Education reformers trying to improve K-12 systems could learn lessons from early educators.

An interesting new report suggests that early learning could show K-12 how to improve assessments, one of the bigger challenges in reform, in elementary, middle and high schools.

At a time of considerable urgency and demand for improvements in our nation’s schools, particularly when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead of looking to the development and implementation of new educational models and methodologies, K-12 educators would do well to learn from the lessons and experience accrued by their counterparts in the early childhood sector, specifically when it comes to teacher performance evaluation. -- “Implementing Observation Protocols: Lessons for K-12 Education from the Field of Early Childhood.” Center for American Progress. 5/15/2012.

Despite interest in improving teacher evaluations around the country, “there are too few models of how to do observation well in the K-12 sector. But there is one sector where we have more than two decades of widespread application of classroom observation from which to draw lessons: early childhood education…” the article adds.

The story is based on a new 37-page report by Robert Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

What else can K-12 education reformers learn from early learning? Post your thoughts in comments.

Kindergartners Rating Teachers: In a twist on assessments, kindergartners will review teachers in Georgia, The Hechinger Report says.

Under a new pilot program, 5-year-olds will be guided through a survey that includes such statements as “My teacher knows a lot about what he or she teaches” and “My teacher gives me help when I need it.” -- “Student surveys to be used to rate teachers in pilot program — even in kindergarten classes.” 5/14/12. The Hechinger Report.

 

I used to write a lot about parenting, often about the modern dad. He changed more diapers, dropped the kids at school more often, read more bedtime stories, and sometimes struggled to balance his expanding role at home with work, research showed.

Now, fresh studies indicate the trend is continuing. At home, the percentage of fathers, married to working mothers, “who routinely care for their children under age 15” rose to 32 percent from 26 percent in 2002, The Juggle reports today, using U.S. Census Bureau data.

This is the latest research to show that increasingly parenting is a more even split between mom and dad. Mom may still do more, but dad is catching up. For example, the amount of time fathers spend caring for their kids tripled over the last 40 years, according to research from the Council on Contemporary Families in 2008.

What does this mean for early education? Parents are their children’s first teachers. It follows that if dads are more involved in story time, parent-teacher conferences and other aspects of the daily job that is childrearing, their kids’ early education may be even better.

It is also dad’s day-to-day involvement, not the periodic father-daughter day, which pays bigger health and development dividends according to another Wall Street Journal story, “Are Dads the New Moms?”

"We're finding that it's not the outings or fishing trips but fathers' steady emotional connection that makes the most substantial difference to their children," says Mr. (Randal) Day (director of the Family Studies Center at Brigham Young University).

In many ways, today’s parents are a transitional group, hammering out new arrangements daily and weekly on everything from who will stay home when their child is sick to who will cook dinner.

Men now also deal with more work-family conflict than women, according to a 2009 report from the Families and Work Institute.

In other words, men are experiencing what women experienced when they first entered the workforce in record numbers—the pressure to “do it all in order to have it all.

-- “The New Male Mystique.” 2011.

The report and The Wall Street Journal stories are great places to start for preschool teachers, providers and, of course, parents to understand the changing families of students in early education classrooms.

Another study shows links between obesity among future mothers and their children’s development.

The new study found an association between mothers who were obese before they became pregnant and lower test scores by their children.

Women who are obese before they become pregnant are at higher risk of having children with lower cognitive function - as measured by math and reading tests taken between ages 5 to 7 years - than are mothers with a healthy prepregnancy weight, new research suggests. -- Research summary, Ohio State University.

This research comes on the heels of last month’s study in Pediatrics that found obese mothers were 1.6 times more likely to have a child with autism and more than twice as likely to have a child with another diagnosable developmental delay.

The new study from Ohio State also confirmed a supportive home for a new baby can help development.

Socioeconomic data from the study supported previous findings that several post-birth conditions can have a positive association with higher children’s test scores. These include a stimulating home environment with plenty of books, a safe play environment and frequent family meals; higher family income; and higher maternal education levels and cognitive function.

“If we have a good way to understand the risks each child is born with, we could tailor the post-birth environment in such a way that they could reach their maximum capabilities,” Pamela Salsberry, senior author of the study and a nursing professor at Ohio State, said in the summary.

Vaccination Debate Continues: The number of parents skipping vaccinations for their children rose in Oregon this school year, according to a story last week.

The number of Oregon kindergartners going off to school without vaccinations has been rising steadily for more than a decade. New state data show that 5.8 percent of the kindergartners in the 2011-12 school year had a religious exemption from vaccination for at least one disease, KATU-TV reported Tuesday. -- “More Oregon kindergartners going to school without vaccinations.” 5/8/12. Oregonian.

(Thanks to the New America Foundation for highlighting this story in its great daily media summary.)

One of the top ideas among early education reformers is the creation of an integrated PreK-3rd system.

But, it will be hard to create this system on a broad scale if teachers are not trained to work within it. This week, New America Foundation’s Laura Bornfreund tackles flaws in early education training and how we need to rethink that process to create a better path from pre-k through third grade.

Disparate preparation of early-grade teachers has set up an either/or scenario: Young children either have a teacher who understands how they learn but lacks subject-area expertise, or they have a teacher who understands what knowledge and skills they need but lacks insight on how they soak up new knowledge and skills. 

… 

The current structure seems to be built on the way school buildings are run instead of the way children develop. A smarter approach would put children's learning and development first.

-- “Preparing Teachers for the Early Grades.” Educational Leadership Magazine. (Link is via the Foundation for Child Development.)  

Changing higher education and training for early education teachers will be tough, and Bornfreund addresses some of the biggest challenges in her remarkably brief analysis, given the topic. 

This debate, however, is only beginning. Over the last year, Sara Mead jumpstarted the conversation with her 2011 story, “How to Grow a Great Early Childhood Workforce: Charter Colleges of Early Childhood Education.”

But, if we are going to make any real progress, a lot more experienced educators, academics and policymakers will need to join the discussion.

Laura Bornfreund’s analysis gives us another great jumping off point. 

Thanks Early Ed Teachers: Don’t forget, tomorrow is Provider Appreciation Day. You can bring a card, flowers, or a simple thank you to early educators.

Video games may be the latest tool in the drive to diagnose autism earlier in life, according to a report.

Actually, researchers at the University of Minnesota are using Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect gaming console in an experimental effort to pick up early signs of autism, Popular Science reports this week.

The Kinects are set up in the Institute of Child Development to track the individual children by size and the color of their clothing, and can monitor about ten children at a time. Software takes the raw visual data from the Kinects and runs it through an algorithm to look for possible markers of ASD, like an unusually hyperactive or unusually quiet and calm child.

-- "Using the Microsoft Kinect to Detect Autism.” PopSci. 5/8/12.

The work holds the potential for advances in one of the most important frontiers of autism research: early intervention. When a child has autism, diagnosing and beginning a range of therapies early in life can produce dramatic improvements. In fact, early intervention can be important for a wide range of disorders.

And Kinect may only be the beginning. Researchers may use robotic sandboxes and other robots to help diagnose children at risk of developing autism, attention deficit disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, the University of Minnesota said in a media release.

“Researchers and scientists believe that psychiatric disorders display subtle physical abnormalities in childhood well before the onset of a full disorder,” lead researcher Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos said. “We believe that we can use new computational tools, including computer vision and robotics, with a unique new computer vision algorithm to observe and detect abnormalities in motor and emotion in children to automatically analyze them for abnormalities.”

-- “University of Minnesota researchers studying the use of robots and computer vision to diagnose mental disorders in children.” 2/16/11.

Video games are often criticized for promoting violence and wasting time. Who would have thought one of the most popular game consoles ever could help diagnose autism?

(Thanks to Child Trends for highlighting this study.)

Cutting Child Care Slots: What would you do if your child care provider said they are cutting your spot? It looks like that could happen in Illinois because “(c)hild care providers receiving government subsidies in Illinois have received notice that the state can no longer pay them for their services because the state has run out of money,” CLASP reports.

The possible cuts are another sign states are still struggling to pay their bills and balance their budgets. That means parents and child care providers could continue to struggle with fewer classroom slots, waitlists, higher co-payments and other cutbacks.

The number of children diagnosed with a disability has risen to an unprecedented level, even as services that support these children and their families have not kept up, a new report released today says.

The Future of Children report is one of the most ambitious efforts to explore and understand what spikes in autism, ADHD, youth bipolar disorder and other diagnoses on the confusing and widening spectrum of childhood disability mean. It also focuses on a critical change within this trend: The incidence of disability has moved away from medical disorders to mental health disabilities, according to the analysis.

In the past few years, the top five limiting conditions of children have been behavioral or developmental. 

--“Children with Disabilities.” The Future of Children, Princeton-Brookings.

What does this mean for early education? It means more kids are arriving at child care centers and preschools with some identified disorder. This, in turn, creates new opportunities for early intervention, which research shows is often critical in addressing many disabilities. But, it also produces new strains on a system that isn’t designed for these rising needs.

One of the most important findings in the report is that both our education and research systems need to change to respond to the influx.  A widely held definition of disability doesn’t exist. And there is not a coordinated system to help disabled children and their families. Instead, support is too often fragmented and patchwork.

Service systems that are set up to deal with medical problems are not coordinated with services at schools. Researchers have conducted far too few rigorous evaluations of the effect of special education programs on children’s educational prospects and trajectories.

-- Executive Summary

The overall message is clear. As diagnosis rates of childhood disabilities continue to soar, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we view and address disability.

As a society, our concern with the increasing prevalence of disability should not be primarily about reducing the medical costs of treating disability, but about improving the quality of life for children and their families.

-- Executive Summary

I have only begun exploring this report, which is actually made up of nine articles, three appendices, an executive summary and a policy brief, and will have more soon.

Screen Free Week ended yesterday and it sparked thoughtful commentary about how to manage a family’s consumption of digital media at a time when the medium is advancing far faster than researchers’ ability to measure its impact on children.

Solid and usable research typically requires time and a lot of data. But, every month seems to herald a new type of interactive e-book, web-browsing television or educational-video game hybrid. How are educators and parents supposed to figure out what preschoolers should watch?

The sheer volume of choices can be tough to navigate.

Lisa Guernsey reports “72 percent of iTunes’ top-selling “education” apps are designed for preschoolers and elementary school children, according to a recent report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop,” in Can Your Preschooler Learn Anything From an iPad App?

In the Slate story Lisa Guernsey lays out new insights and challenges in her usual highly-readable fashion. Maybe her most important nugget is about the importance of open-ended play – when kids explore and create at their own speed.

What is the problem?

“A recent Australian study showed that only 2 percent of “education” apps in the iTunes Store allow for open-ended discovery and exploration,” Guernsey writes.

If you are looking for a good place for help figuring out all the apps, interactive stories and educational DVDs a great place to start is Lisa Guernsey’s website.

You can also head over to Common Sense Media and check out its ratings of the latest apps and games. (Thanks to Lisa Guernsey for finding the tool.)

Gov. Gregoire on Early Learning: Washington Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire gave high-quality early education another plug last week in her call for a new revenue source to support education.

“We cannot meet our constitutional mandate on K through 12 and the McCleary case, our moral mandate for early learning and our economic mandate for higher education if we are not going to look at new revenue,” Gov. Gregoire said.

-- Via KUOW.org.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant is one of the biggest federal child care programs. Now a new snapshot of the program shows how it helps working parents and those parents trying to join their ranks.

The new fact sheet from CLASP also tells us how many children the program served, 1.7 million a month on average, and how many were in center-based care, 66 percent, in 2010. It is also worth noting that roughly two-thirds of the children supported by CCDBG funding were in the birth-to-five age range.

But, the most interesting data shows that nearly all of the aid goes to the types of families policymakers say they are trying to help: Struggling families working hard to stay in or join the workforce.

• “The vast majority of families receive CCDBG assistance because they are working; 93 percent are working and/or in education or training programs.” (2010 data.)
• Only, “17 percent of CCDBG families received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) assistance,” in 2010. 
• “…The median monthly income of families receiving CCDBG-funded assistance was $1,390, or $16,680” a year.

Check it out.

Washington’s Early Learning News: You can get a summary of developments in early learning around Washington in the Department of Early Learning May newsletter and on the agency’s blog, DEL Connects.

A new commentary on why the nation needs universal pre-kindergarten is generating a healthy debate about why early education matters and where it fits into the presidential campaign.

The analysis is bold and highly readable, weaving some of the best reasons why we need to improve pre-kindergarten into a 1,114-word story, such as that a “typical middle-class 5-year-old can identify all 26 letters of the alphabet on her first day of school; a 5-year-old living in poverty may know only two letters. By first grade, middle-class children have double the vocabulary of their low-income peers.”

It also calls for an educational system that reflects modern society, not arrangements of the 1950s and earlier.

“First, extending the social contract to 3- and 4-year-olds would acknowledge that our public education system can no longer run on a pre-feminism model that assumes mothers of young children don’t need or want to work. ... If we want to fight poverty and equalize educational opportunity, we cannot ignore the disparities that develop before a child ever enters the public education system as it is currently construed.”

-- “Big Idea: Universal Pre-K to Teach Children and Create Jobs.” 5/1/12. Good News.

And more importantly, this story has people talking and writing about where ideas for universal pre-k fit in this presidential political season. Among those vying to win the White House, commitment to early education should go beyond vague campaign promises and spell out what, if anything, a candidate thinks should be done. President Barack Obama followed up his promises with Race to the Top Early Learning grants, Head Start re-competition and other work. But, perhaps we can go deeper this season.

Analysts already are. Upjohn Institute economist Tim Bartik has a thoughtful reaction, where he spells out his pragmatic local solutions, given the unlikelihood of large new federal investments in universal pre-k.

Bartik also highlights others joining this debate:

• “Why We Won't Get Universal Pre-K.” 5/1/12. Slate.
• “Building Better Kids: A Big Idea We Should Embrace.” 5/1/12. Mother Jones.

These stories are from pundits. I would like to hear from teachers, program directors and other educators. How should the president and federal government work on early education? Add your comments here or head over to the Big Idea story and join the conversation.

Local early education efforts are gaining national attention again this week, as a new report features Seattle’s pioneering efforts to integrate early learning and the first four grades of elementary school.

The new League of Cities report identifies cities on the “leading edge” of work that coordinates early learning and K-3 - Seattle, Boston, Hartford, San Antonio and San Jose – in five case studies.

These cities are working to restructure the historically disjointed relationship between early education providers and elementary schools by bringing together teachers and other key stakeholders from each system, better aligning preschool and school-based learning and improving transitions as children move from one level to the next.

-- National League of Cities

One of the more interesting parts of the executive summary breaks down “10 common elements of a well-aligned educational system.” This list includes the need to build public awareness about the importance of early education and creative funding strategies.

For example, the report covers Seattle’s Families and Education Levy. Last fall, voters approved a new levy that should increase slots in public preschool programs, improve training for early learning educators and child care workers, expand health and mental health screenings for children in preschool, child care and in-home care, and create more help for kids who start kindergarten below grade level.

There is a lot of food for thought in this case study, which captures the history and status of a preK-3rd initiative in Seattle that could be on the cusp of even bigger steps.

Child Care Subsidies Follow-up: After I wrote about the importance of child care subsidies and falling support in states yesterday, I realized I forgot to include that Washington state improved its subsidies program this year, despite its budget deficit.

Among the changes, policymakers restored the income cap for child care subsidies to families making 200 percent of the federal poverty line from 175 percent and created a less frequent annual review of a recipient’s status.

(Thanks to the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP for highlighting this work.)