Early Education Initiative: Publications, Events and More

Partners In Closing the Achievement Gap

Education Policy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:47:00 -0400

Over the past eight years, states have dramatically expanded their support for publicly-funded pre-k programs, and the number of children enrolled in these programs has grown significantly. States are investing in pre-k because research shows that high-quality pre-kindergarten programs can have a positive long-term impact on children’s life outcomes, help narrow the achievement gap between poor and affluent youngsters, and that the benefits of these investments to children and the taxpaying public outweigh their costs. In other words, high-quality pre-k is a key weapon in the arsenal of public policies that we can use to combat poverty and inequality and strengthen the skills of our workforce for the… more

Sara Mead in New York Times | Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

Communications — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:00:00 -0500

New America in the News:

New York Times | Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

. . . More recently, in what Sara Mead, an education expert at the New America Foundation, calls a “man bites dog” sensation, public and parental concerns have shifted to boys. Boys are currently behind their sisters in high-school and college graduation rates. School, the boy-crisis argument goes, is shaped by females to match the abilities of girls (or, as Sax puts it, is taught “by soft-spoken women who bore” boys). In 2006, Doug Anglin, a 17-year-old in Milton, Mass., filed a civil rights complaint with the United States Department of Education, claiming that his high school — where there are twice as many girls on the honor roll as there are boys — discriminated against males. His case did not prevail in the courts, but his sentiment found support in the Legislature and the press. That same year, as part of No Child Left Behind, the federal law that authorizes programs aimed at improving accountability and test scores in public schools, the Department of Education passed new regulations making it easier for districts to create single-sex classrooms and schools. . .

Testimony on the Pre-K for All DC Amendment Act of 2007

Education Policy — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:27:00 -0500

Sara Mead in Macleans | 'Playtime's Over'

Communications — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:14:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Playtime's over (Macleans, Canada)

He pointed to researchers like Sara Mead, who studied the data and concluded that "[t]he real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it’s good news about girls doing better."

Sara Mead Featured in Education Week on 10 Ways to Tweak NCLB

Communications — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:47:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Spend Unused NCLB's Tutoring Funds on PreK, Mead Says

Yesterday at the New America Foundation, Sara Mead released a list of 10 ways NCLB could be tweaked to bolster prekindergarten programs. In a panel discussion, which I moderated, she highlighted three items:

Require districts to use their unspent money for tutoring and choice on preK in schools that are in need of improvement;
Allow schools required to restructure to transform into "early education academies" serving preK-3; and
Expand Reading First so districts can use the money for preK literacy.

The ideas aren't meant to be a comprehensive preK agenda, Mead said. They can be "a bridge to get to places that people want to go to get a greater federal investment," she said. ...

For the complete story, please follow this link. Audio from the panel discussion is available here.

No Child Left Behind and Early Education: Prospects for 2008

Communications — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:15:00 -0500

A New America Event
11/29/2007 - 12:15pm

Congressional leaders recently announced that they will not finish reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act -- the major federal law authorizing elementary and secondary education programs -- this year, but will continue working on reauthorization in 2008. This gives Congress a chance to revisit an issue that was largely ignored in this year’s debate over NCLB reauthorization: early education for pre-school and early elementary aged youngsters.

Evidence shows that the foundations of children’s future academic success or failure are largely in place by the end of third grade, and as much as half of the achievement gap between white and African American students exists before children enter first grade. Yet public debate on NCLB has focused little attention on the preschool and early elementary years. A new issue brief from the New America Foundation, 10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization, explains why Congress must not ignore early education in NCLB reauthorization, and offers recommendations for how the law could better support children’s learning in these critical years.

How can NCLB better support state and local efforts to improve preschool quality and access, as well as early elementary learning? What are the prospects for early education reforms, and No Child Left Behind reauthorization generally, when Congress takes these issues up again in 2008?

Video of this event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below. Click here for a copy of the issue brief, 10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization.

10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization

Education Policy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:00:00 -0500

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) seeks to improve student learning and narrow academic achievement gaps that place low-income and minority students at a disadvantage relative to their affluent and white peers. Evidence shows that the roots of children’s academic success or failure are already firmly in place by third grade and as much as half of the black-white achievement gap already exists before children enter first grade. Therefore, to achieve its ambitious goals NCLB must do a much better job of catalyzing and supporting state and local efforts to improve children’s education in the preschool and early elementary… more

Continuing the Investment

adminn — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:00 -0500

Deep Creek Elementary School is an education success story. In 2001, Deep Creek, where more than three-quarters of students come from low-income families and 80 percent are black or Hispanic, was one of the worst elementary schools in Baltimore County, Maryland. Its third-graders were reading at a first-grade level. But the new principal, Anissa Brown Dennis, expanded collaboration and professional development for teachers, implemented an aligned reading and math curriculum from pre-K through third grade, and offered summer learning and after-school programs for struggling students. Today, nearly three-quarters of Deep Creek students read on grade level, teacher and student morale… more

Sara Mead in Education Week on 'The Next Education President'

Communications — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:14:00 -0500

New America in the News:

The candidates for the 2008 presidential nominations have not been as detailed about education policy as in some recent elections. But that doesn’t mean the stakes of the Democratic and Republican races aren’t high for K-12 schools. ...

As the campaign edges closer to the stage when votes are cast, candidates will start answering those questions in more detail, suggests Marc Lampkin, the executive director of Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan effort aimed at encouraging the presidential candidates to lay out their plans for K-12 education. The Washington-based effort is financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation.

"They know the electorate is starting to look a little deeper at them,” said Mr. Lampkin, a Republican who worked on President Bush’s 2000 campaign and has worked for GOP members of Congress.

But others believe that school issues will continue to be eclipsed by other concerns.

“It’s hard for education to get a lot of attention in this climate,” said Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, a [nonpartisan] think tank in Washington.

What little policy debate over education has occurred so far has focused on prekindergarten and college.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has emerged as the Democratic front-runner, according to national opinion polls, has proposed spending $10 billion a year to expand pre-K programs for 4-year-olds and expand existing tax credits to offset the costs of college tuition so low-income families can take advantage of them.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., wants to provide $5 billion in state grants to double participation in federal Head Start preschool programs and quadruple the number of students in Early Head Start. He, too, would expand tax credits and financial aid to help make college more affordable.

Two other Democrats, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, also have proposed major expansions of the federal role in early-childhood education.

By contrast, the Republican candidates generally haven’t put forward proposals on early education or college aid. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is an exception. He wants to establish a federal program that would pay the tuition costs at in-state colleges and universities for high-performing students. The program would be modeled after one he helped create in Massachusetts. ...

For the complete article, please visit the Education Week website.

The Case for Pre-K

Articles — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:10:00 -0400

In 1961, 13 three- and four-year-olds from poor black families began attending a preschool class at Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. They were there as much to learn as to teach. A team of researchers followed not only their time at the preschool, but their trajectory over the next four decades, and the findings were startling:

Compared to a control group of similar children who didn’t attend preschool, this class from Perry Elementary School would be less likely to skip class, be placed in special education, or wind up in jail. They’d be more likely to graduate high school… more

The National Journal Profiles Sara Mead

Communications — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:23:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Education wonk Sara Mead is joining the New America Foundation as a senior research fellow studying education, workforce, and family issues.

Mead, 28, has received notice for contending that the "crisis" in boys' education is overblown and for her criticism, with Andrew Rotherham, of the ranking system used annually to determine Newsweek's "100 Best High Schools." "We have found that many schools in Newsweek's ranking have high dropout rates or glaring achievement gaps between racial and ethnic groups," they wrote last week on Washingtonpost.com. "At the same time, many schools that fail to make the Newsweek list may be doing a better job educating all of their students." Most recently, Mead and Rotherham have been involved in Education Sector, a think tank that Rotherham founded in 2005 with former U.S. News & World Report writer Thomas Toch. Before that, both Mead and Rotherham were with the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute...

At New America, Mead will be working with Michael Dannenberg, a former education aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and David Gray, a onetime assistant secretary for policy at the Labor Department..

For the complete article, please visit The National Journal website.

The Next No Child Left Behind Act

Communications — Mon, 21 May 2007 05:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
05/21/2007 - 12:00pm

The upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) presents an opportunity for the federal government to expand access to high-quality, early education programs. At present, quality standards vary widely among federal, state, local, and private early care and education programs, and relatively few programs align their curricular and teacher standards with early elementary school grades. There is a role for the federal government to play in both expanding access and harmonizing decentralized early education programs horizontally across jurisdictions and vertically across grade levels.

At this New America event, panelists discussed how early education currently fits in NCLB, and where it might fit in the next, reauthorized NCLB. Ruth Friedman will discuss the federal role in early education. Isabel Sawhill discussed the ideas of her and her co-author, Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University, for an expanded federal role in early education as articulated in their recent paper, “Success By Ten: Intervening Early, Often, and Effectively in the Education of Young Children.” Sara Mead presented a plan for developing a targeted, high-quality universal pre-kindergarten system with federal support.

The New America Foundation also released an issue brief on early education, “The Key to NCLB Success: Getting it Right From the Start,” that discusses how the federal government can support the expansion of high-quality, pre-kindergarten through grade three (PK-3) programs that align pre-kindergarten teacher and quality standards with K-3 education. The paper proposes using the NCLB reauthorization to leverage state change to expand and improve pre-kindergarten, specifically through a grant program that would help states phase-in universal PK-3 access.

Video of this event is available at right, and an MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below.

The Key to NCLB Success: Getting it Right From the Start

Education Policy — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:20:00 -0400

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Access to quality pre-kindergarten (PK) programs varies widely among and within states. While PK enrollment is growing, large disparities in access and quality threaten to undermine the capacity of early childhood education to close achievement gaps. Research shows that at-risk children can catch up to their non-disadvantaged peers by participating in highquality PK programs that are linked to K-3 structures. However, fewer than half of children ages 3 and 4 engage in some type of early childhood education—before quality is taken into account.

Standards and instruction must be aligned from PK through Grade 3 to maximize the advantages of preschool.… more

Remarks of Kimberly Oliver, 2006 National Teacher of the Year

Education Policy — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 12:13:00 -0400

Teacher Quality in Grades PK-3: Challenges and Options

Education Policy — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 01:00:00 -0400

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) The PK-3 Workforce is Subject to an Array of Entry Standards. Public school teachers in grades K-3 must meet the quality standards of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Pre-kindergarten (PK) teachers in Title I-funded programs also are regulated by NCLB. But Head Start teachers have their own separate entry standards. In some state PK programs, all teachers must possess a bachelor’s degree and have engaged in additional early childhood or PK-3 training. In others, only a Child Development Associate certificate is required.

2) There are Approximately 1.5 Million Teachers in the PK-3 Workforce. New America… more

Ready to Teach? PK-3 and NCLB

Communications — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 06:54:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/19/2006 - 3:00pm

As Congress prepares for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, policymakers will be forced to answer difficult questions about the relationship between teacher quality and student outcomes at all levels of education. What should teachers of young children know and what skills do they need? How can colleges of education improve the PK-3 workforce? How can the federal government improve the quality of PK-3 teachers through NCLB?

This event, hosted jointly by the New America Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development, featured a robust panel discussion that touched on the future of the No Child Left Behind Act, teacher quality and early childhood education, among other topics. The New America Foundation also released a new Issue Brief: "Teacher Quality in Grades PK-3: Challenges and Options."

Video of the event is available at right.

A Dissent to 'Closing the Achievement Gap'

Education Policy — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:27:00 -0400

A Dissenting ViewThank you for the opportunity to review "Closing the Achievement Gap Through Expanded Access to Quality Early Education in Grades PK-3.” The paper examines the very important issue of how to better prepare young children for kindergarten and presents a highly ambitious policy response to advance that goal. The following review endorses the aspiration but questions the recommended means of achieving it and suggests that the proposal might both undermine the author’s laudable ambitions and cause severe unintended consequences.

To read the complete dissenting view, please see the attached PDF version below.

Stephen Goldsmith… more

Closing the Achievement Gap

Communications — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:30:00 -0400

A New America Event
07/25/2006 - 11:00am

Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia presented a half-hour speech to over a hundred guests at the New America Foundation on Tuesday, July 25, 2006. Kaine described his views on the importance of early childhood education, which studies show can reduce the number of unprepared students entering kindergarten each year and reduce the number of elementary school children who fail to advance to the next grade at the end of the school year. Kaine noted that, in Virginia, 10,000 children in grades K-3 repeat a grade each year, and the state spends four times as much on remediation for repeaters as it does on early education and preventative services. Kaine’s top goal as Governor is to phase-in universal access to pre-school. Kaine outlined a process that Virginia is pursuing which is consistent with recommendations advanced by the New America Foundation.

After his introductory remarks, Michael Dannenberg, Director of New America's Education Policy Program, moderated a panel discussion that included early education experts Dr. William Gormley of Georgetown University, Dr. Michael Lopez of the National Center for Latino Child and Family Research, and Justin King, Senior Policy Analyst at the New America Foundation. Their discussion covered issues ranging from funding sources to the value of universalizing early education. New America’s Justin King gave an overview of the recently released Issue Brief entitled, “Closing the Achievement Gap Through Expanded Access to Quality Early Education in Grades PK-3.” Dr. Gormley commented on lessons that Virginia and other states might draw from his extensive research of Oklahoma’s universal pre-kindergarten program. Dr. Lopez commented on the recommendations presented in New America’s latest Issue Brief and the challenges facing programs attempting to serve Latino children and their families.

Prepared Remarks of Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Education Policy — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:55:00 -0400

Closing the Achievement Gap

Education Policy — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:01:00 -0400

A significant, albeit still insufficient, expansion of access to publicly supported early education programs for children ages 3 to 5 has occurred over the last decade. This trend bodes well for children at risk of academic failure, but is endangered by uneven, halting, and at times inadequate attention to program quality in grades prekindergarten through three.

Expanded access to pre-kindergarten in recent years is primarily the result of individual state legislative, state agency, state executive, and state referendum efforts. States have pursued these efforts at different times, unequal rates, and with no coordinating effort from the federal government. (Much of… more