a growth of more than 28% per year, according to estimates from brokerage firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. With nearly three-quarters of the country’s population under the age of 35, the demand for quality preschools is expected to only intensify.

As economic development progresses in these countries, and job opportunities lure workers away from their extended families, more and more parents need high-quality childcare for their children while they work. At the same time, increasingly affluent families are demanding better, more educationally oriented options for their children. This creates a huge growth market for for-profit childcare and preschool providers (both local companies and American providers are seeking to get in on the game), as well as new economic opportunities for women in these countries to operate childcare and preschool programs.

As we talk about the need for increased early education investments to help our workers keep up with foreign competitors, we shouldn't lose sight of the growing market for early education options in the very countries we're seeking to compete with.

Campaign Watch: Democratic Candidates Push Early Ed In Indiana and North Carolina

Sara Mead — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:26:00 -0400

Voters in Indiana and North Carolina cast their presidential primary votes today--a big day for Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are battling it out for the Democratic presidential nomination. Over the weekend, both Clinton and Obama gave significant speeches in a final push to make their case for the presidential nomination to Indiana and North Carolina voters. Both mentioned early education.

At the North Carolina Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Raleigh, N.C., Hillary Clinton said:

When I say solutions, I mean giving children of all backgrounds access to world-class education. Education must remain the passport to opportunity. We'll start with universal pre-kindergarten. We'll go all the way to affordable college. And I will end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind.

And here's Obama at the same event:

When I say that I want to make sure that every child gets the best education this country has to offer from the day they are born until the day they graduate from college, investing in early childhood education to close the achievement gap, paying our teachers more and giving them more support, and giving a $4,000 tuition credit to every student every year in exchange for national service so that we invest in them and they invest in America, we need to let the American people know that it is not just rhetoric.

Speaking in Indianapolis, Ind. about the economy, Obama also said:

And if we want our children to succeed in this global economy--if we want them to be able to compete with children in Beijing and Bangalore--then we need to make sure that every child, everywhere gets a world-class education, from the day they're born until the day they graduate college. That means investing in early childhood education. It means that we need to recruit an army of new teachers by not just talking about how great teachers are, but rewarding them for their greatness with better pay and more support. and it means that in this country--in this global economy--we will not create a small class of the educated few by allowing thousands and thousands of young people to be priced out of college year after year.

Ironically, Obama highlighted early childhood education as a response to global competition in Indiana--one of just 12 states nationally that doesn't have a publicly funded pre-k program! Governor Mitch Daniels hasn't proposed increasing spending for pre-k, either. All in all, Indiana doesn't have a great reputation when it comes to early education. But the state is making some progress, providing $58.9 million for the full-day kindergarten grant program for the 2008-09 school year.

In contrast, North Carolina is well-known in early education circles for its Smart Start early childhood program, started under the leadership of then-Governor Jim Hunt in 1993. Smart Start is a public-private partnership that provides local partnerships in every county in the state with funds they can use for a variety of activities to improve childcare quality, access, and early learning--a model that has much in common with Obama's state early learning challenge grant proposals. Because Smart Start was one of the first such initiatives nationally, North Carolina became known as a national leader on early education. In 2001, the state added a "More at Four" state-funded pre-k program to complement Smart Start by providing high-quality pre-k to at-risk four-year-olds; today the program serves 15% of North Carolina four-year-olds and is one of only 2 states to meet all 10 of the National Institute for Early Education Research's state pre-k quality standards. It's also one of only 9 states that guarantee universal access to full-day kindergarten.

Because of its leadership on early education, the Tar Heel state would be well-positioned to take advantage of both Obama's and Clinton's early education proposals, should one of them become president. The Hoosier State, in contrast, has a lot of work ahead on early education.

Happy National Charter Schools Week!

Sara Mead — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:13:00 -0400

This week, May 4 through May 10, is National Charter Schools Week. Charter schools, charter school authorizers and charter school associations across the country are holding events to raise awareness about charter schooling and celebrate the successes and growth of the nation’s 4,300 charter schools, as well as the 1.2 million students they serve.

We’ve written previously about the often overlooked potential charter schools have to improve early education. Charter schools are independent public schools of choice that are publicly funded, free of charge to students, and accountable to the public, but operated by organizations other than local school districts. Many charter schools are already delivering high-quality early elementary school programs, and are a valuable source of potential capacity as states seek to expand pre-kindergarten programs.

Moreover, charter schooling provides a model for how policymakers can integrate diverse providers into emerging state pre-k and early childhood public education systems. One key question for policymakers seeking to expand early education investments is the extent to which pre-k and other early childhood services should be delivered through public schools, or through the diverse network of “community providers”—childcare centers, community- and faith-based preschools, and private nursery school—that already serve many 3- and 4-year-olds. Charter schools, which are community providers delivering public education in the K-12 sphere, suggest that this division between “public schools” and “community providers” needn’t be so stark. Policymakers can get the best of both worlds—the community connections, diversity, and parent choice of community based providers, as well as the public school system’s academic orientation, teacher quality standards, and stability of state school funding formulas—by building pre-k and early childhood education systems premised on diverse delivery, parent choice, and public accountability.

The charter school and universal pre-k movements are also dealing with similar challenges of managing growth, ensuring quality across diverse providers, developing the supply of human capital, obtaining adequate facilities, and building political support. And they could learn from one another's successes--and struggles--in responding to these challenges.

As both charter schooling and state pre-k continue to expand, the universal pre-k and charter school movements should be natural partners and allies in addressing these shared challenges. One of the first steps in building that partnership would be expanding the number of charter schools delivering high-quality early education programs.

Charter schools across the country are already offering high-quality early education programs. In Los Angelese, Calif., the nationally recognized Accelerated School and Camino Nuevo Charter School offer both high-quality early elementary programs and pre-k programs with funding from Los Angeles' Universal Preschool (LAUP) program. Many Florida and Georgia charter schools offer pre-k with funding from their states' universal pre-kindergarten programs. Here in Washington, D.C., where charter schools receive full per-pupil funding for each 3- and 4-year-old they enroll, dozens of charter schools offer programs for 3- and 4-year-olds. Even in states without significant state pre-k programs, some charter schools are able to offer pre-k programs paid for with a mixture of parent funding, private philanthropy, and federal or state childcare subsidies for low-income students.

Yet, even as many charter schools offer high-quality early education programs, others face barriers--including difficulties obtaining state pre-k funding, inadequate funding to deliver quality pre-k programs, lack of state pre-k funding, overly restrictive zoning and licensure codes--that prevent them from doing so. Going forward, both the charter school and pre-k movements must consider ways to remove these obstacles and grow the supply of charter schools offering high-quality pre-k and early education programs.

The theme of this year’s National Charter School Week is “Growing Excellence”—a theme that reflects the charter school movement’s dual goals of improving educational quality and expanding the number of school choice options available to families. National Charter Schools Week provides an opportunity to think about how charter schooling can support efforts to grow excellence in early education, as well.