Teachers

Preguntas, Preguntas: What Do We Know About Dual-Language Learners in Pre-K?

Lisa Guernsey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:53:00 -0500

A symposium in Arlington on Tuesday brought together some of the most well-known researchers in the field of early childhood to dig into a tough and timely question: How do we help young children in the United States who know very little English?

The day-long symposium, "Investigating the Classroom Experiences of Young Dual Language Learners," was hosted by the National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education, based at the University of Virginia, in partnership with the National Center for Latino Child & Family Research. Designed to link together current research while also jumpstarting more probing studies, the symposium was peppered with lively discussions about how to gather and decipher evidence of what works in pre-K classrooms. The hosts intend to publish a collection of the day's papers.

Recent studies have shown that dual-language programs -- roughly defined as programs in which teachers give half of their instruction in a child's home language and half in English -- are effective at improving the school readiness of young children for whom English is a second language. But there is still vast uncharted territory for researchers to determine exactly what that these programs should look like in practice, what kinds of skills teachers need to teach dual-language learners, and what policies should be enacted (or scrapped) to turn classrooms into more appropriate language-learning zones.

The day was not billed as a seminar on research about children from Spanish-speaking homes specifically -- children arrive in early childhood centers speaking dozens of different languages -- but the Latino population was a main focus of discussion.

Among the many, many questions:

Current thinking assumes that Latino parents are less likely to seek out pre-K programs for their children. Is that still true, or is it a supposition based on old research? Are we starting to see a shift in which Latino families are more comfortable, or have more access to, center-based programs and are starting to seek out more pre-K experiences for their children?
How do we determine a child's first language? Just because a child comes from a home where Mom speaks Spanish, does that mean that the child's first language is Spanish or could he be gaining his first language skills from other adults or siblings in his life? Should we rely on the reports of parents and teachers to categorize children's language proficiency?
Are Quality Rating and Improvement Systems taking language-learning into account? These systems use trained observers to rate the quality of early learning centers (giving them, say, a 1, 2 or 3 star rating.) Should those observers be measuring whether child care centers and pre-K programs are helping to support children's home languages as well as helping to teach them English?
What words should we be using to describe children who come to classrooms without strong English skills: dual-language learners or English-language learners? Both? If we call them ELLs, are we ignoring the importance of them continuing to build their home-language skills? If we call them DLLs, will we get confused between categories of children and descriptions of formalized dual-language classrooms (in which half the day might be taught as an immersion in one language, and the other half in English?).
How do state policies that favor English instruction, such as those in California for K-12 systems, impact what early childhood educators do in pre-K classrooms? What happens when a child transitions from a dual-language program into a kindergarten classroom where teachers speak only English?
How should language skill be measured in determining "child outcomes," i.e., how well students are gaining new knowledge and skills? In other words, should we rely on a child's English-based math or English reading scores in determining whether he is learning math or language arts? Can proficiency in reading or answering qusetions in a home language be part of the picture? How do we tease apart what a child actually knows from how a child responds to an English-based test?

Ideas for how to support English-language learners have been trickling forth this year. For example, earlier in 2009, the Society for Research in Child Development published a policy report and accompanying commentaries on the needs of Hispanic children. One of the commenters in that series -- James A. Griffin of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development -- has been urging social scientists to go even further, noting the "paucity" of research on what interventions make the most difference to these English language learners.

Sounds like he's right, given that there are still so many questions hanging out there like those above. Much more needs to be investigated before we can speak definitively about how to prioritize resources and enact better policies to support young children's first language and help them master English. Hopefully the report from Tuesday's meeting will provide a better foundation for building pre-K programs that do the most good.

In the meantime, however, it's worth repeating one of the mantras that came out of Tuesday's symposium: "Good quality is good quality." No matter what a child's language background, we see mounting evidence that 3- and 4-year-old children benefit from teachers who converse with them, ask them about what they are seeing or doing, and respond to and elaborate on their questions. Rich language experiences, whether they happen in children's home language or in second language or both, are a cornerstone to a high-quality learning environment.

Sec. Duncan Calls Out Ed Schools' Shortcomings: Could New Early Ed Credentials Be Part of the Solution?

Sara Mead — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:23:00 -0400

In a speech earlier this week at the University of Virginia, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan harshly criticized the nation’s education schools. “In far too many universities, education schools are the neglected stepchild," Duncan said. "Too often they don’t attract the best students or faculty." He added: "Many ed schools do relatively little to prepare students for the rigor of teaching in high-poverty and high-need schools.”

Duncan has a point. Numerous studies and reports have documented the failures of our nation’s system for preparing prospective educators. In brief, our education schools enroll some of the least academically promising students; provide them with little practical teaching experience or grounding in evidence-based practice; don’t prepare them to work in high-poverty schools or serve students with special needs; and are not accountable for the performance of their graduates in the classroom — or whether they even make it there at all. While there's substantial disagreement in education policy circles about many issues, the shortcomings of our approach to preparing and training the nation's teachers are one issue that critics both across the policy and political spectrum can agree on -- although they have radically different prescriptions for how to fix the problem.

Duncan's harsh criticisms of ed schools have gotten considerable attention from the K-12 education policy community, but early childhood advocates -- particularly those seeking to expand access to universal pre-K programs -- should take heed as well.

Over the past decade, early childhood advocates have fought tirelessly to raise the educational credentials of early childhood educators. Universal pre-k advocates, in particular, have pushed to require a bachelor's degree -- and in some cases state teacher certification as well -- for all teachers in state pre-K programs. The 2007 Head Start reauthorization gave a boost to these efforts, by mandating that half of all Head Start teachers should have a bachelor's degree by 2013. And the Early Learning Challenge Grants currently before Congress as part of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act include requirements for states to build systems that raise the credentials of early childhood educators and provide greater compensation to preschool and childcare teachers who earn postsecondary degrees.

There are good reasons for this focus on raising the skills and qualifications of early childhood educators. Research documents the tremendous amount of learning that takes place in children’s earliest years, as well as the importance of nurturing, consistent and stimulating caregivers to children’s development during this time. Yet childcare and preschool teachers often earn less than parking lot attendants or hotel maids, and many also have correspondingly low education levels.

This is particularly perverse because in many ways we know more from research about the skills early educators need than we do about the qualities and skills that are essential for educators working at higher grade levels. Yet we tend to have higher -- and more specific -- education requirements for teachers in K-12 schools than we do in early childhood.

A growing number of states require teachers in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs to hold qualifications on par with those of elementary school teachers. But some of the states that enroll the most children in pre-K — Texas, California, Florida — set the bar lower. Education requirements for teachers in private preschool and childcare settings are often minimal. Low-income, English language learner, and minority preschoolers — the ones who most benefit from skilled teaching in the early childhood years — are the least likely to have well-trained teachers.

All these factors point to a need to raise the skills and education levels of many of our nation’s early educators. But, unfortunately, our nation’s schools of education -- where states and reformers expect early childhood educators will turn to earn these credentials -- by and large aren’t up to the task.

Beyond the problems that Duncan called out in his speech, our nation’s schools of education are particularly ill-suited to prepare the next generation of early childhood educators. To be sure, there are some excellent programs preparing early childhood educators out there, but they are not the norm, and are insufficient to serve the growing demand. If, as Duncan says, education schools are the "neglected stepchildren" of our nation's universities, then early childhood programs are the neglected children of ed schools. Because preschool teaching jobs have historically paid much less — and required fewer educational credentials — than those in public K-12 settings, early childhood education programs have tended to be fewer, smaller, and more focused on preparing future researchers than prospective educators. Too many faculty in these programs are out-of-touch with the needs and realities of the field, or subscribe to outdated philosophies of child development that are not informed by recent research on how young brains develop and how children acquire language, pre-literacy, and social skills. And we need many more options for nontraditional students seeking to raise their credentials and skills after years of working in preschool classrooms.

None of this is to say policymakers should give up on raising the skills and qualifications of early childhood educators. Rather, it means we need to take a much more critical look at the programs on which we’re relying to do the difficult but important work of educating and training early childhood professionals. For a long time, universal pre-K advocates have pushed to mandate bachelor’s degrees for all pre-K teachers — but have focused much less attention on the quality of those BA programs, or what prospective teachers should learn in them.

Early childhood advocates and policymakers should take heed of the complaints Duncan aired recently about our nation’s system for preparing K-12 educators and should avoid replicating that same flawed system at the pre-K and early childhood level.

That means that initiatives — like those under the Early Learning Challenge Grant program — to raise the qualifications of early childhood educators should also improve the quality of programs preparing those early educators. States that receive Early Learning Challenge Grants should be required to put in place systems that evaluate the quality of bachelor’s and associate’s degree programs that train early educators in the state, and track both how long their graduates stay in the early childhood field and their performance in the classroom.

Federal policymakers should also fund the development of new, innovative programs -- based in solid evidence about how young children learn and the skills that early educators need to teach them effectively -- to prepare early childhood educators and raise the credentials of existing teachers, including expedited alternative routes to credentials that take into account the considerable skills many early childhood professionals already possess -- even if they currently lack bachelor's degrees.

The Classroom Assessment Scoring System -- developed by researchers at the University of Virginia, where Duncan spoke -- and its accompanying professional development tools provide one compelling model. CLASS is a validated, reliable observational tool that measures the quality of teachers' emotional and instructional interactions with children in the classroom. Research documents that teachers who score better on CLASS produce better student learning gains -- regardless of their level of formal schooling. And teachers who participate in targeted professional development and coaching linked to CLASS can also raise their teaching skills and student outcomes -- again regardless of formal education levels. Rather than requiring all pre-k teachers to complete a one-size-fits all early childhood degree program, why not allow existing teachers an opportunity to earn credentials by demonstrating their skills on CLASS, while also providing customized professional development and coursework to supplement areas where teachers need additional skills? And this is just one of many innovative approaches universities and states could develop to build early educators' skills and credentials.

Ultimately, such innovative models could provide a strategy not just for improving the qualifications of early childhood educators, but also for transforming our entire system of teacher education to address the concerns that Duncan raises. Here at Early Ed Watch, we advocate the creation of PreK-3rd teacher credentials that reflect the unique needs of children in this age range. But while we believe more states should establish such credentials, we don’t think that programs to prepare teachers for these credentials should simply replicate the weaknesses of existing programs. Rather, policymakers and higher education institutions should use the creation of such new credentials as an opportunity to also support the creation of new, better models of teacher preparation - -ultimately spreading effective innovations to prepare early educators upward to reform our K-12 teacher preparation system.

What the 2009 NAEP Math Scores Tell Us

Lisa Guernsey — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:32:00 -0400

No progress on the math front. That's one way to interpret the 4th-graders' scores that were released today by the Institute of Education Sciences in the Nation's Report Card. For the first time since 1990, their average score in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress didn't budge.

But good progress has been made over the past two decades. That's the other take on today's announcement. Since 1990, 4th graders have shown steady improvement in math. And the scores for 8th graders continued to go up this year. This graph on the first page of the report tells the story well:

Both readings are right, which begs two questions: What caused the upward trend of the last two decades, and have we hit a ceiling? Is there something about the way we approach mathematics instruction with young children that can only take them so far?

Several reports over the years have strenuously called for educators to pay more attention to math. Earlier this year, National Research Council released an extensive report which argues that children need more math instruction in early childhood than they are getting now.

In 2008, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel put out a 120-page report that included four helpful recommendations related to math teaching in the pre-K through 3rd grade years. To recap: Focus the curriculum on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; make sure children arrive in kindergarten with a basic understanding of numbers and counting; ramp up the use of math specialists who can ensure that there are strong curricular bridges between grade levels; and provide training to pre-K-3rd teachers so they can recognize when children are, or aren't, understanding some basic priniciples of mathematics. As we've noted before, too many early educators are unaware of young children’s cognitive capacity to understand math concepts.

All of this will require improvement in the math skills and knowledge of early education teachers. The current system is producing school teachers who do not have a strong background in math themselves and may even be "afraid" to teach math to pre-K students, according to a 2008 policy brief from the Society for Research in Child Development.

In short, if we want to improve students' proficiency in math, we have to improve teachers' proficiency too. That may be the best way to start bending that score curve upward again.

Book Notes: Redesigning the School Environment

Maggie Severns — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:00:00 -0400

Few people would disagree that how kids learn is connected to where they learn. Those wondering about how a school's physical environment enhances learning will relish The Third Teacher, a new book on school and classroom design. Published as a collaborative project by architects, designers and a furniture company, the book explores how schools and classrooms can be built in smarter, greener, and more imaginative ways.

The book itself is a beautiful piece of construction -- over 200 colorful pages of interviews, graphics, case studies and meditations that are grouped into 79 suggestions for improving school buildings and classrooms. With its visual ingenuity, the book suggests how powerful good design can be.

The authors are OWP/P | Cannon Design, a Chicago-based firm that has over 50 years of experience with school design; VS Furniture, a German company that specializes in educational furnishings, and Bruce Mao Design studio in Toronto and Chicago.

If there ever was a time to talk about school design and construction, now may be it: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the stimulus bill) has designated money for school construction. Additional funding for K-12 schools, and even early learning centers that include children before age 5, is proposed in the student aid reform bill that is expected to be introduced in the Senate. (Here at Early Ed Watch, we've written several times about the need for early childhood facilties to be included within policies related to school construction.) With the increasing momentum for "green" building, designing sustainable schools will likely become a priority in both public and private school systems. The Third Teacher is not intended to be a book on eco-conscious design -- it talks extensively about community building, technology and special education, among other issues -- but green building ideas are displayed prominently among The Third Teacher's prescriptions for school innovation.

Pragmatically speaking, however, The Third Teacher is limited -- not by its collection of anecdotes and ideas, but by neglecting to show how teachers and administrators might overcome the barriers to implementing them. Ultimately, The Third Teacher does not always fulfill its promise of proposing "practical ideas" for the classroom. Idea #55, for example, suggests that teachers "create a workshop for the senses" in classrooms for young students, with "concentrated as well as diffuse light." But, how many public school teachers are given the financial resources and autonomy to restructure walls or replace the furniture in their classrooms? And how exactly does a teacher add "multi-sensory" textures to his or her room?

The reality is that most school districts cannot feature writing centers co-founded by author Dave Eggers (from idea #61) or nutrition programs spearheaded by celebrity chef (and former Montessori school teacher) Alice Waters (#53). Those who are faced with overcrowded, poorly maintained schools may find this book to be an exercise in frustration.

What The Third Teacher does offer is a set of ideas that are often engaging, occasionally inspiring and, frankly, fun. Perhaps its most successful feature is the wealth of case studies that highlight innovative approaches to school design. The book highlights Rosa Parks Elementary School outside Seattle, which is connected to its community by foot paths that students use to take the "walking bus" to school. It also showcases the urban Hampden Gurney School, an elementary school in London that sold half of its space for the construction of an apartment complex in order to finance the remodeling of the other half into a six-story "children's tower" with open-air play spaces and a sunlit shaft down its center to help brighten up classrooms. If, as The Third Teacher implies, students gain from where they learn as well as what they learn, a closer look at the physical nature of children's schools is overdue.

5 Q's for J.M. Holland

Lisa Guernsey — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:15:00 -0400

J.M. Holland is a National Board Certified pre-K teacher in a Head Start center in Richmond, Va., who will be supervising teachers in18 classrooms this year. He is a member of the Center for Teacher Leadership and is pursuing his doctorate at Virginia Commonwealth University. He blogs for Inside Pre-K and for his personal blog Lead from the Start, where he weaves ideas about teaching and schooling in and out of thoughts about painting. John is a professional artist. His writings can feel like artwork too.

A few weeks ago, John asked me to answer five questions about media and early education as part of a series of interviews on the Inside Pre-K blog. I asked if I could turn the tables. Here are five questions he's answered for Early Ed Watch.

It's unusual to find men teaching preschool. What should we do to change that?

As with any issue in education a lack of men in preschool classrooms can be addressed through treating symptoms or treating root causes. For example, in addressing the achievement gap the Harlem Children's Zone is an approach that addresses causes; NCLB treated the symptoms, test scores. In medicine, addressing symptoms only works if the body has the capacity to cure itself. Obviously the achievement gap and lack of men in preschool are not something that will fix themselves even if we provide grants to hire men or require more men in classrooms.

So what are the root causes?

The struggle for gender equity has always focused on putting more women in men's jobs. Only recently, in fields like teaching and nursing have men begun to step into the shoes of women. Women's reasoning for entering the workplace of men has been clear: men make more money, have more respect, and have more power. The reasoning behind men entering the roles of women is much less clear. We pay plumbers more than child care workers. Why? Because we value our working plumbing more than children. It's that simple when approached from an economic standpoint. It's about the money.

The other issue is that men are discouraged from exploring their capacity to nurture as an avenue for employment. It is discouraged from a young age through lack of example and sometimes the dampening of boys' capacity for empathy. As a society we associate nurturing behaviors with weakness and our culture rewards strength. A man who is caring towards children is considered less masculine and so less valuable, according to his peers, as a member of society. This is where the tired cliche of "woman's work" turns on its head. Not that only women should care for children but that caring for children is a skill or capacity that is squashed in men from a young age. It is societal and until we begin to help boys grow up whole, we will never have men in younger classrooms. This is especially true in the community I work in. For some kids, I have been their first introduction to what a caring man can be. I have even been able to help some kids with fathers because the fathers are more comfortable volunteering in my classroom. The father sees how he can care without being weak and nurture without giving up his masculinity and become a more caring person.

This is changing, slowly, but I wonder if it may be changing too slowly. My supervisor has actively sought out men to hire and this year we expanded the number of men in our program to six. Of course that is six out of over 140 employees.

Do you think people have misconceptions about Head Start? If so, what's the biggest one out there?

I absolutely believe people have misconceptions about Head Start mostly based on misunderstandings of the purpose of Head Start.

The biggest misconception seems to be the comparison of Head Start to public schools and its biggest symptom, the fade effect. Head Start is a social service organization that is meant to provide comprehensive services to low-income children and families including, in some programs, pregnant mothers, infants, toddlers, and their families. Besides education, Head Start provides health services, social services, parent education, dental services, nutrition services, and mental health services. Every family in our school-based program has a teacher and a family home visitor who helps them to set goals and develop action plans to achieve their goals. Children receive dental examinations, which can be incredibly important because dental pain can distract children from learning. Children learn pro-social behaviors that are key to their future school success. Some children have never eaten fresh green vegetables before entering our program. You may laugh to read this but it's true. All of these interventions combine to propel children's learning forward at an incredibly fast rate. Some kids leave my class having gained more than two years developmentally.

Then they enter kindergarten and we take all that support away.

Opponents wonder why poor Head Start children, who made progress while in Head Start but are still living in the same circumstances, stop progressing academically. This is what poverty is about, day to day life overcoming you.

Head Start was intended to be one of those reforms that address root causes of inequality, the effects of poverty. Besides all of these factors, many Head Start children continue to beat the fade factor mostly because their parents have learned how to swim, while others start to drown as they are sucked by the undertow of poverty in families that didn't learn how to swim before they were kicked out of the Head Start lifeboat.

How can you tell that a preschooler is truly engaged?

Finally, an easy question. Kids are truly engaged when they are completely still and focused, or really really active and moving around. They can talk constantly, not say anything, ask questions or just look at you. Sometimes they smile, sometimes they crinkle their little brows, sometimes they get frustrated, but there is always a connection there. A child may be connecting with a concept, a person, an experience, a material, or their imagination. It is though this connection that understanding and learning takes place and that new neural pathways are formed. Learning is not always evident in the concrete evidence of this connection which is why some tests are unreliable. Often there is excitement, joy, but sometimes there isn't and that is why some parents and teachers have such a hard time with discipline in their homes and classrooms. Kids often learn by doing where as adults can learn by thinking about thier actions. They confuse what they want kids to do, or how adults learn, and how kids learn.

How has your teaching changed since your first days in the Head Start classroom?

In 1995 I was a long-term substitute in a Head Start classroom. I was forbidden to teach letters. If children wanted to learn letters I could help them learn them but, I could not design experiences with intention of teaching them. I was not permitted to display letters on the walls and any activity had to be hand drawn. This is one of the hooks that got me excited about Head Start, that my artistic abilities would have a definite purpose, teaching. Then I went to grad school for two years. When I became a teacher in 1997 I was expected to not only teach letters, but letter sounds, rhyming etc. and there was an assessment to make sure I did it.

Teaching has become much less about caring for children and providing kids experiences so that they could learn and more about directly teaching children required knowledge. I have become a data driven teacher, using assessment data to guide my instruction and judge my effectiveness. I have gotten pretty good at it too. I understand why it is important but still, I hope that we can find more spaces for the soul of the child in the classroom.

If you could wave a magic wand, what problem in the education system would you fix first? Why?

This may seem strange but I would fix "high needs schools" through a global approach similar to the Harlem Children's Zone that addresses the child's needs before they are born. I would implement locally designed universal access preschool programs designed to address the needs of kids from birth through high school with a focus on equitable funding, and high quality teaching. I don't have much faith in federal programs as a way to address education issues because I have seen how top-down reform for the powerless can be perverted, twisted, and co-opted by the powerful. This is why I would count on local communities to change their schools for the better. One of the reasons the Harlem Children's Zone is working is because it was invented by someone from that community, to address the needs of that community. I just don't think the federal government can do that. I know first hand how hard it is to have Congress for your school board instead of your neighbor. So, whatever I did would be a bottom-up change.

To De-Pressurize Kindergarten, Here Are Four Must-Do's

Lisa Guernsey — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:39:00 -0400

In an op-ed for USA Today that came out this morning, I wrote about kindergarten -- a topic of heightened interest over the past six months as news stories, magazine pieces and research reports have sounded alarms about classrooms for 5-year-olds becoming pressure cookers.

In the piece I outlined four imperatives for improving the experience for all children, not to mention teachers:

Allow playtime and learning to be one and the same.
Make preschool affordable for working families.
Provide full-day kindergarten.
Build a bridge between preschool and kindergarten.

These actions are interrelated. They will make the biggest impact if they are implemented together. For example, without a better bridge between preschool and kindergarten, teachers may not get the resources, support and mentoring they need to create classroom environments that provide simultaneous playtime and learning time. Until we have more children coming to kindergarten with preschool under their belt, kindergarten teachers will continue to feel pressure to cram as much academic preparation into the day as possible. Until full-day kindergarten is available to students around the country, teachers will feel so squeezed by the 9 a.m.-to-12 p.m. schedule that they may feel little choice but to drill their students and eliminate unstructured time and recess.

It's no accident that these actions are pillars of the PreK-3rd approach. Our hope is that as more school districts adopt these strategies, stories about pressure-cooker kindergartens will start to become a thing of the past and children will find themselves immersed in the kind of vibrant, playful and purposeful learning environments they deserve.

2+2=?

Sara Mead — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:11:00 -0400

Over at the Quick & the Ed, Chad Aldeman does a great job of unpacking some of the reasons why it's incredibly difficult for college students who begin their education at community colleges to successfully transfer to 4-year institutions and earn a bachelor's degree (a model known as "2+2," because successful students would, in theory, spend two years in a community college, plus two more in a 4-year institution). In fact, shockingly few students who enroll at community colleges with the intention to earn a BA ever do so. This is a problem on a whole bunch of levels. But it's particularly likely to become an issue as states and now the federal Head Start program seek to increase the number of pre-k and early education teachers who have bachelor's degrees.

For many current pre-k and Head Start teachers who will seek to earn bachelor's degrees in order to meet new requirements, local community colleges are the logical place to start on their path to a BA. Community colleges are cheaper and more convenient than four-year institutions, and they're often much more targeted to the needs of older adults returning to college. Moreover, many community colleges already have relatively strong associate's degree programs for early childhood educators.

But making the jump from these programs to four-year institutions will be difficult for a lot of early educators. In addition to the many issues Chad discusses, universities are often unwilling to accept early childhood education credits that teachers earned at community colleges. Most universities prefer that teachers get their core general education credits from community colleges and then take their education coursework at the university. For many teachers who already earned associate's degrees in early childhood education to comply with requirements under the previous Head Start reauthorization, this could mean that they will in effect have to start all over again on their bachelor's degrees. That's a waste of time, money, and energy, and it's not a good way to build solid educational pipelines for early educators seeking to improve their credentials and skills.

Raising the educational qualifications of early childhood educators is a worthy goal, but policymakers, advocates, and higher education need to devote a lot more energy and attention to developing new models of high-quality, efficient, and effective routes to BA degrees and certification for current and prospective early childhood educators. If large numbers of current pre-k teachers return to school to earn a BA, demand for such programs will be far greater than existing programs can meet. Smart, enterprising universities that are committed to improving early childhood education have an opportunity to build new programs and models of early educator training. States also need to get serious about forcing their public universities and community colleges to work together, developing articulation agreements and sensible, efficient pathways that meet the needs of working pre-k teachers seeking a degree. And they should do more to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for their graduates' performance as teachers. The federal government can help by funding the development of new traditional and alternate routes to BA and certification for early childhood educators, and by supporting research to rigorously evaluate the quality and effectiveness of existing and new early childhood educator preparation programs.

State Fiscal Stabilization Funds and Kentucky’s Loan Forgiveness Program

Jennifer Cohen — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:52:00 -0400

Two weeks ago, our sister blog Higher Ed Watch published a post uncovering the truth behind Kentucky's terminated teacher loan forgiveness program, "Best in Class." Although the Kentucky Higher Education Student Loan Corporation (KHESLC), the state's nonprofit student loan agency that administered the program, blamed federal subsidy cuts for the program's demise, Higher Ed Watch showed that the agency had engaged in questionable practices to collect these subsidies. Now, many Kentucky teachers enrolled in the program are in a financial bind and many stated their outrage in comments on the blog. One commenter suggested Kentucky use it's State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) under the 2009 economic stimulus law to fund the program. Unfortunately, the structure of the SFSF makes this very unlikely.

As we have mentioned before, the $53.6 billion in SFSF Congress made available to states under the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act is actually comprised of three different programs. Each of these programs - the Race to the Top and What Works Innovation Fund, the Education Stabilization fund, and the Government Services fund - provide different funding levels for different purposes. (More information available here.)

States must submit applications to receive SFSF dollars for the Education Stabilization and Government Services funds in which they declare how much state and SFSF money they will spend on K-12 and higher education in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. The amount of money each state receives is determined based on the state's population age 5 to 24 and the total population. The Race to the Top and What Works Innovation Fund, on the other hand, are awarded through a separate competitive grant process.

Kentucky is slated to receive $532,797,583 in Education Stabilization funds and $118,544,206 in Government Services funds. Guidelines for the Education Stabilization fund, however, prevent Kentucky from using any of this money on a state operated financial aid program like "Best in Class." In fact, all dollars slated for K-12 school districts or public institutions of higher education must go directly to those entities and cannot be used by the state for any other purposes.

The Government Services fund is a possible source of SFSF funding for the loan forgiveness program. Luckily, Kentucky's governor has greater control over how this money is spent and can chose to direct some or all of it to save the loan forgiveness program. The state, however, has not yet submitted its SFSF application for Education Stabilization and Government Services funds, and it's hard to predict how these funds will be allocated. While it is possible that the governor could chose to save the loan forgiveness program with this money, it would mean leaving other activities eligible under the fund with fewer resources.

The Race to the Top funds, $4.4 billion of the $5.0 billion in competitive grant funds within the SFSF, are another possible, but less likely, source of funding for the loan forgiveness program. These funds can be awarded to states that are undertaking innovative initiatives to close student achievement gaps or improve the distribution of high quality teachers across schools. If Kentucky can demonstrate that the loan forgiveness program is achieving either of these goals, it could be eligible for a portion of the funds.

However, 49 other states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia are all also competing for their piece of the Race to the Top funds and may have more successful or well-implemented programs than Kentucky's loan forgiveness program. Beyond that, the loan forgiveness program's association with the improper student loan subsidies (more on that here and here) already undermines its integrity.

Unfortunately, Kentucky's teacher loan forgiveness program is an unlikely target for SFSF support. It's likely that other services within Kentucky and across other states will receive funding instead. Hopefully, Kentucky can find another way to make good on its promise to teachers.

In Search of More Play in Kindergarten – and More Solid Research on What’s Happening There

Lisa Guernsey — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:00:00 -0400

A child-advocacy group called the Alliance for Childhood recently released a white paper with a head-turning title: "Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School." A press release accompanying the report carries the dramatic headline: "Kindergarten Playtime Disappears, Raising Alarm on Children's Learning and Health."

The report is right to raise the profile of playtime. We agree that it is time to talk seriously about how to ensure that early childhood teachers allow children some much-needed time for active, child-centered play. Through workshops and professional development programs, teachers should be trained in methods that give children space and time to launch themselves into pretend-play scenarios around, say, a make-believe hospital or space shuttle. Kindergarteners need time to figure out for themselves why a block tower won't stand up or whether their kite will fly.

But the report goes wrong in its reliance on hyperbole. It has chosen to start the sirens based on observations and interviews in just three cities, conducted by researchers who were paid by the Alliance. Until we have a large, national study using independent observers and employing sound, consistent methodologies for collecting information, using words like "crisis" only blurs the picture, making it hard to make helpful distinctions between classrooms that veer too far to "anything goes" chaos, those that rely too much on didactic "repeat after me" lessons and those where strong, innovative teachers have learned that playtime and learning go hand-in-hand.

The report's original research is based on three research studies. One is a survey of 142 kindergarten teachers in New York City who were asked to provide details about how classroom time was spent. Another is a similar survey of 112 kindergarten teachers in Los Angeles. And a third is from an observational study of 14 kindergarten classrooms in Westchester County, New York.

The New York City and Los Angeles surveys showed that teachers were spending two to three hours in "literacy, math and test prep" with 30 minutes or less for play or "choice time." The Westchester County research shows that children are so hardwired for play that they will try to find ways to do so, even when their routine doesn't allow for it. Taken together and without much context for why and how these classrooms are set up this way, it is hard to draw stark conclusions about exactly what this means for kindergarten more generally.

One section that is particularly useful, however, describes a "kindergarten continuum" of four types of classrooms: Laissez-faire, loosely structured classrooms; classrooms rich in child-initiated and child-directed play; playful classrooms with focused learning; and didactic, highly structured classrooms. The authors call on educators and policy makers to "develop as fully as possible" the middle two options. We see a lot of wisdom in that approach.

Other reports on the importance of play, some cited by the Alliance, make the case for why play is so critical. Writing in Scientific American two months ago, Melinda Wenner provides a well-written overview of the research that exists so far on what playtime does for children's language and social skills. Last year , science writer Robin Henig provided us with a similar romp through the research in her New York Times Magazine story, "Taking Play Seriously."

As last week's report itself states, we need more research on exactly how play is embraced, or not, in kindergarten classrooms. There is much more to unpack from the data it has collected (particularly in its discussion of standardized tests), and much more to learn generally about how to balance playtime in kindergarten with circle time, one-on-one conversation, inquiry-based science experiences, guided reading, the use of math "manipulatives" like beads and bears, as well as art and music. With innovative teachers, many of these components can be threaded into playtime or can lead to playful, child-directed activities. That is why high-quality professional development is crucial. New ideas for better integrating playtime into the classroom routine are needed. Early Ed Watch will be tracking the issue of playtime closely over the next several months to provide more insights from leading researchers in this field, helping educators and policymakers ensure that positive playtime is part of the picture.

Digital Media, Literacy Instruction And The Linchpin: Well-Trained Teachers

Lisa Guernsey — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:30:00 -0400

A recent article about the 4th grade reading slump, in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, features a blueprint for change built on a provocative premise. The authors argue that instead of banning, disdaining or simply ignoring digital media in the classroom, educators should be emboldened -- and supported -- to use as much of it as they can.

The article, "TV Guidance," was written by James Paul Gee, a literacy professor at Arizona State University and Michael Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and a senior associate at Yale University's Zigler Center. They write:

"Current literacy practices and policies have cost tens of billions of dollars over the past decade with almost no integration of the new digital tools and teaching practices that have the potential to build the skills and knowledge demanded by universities and employers in the twenty-first century."

Meanwhile, they point out, digital media -- whether TV shows, games, Web sites or social and virtual-world networks -- have become mainstays in the lives of children on afternoons, evening and weekends. Some might see that as a reason to curtail electronic media's use in classrooms. But Gee and Levine argue that elementary school teachers are missing out on a chance to expose students, using technology that clearly engages them, to new vocabularies, new realms for scientific or cultural discovery and new landscapes of rich academic content.

Gee and Levine say this pivot must include "well-trained and committed adult guidance and instruction." We agree. In fact, it cannot be stressed enough: Gains in literacy skills will only emerge when well-qualified teachers, mentors and other adults are considered the key component of instruction. In short, no matter how smart and engaging digital media can be, well-trained and inspiring teachers matter most. Digital tools and games, Gee and Levine write, "can only be useful if parents, teachers, and more advanced peers help children seek out good learning media and fruitfully draw on their internal design features for learning."

What's more, if left to fend for themselves, children risk facing an ever-broadening landscape of media content without the literacy skills to do any in-depth reading and critical thinking about what they are seeing.

Teachers need, and many of the latest generation of teachers desperately want, better training on how to use digital media in their classrooms and better guidance. They need insights on the types of games or programs that will truly engage their students instead of boring them with automated drills or causing whole classes to get hung up in technical difficulties.

One of Gee and Levine's proposals is to establish a Digital Teacher Corps of 6,000 literacy leaders, two for each of the 3,000 lowest-performing school communities in the United States. It is an intriguing proposal that deserves some thought. We like that it echoes broader arguments for more professional development, ensuring that pre-k and elementary school teachers have access to high-quality workshops, mentors and continuing education opportunities that bring more vibrancy and relevance to today's classrooms.

For more on literacy instruction and electronic media -- for good and ill -- see Gee's research, recent Cooney reports, the New York Times' series last year on "The Future of Reading," and a 2007 report from the National Endowment for the Arts about reading at risk. Also see Q-and-As with two innovative thinkers on education and technology, published by Parents' Choice last summer: Barry Joseph of the Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative, and Nichole Pinkard of the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago.

(Flickr photo by Diego Cupolo copied under the Creative Commons license.)