Early Education

Decades ago, as researchers began to study what young children might learn from educational TV, they often found that "co-viewing" -- the act of parents and children watching together -- was strongly associated with children learning from what they watched.  Today, although TV is still the number-one type of media used by young children, new forms of media are begging new questions.

Several new projects and papers have emerged lately that emphasize the need for building continuous systems of high-quality education from pre-k through the third grade. Because PreK-3^rd reform ideas are so comprehensive and multi-faceted, they can be challenging to grasp at first; it’s not always easy to know where to begin. So we’re glad to see a host of different organizations pulling resources together to help. 

Here are some of the latest:

As digital media and new technologies start to capture the attention of early educators, it’s important to ask: Do we know whether any of these gadgets and gaming programs actually help children learn? 

In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama focused on building a more skilled workforce. One of the proposals he made was for “states to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18.” It was a surprising and an ill-advised suggestion, and while it may not immediately sound like an early education issue, it does have some bearing on how we educate young children.

School choice continues to be seen as an important strategy for improving public education, and last week’s focus – “School Choice Week” ended on January 27 – brought out more reflections on why it works. In early education, the concept of choice is already a given, since parents are expected to choose preschools, childcare and other early learning centers for their children. When it comes to affordable, high-quality programs, though, choices remain limited for many parents.

Teacher wars are raging across the nation. One side blasts the "bad" teachers, waving around student test-score data and demanding accountability. On the other side are teachers: Defensive, closing the doors to their classrooms — and to the promise of improving their practice.

How do we halt the teacher-bashing, as President Obama urged in his State of the Union address, and still improve the quality of teaching? The answer is to radically change the evaluation conversation. A focus on watching teachers work — on how they actually interact with students — is long overdue.

In an opinion piece for The Los Angeles Times yesterday, Susan Ochshorn and I argued for injecting some fresh ideas into the national education debates by looking at new approaches for observing and evaluating teachers.

When researchers and policymakers talk about closing “achievement gaps,” they are usually referring to gaps in academic performance correlated with students’ socioeconomic statuses. Now a new study suggests that classroom behavior problems may be, in fact, an even more significant factor than family income on students’ test scores, as early as kindergarten.

Some critics have slammed President Obama’s State of the Union address, saying the president opted to chronicle a litany of policy proposals when he should have laid out a grand, sweeping vision for America that can inspire the public.

Both the House and Senate are currently considering proposals to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, the 2001 iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It is unlikely that either of these will actually become law; the Senate education committee’s comprehensive bill and the House education committee’s package of five bills have little in common and, in the House’s case, no bipartisan support, leaving few opportunities for compromise. It’s worth taking a close look at the proposals on the table, however, to get a feel for how each Congressional delegation is thinking about education policy. The bills take different paths in several areas, and below we highlight five: early learning, federal funding, school improvement, teacher and leader quality, and the future of Race to the Top and the Obama administration’s other education reform grant programs.