The U.S. Education Department is doing some interesting work with its competitive grant contests, i3 and Race to the Top, but there are now questions about early learning’s role in these battles for better education systems.

Some child care advocates criticized the finalists announced this month for i3, officially known as Investing in Innovation, for not including enough early learning work, EarlyStories reports. Today, the Hechinger Institute blog covers the response from Ed Department leaders, who said there is plenty of early learning among the finalists.

Early Ed Watch questions some of the scoring of i3 grant applications, “Inconsistencies in Scores for i3’s Early Learning Winners.”

Folks who are tracking federal efforts to encourage early learning innovation should check out both stories.

Red shirting is back in the news, not college football players waiting a season to play but families deciding their child should wait a year to start school or repeat a grade, with the Wall Street Journal reporting more parents are thinking about it.

As usual family reporter Sue Shellenbarger packs her Work & Family column with good information from both sides of the debate. For example, research suggests retention doesn’t offer long term benefits, but there are caveats about that research and applying it to individual students.

A growing number of parents are wrestling with the decision to hold their kids back to encourage their mental, social and physical development. More children are being held back a grade because they have failed standardized tests, fueled in some places by the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law.

Now, however, being held back a grade is considered less of a stigma by parents who see their kids struggling or performing at average levels and think repeating a grade would put them closer to the top of their class, school officials say. – “The Parental Push to Repeat a Grade,” 8/11/10.

The story sparked an active discussion on the WSJ’s family blog, The Juggle (100-plus comments and counting.)

Check it out.

New Research on Head Start: Debates about Head Start and Early Head Start will continue, and there are new findings about both programs that hopefully will improve the discussion.

• The number of funded Head Start slots fell by 8,000 to 795,776, from 2008 to 2009, according to the report from CLASP.
• In Head Start programs, most preschool teachers, 83 percent, had Associate’s Degrees, and nearly half, 49 percent, held Bachelor’s Degrees or higher degrees, according to the report.
• Yet, teachers earned on average, $27,752, far less than the average salary of U.S. kindergarten teachers, $50,380
• Overall, 90 percent of pregnant women in the Early Head Start program had both prenatal and postnatal health care, CLASP reports.
• In Head Start programs, roughly 13 percent of enrolled Head Start students had a disability.

Check out the full Head Start and the Early Head Start highlights.

The country may be slowly emerging from the recession, but cuts to state prekindergarten spending are only getting deeper, a new report says.

So far, prekindergarten programs have lost $348 million in funding in fiscal 2010 and 2011, according to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research.

And those state cuts are only part of the story.

As many programs depend on local funding as well as state funding, total cuts of government funds likely exceed state cuts. – “Brief Report: Funding cuts to state-funded prekindergarten programs in FY10 & 11.

If you recall, spending on state pre-k programs slowed last year, and some states cut spending, NIEER reported in “The State of Preschool 2009.” But, the report warned more cuts could be coming. 

“The immediate future of pre-K seems much more perilous than past trends might suggest…State budgets will more fully bear the brunt of the recession in 2010 and 2011.” NIEER co-director Steven Barnett, author of the 2009 report and co-author of the recent update, said in a statement earlier this year.

Washington is among the states that cut, trimming $1.7 million in fiscal ’10 and $10.4 million in fiscal ’11, according to the latest brief. 

 Senate Adds Money for Toddlers and Infants with Disabilities:  There was some good budget news today. The Senate Appropriations Committee added $20 million for the main federal program for disabled infants and toddlers, known as Part C, The Council for Exceptional Children reports.

At almost the 11th hour in a vote backing right up to recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an increase in IDEA Part B funding of $420 million dollars and - somewhat more surprisingly – it approved an increase in IDEA Part C funding of $20 million dollars. – “Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Increases in Funding for IDEA B and C.”

Each month the economic argument for quality child care, preschool and pre-kindergarten seems to grow stronger and this week another writer linked investments in early learning with a stronger economic future.

In the Huffington Post piece, Pat Earley highlights many of the benefits of spending money on early learning, but she also explains that investments don’t always follow.

The United States currently faces serious education and budgetary problems. There is a growing body of work that shows that high-quality early childhood development and education is a powerful way to help address these problems and lay a foundation for human and economic growth.

…

Although most policy makers agree on the importance of early childhood education, budgetary constraints, as well as an inability to view these programs as fiscally sound investments in tomorrow's future workforce, continue to stand in the way of redirecting funds toward the early years. – “Teach Your Children Well,” Huffington Post, 7/21/10.

The story also argues that early education isn’t only about teachers, classrooms and curriculums. It needs programs that “integrate the family into the solution.”

In a related development, the College Board reports today that the U.S. has fallen to 12th in the proportion of adults ages 25 to 34 who hold postsecondary credentials.

"The growing education deficit is no less a threat to our nation's long-term well-being than the current fiscal crisis. It requires the same kind of attention and action at the highest levels of our education institutions and national and state governments," Gaston Caperton said in a statement. "To improve our college completion rates, we must think 'P–16' and improve education from preschool through higher education."

Some would say there is a connection.

It is summer, but there are plenty of fresh ideas on education, including a thoughtful new essay by Ellen Galinsky that asks whether our education system needs to be reformed or transformed.

While there have been calls for education reform and transformation for decades Galinsky, one of the nation’s leading commentators on early learning, says the tone is changing.

(Over the last 27 years) the urgency for change has greatly intensified. For example, whereas the United States was once first in the world in college graduation rates, we are now 14th. What was surprising to me is how many well-known speakers from very diverse fields at the Aspen Institute see the need for educational change as a societal, economic and moral imperative or as Kati Haycock of The Education Trust terms it, "the civil rights movement of our times." – Education: Reform or Transformation? A Report from the 2010 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival, Huffington Post, 7/14/10. (The Aspen Institute held its annual big ideas festival last week.)

Galinsky then summarizes some of the more interesting examples of transformation in education. (Check out her story for those examples, it’s not long.) The common threads the author of “Mind in the Making” finds among these examples appear as relevant to preschool as to high school.

They are all focused on learning, not teaching. They all call for helping children find passion, purpose, and meaning in learning, for making their own plans and following through on these plans, for having first-hand experiences, for bringing together the worlds outside and inside the classroom through collaboration and co-location, and for using technology to foster learning.

While experts worry too many kids start kindergarten behind on reading, it makes sense they may struggle if they also begin school without a basis to develop a passion for learning.

One other thing occurred to me as I read the essay: When it comes to transforming, early education has a big edge over K-12. Preschool and child care have been around for awhile, but those systems are far less entrenched than elementary, middle and high school. With less structure and a growing overhaul effort, it should be easier to build an early education system that reflects the global economy.

With her new book and three decades of experience in education, Galinsky offers a steady stream of interesting thoughts and ideas. You can follow her ideas on Twitter, @ellengalinsky.

There are plenty of good arguments for better early learning in research papers and academia, but when those arguments come from the business world it’s a big step forward.

Now, one of the nation’s top human resources groups has called for smarter investments in early learning in a new brief that suggests if we want to create a competitive workforce for tomorrow, we should invest in better child care today.

The foundation of skills required to grow a team-capable, job-ready workforce is built in the earliest years of life - between birth and age 5 – yet we do not give our young children the early supports they need to get there. – “Meeting the Workforce Needs of Tomorrow, Means Meeting the Developmental Needs of Children Today.” (Thanks to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies for highlighting this report.)

The Society for Human Resource Management brief covers familiar ground – early learning’s great return on investment and the rapid brain growth from birth to age three.

But, its argument starts with a different and fresher angle, suggesting that today’s workforce is falling short in key areas and that better investment in early learning is part of the solution.

 …Although employers expect young people to arrive in the workplace with a set of basic and applied skills, the reality is not matching expectations. – “Meeting the Workforce Needs of Tomorrow,” citing the 2006 report “Are They Really Ready to Work?”

For example, the report says 40 percent of employers rated high school graduates as lacking skills they needed for entry-level jobs.

For the next two decades, they will be learning how to think, act and compete in the global marketplace. By investing in our youngest children now – when those investments will yield the highest societal returns - we can build the workforce we need to keep America competitive in the years ahead. – “Meeting the Workforce Needs of Tomorrow.”

To build that workforce, the human resources group joined forces with other business types, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturing Institute, to lobby for better children’s programs.

Check it out.

As policymakers debate how to reform the U.S. education system, and early learning’s role in that effort, some advocates are suggesting they look to states for ideas.

Early education advocates are talking with senators and representatives about how deficit-laden states are finding ways to encourage expansion of pre-kindergarten, according to Kathy Patterson, a senior government relations officer at the Pew Center on the States. (http://www.preknow.org)

“One of the points we are trying to make to federal officials (is) states are trying to use their very limited resources to incentivize  local school districts to ramp up their pre-k programs,”  Patterson said in an interview earlier this week. “States and local school districts could use another partner - the federal government - to support their efforts to grow pre-k to serve more children,” she added later.

Those federal officials could look to Washington State for ideas. Despite a nearly $3 billion budget deficit, Gov. Christine Gregoire and Washington legislators enacted early education reforms and avoided deep cuts in critical programs this year. For example, policymakers made changes designed to improve child care subsidies and to expand the Early Childhood Education and Assistance program in the coming years

Plus, Patterson is optimistic that a plan to reform the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will include an early learning component, even if that plan doesn’t come together this year.

Is Bright Beginnings Going to End? There is a report that North Carolina’s established early learning program Bright Beginnings could be in trouble.

Today, even proponents of public pre-K say the sweeping claims that launched the program may not be realistic. No matter how strong the classroom start, a student's experiences with schools, family life and peers shape success or failure in the years that follow, experts say.

 “There’s no one-shot deal, one year that’s going to be the vaccine,” says Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, a UNC Chapel Hill early childhood researcher. – Does Bright Beginnings Really Work? Charlotte Observer, 5/18/10.

Check out the view of the excellent blog EarlyStories or read the full article. (Thanks to EarlyStories for highlighting the Observer story.)

Teachers know quality matters, and now research shows quality teachers may matter more than previously thought in helping children reach their reading potential.

A new study by Florida State University researchers found that first grade and second grade students who received excellent instruction “tend to” reach their potential in reading, ScienceDaily reports.

Scholars know that genetics play the biggest role in a child's reading achievement, while the environment – including the classroom experience – plays a smaller role. This study is significant because it shows for the first time that teachers have a direct influence on the genetic variability among children. – ScienceDaily, 4/26/10. "When children receive more effective instruction, they will tend to develop at their optimal trajectory,"( the study’s lead author Jeanette) Taylor said. "When instruction is less effective, then children's learning potential is not optimized and genetic differences are left unrealized."

While the study focused on early elementary grades, it is not a huge jump to suggest a similar dynamic occurs in preschool and pre-kindergarten classrooms, where kids develop the foundations that will help or hinder their later reading. Yet, the quality of early learning teachers often is less consistent than among teachers in elementary schools, where credentials are more uniformly regulated.

What would happen if child care quality rating systems led to a more consistent level of quality among preschool and pre-kindergarten teachers? While higher quality teaching would not eliminate gaps in academic success, it should help in both early learning and elementary school classrooms.

"Putting high quality teachers in the classroom will not eliminate variability among students nor guarantee equally high achievement from all children, but ignoring teachers as a salient contributor to the classroom environment represents a missed opportunity to promote children's potential in school and their success in life," the researchers concluded.

School will end in the next few weeks and roughly 75 percent of students will not attend summer learning programs, creating a potential brain drain that could drag down achievement when classes start in the fall, a new report says.

This widespread brain drain doesn’t affect just K-12 students. It raises an important question for the early learning community. As the federal government and states work to build quality pre-kindergarten systems, how important is it to continue these programs over the summer?

While parents have many summertime options for their pre-k kids, the Afterschool Alliance’s findings suggest many can’t or don’t rely on these programs. In Washington State, for example, only 21 percent of students attend summer learning programs, though roughly half, 49 percent, would like their kids to attend.

Despite a growing awareness that summer learning loss is a major contributor to the achievement gap between low-income and high-income youth, the number and percentage of children participating in summer enrichment programs is startlingly low. – “America After 3PM, Special Report on Summer,” Afterschool Alliance, 5/27/10.

Early learning educators and advocates work to narrow or close that achievement gap before students start kindergarten by developing top quality pre-kindergarten classrooms. But, how much of their work is lost if those students are not in enriching summer programs during that critical summer before students start kindergarten?

Now, no one appears to be suggesting summer school for pre-kindergarteners. Instead, I am guessing camps with story time and other academic activities, along with lots of time in the playground would qualify.

While many early learning programs run through the summer, pre-k is sometimes tied to the academic year, which means parents need to find other enriching programs from June until September.

What do folks think? How important are enriching pre-k summer programs and what are some of the better ideas you have seen? Add your comments here. 

The National Education Association joined the ranks of educators pushing to add early learning to the debate over reforming the No Child Left Behind Act and called for mandatory all-day kindergarten and universal access to pre-kindergarten.

The 3.2-million strong teachers union outlined the economic benefits of quality early learning – children who attended quality preschool earned $2,000 more a month as adults according to one study – and endorsed professional development for child care educators, in a letter and materials sent to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The committee held a hearing today on early childhood in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or No Child Left Behind.

“NEA is concerned about the growing number of children who enter kindergarten already behind their peers socially and academically. Evidence suggests this “school readiness” gap begins before children enter school and places children at risk of failure in school. – Early Childhood Education and School Readiness, NEA Policy Brief. “Yet, even though early childhood education programs promise sure-fire returns, the country is not making this investment.”

The brief also brought up an encouraging finding from quality early learning champion and outgoing director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Art Rolnick.

“…A good preschool can offer a 12 percent annual return, after inflation. That’s better than the stock market, he notes, and any other social program.”

We were busy yesterday covering the opening of the University of Washington’s new MEG Brain Imaging Center, which promises to unlock the mysteries of how babies learn.

But, there were other interesting developments:

• England medical authorities took away the medical license of Andrew Wakefield, a leading voice behind the movement that believes the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism, Associated Press via MSNBC.com.  Wakefield then tells the Today Show “I’m not going away” and will continue his research.
• It was a vaccine-heavy day, as a study covered by Pediatrics this week reported “a comparison of children vaccinated on time with children whose vaccinations were delayed or incomplete found no benefit in delaying immunizations during the first year of life…” Check out the Reuters story on MSNBC.com.
• The Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP has a new Issue Brief on Pre-K to 3 “that outlines the basics of the Pre-K to 3rd Grade concept.”