The Great Recession will wipe out nearly all of the gains in children’s economic well-being made over the last 35 years, and a decline in pre-kindergarten enrollment could help drag down this generation in the coming years, a new report says.

Overall, the 2010 Child and Youth Well-Being Index laid out a bleak present and immediate future for today’s children because of the historic economic downtown. For example, the poverty rate among children will hit its highest rate in 20 years, nearly 22 percent, this year, and the obesity rate is expected to keep rising, the Foundation for Child Development stated in its annual report.

The index includes 28 well-being indicators in seven groups:  economic wellbeing,
safe/risky behavior, social relationships, emotional/spiritual well-being, community engagement, educational attainment, and health.

“… By 2010, the recession will wipe out virtually all progress made for children in the Family Economic Well-being Domain since 1975,” New Report: Impact of Recession on Children to Reach New Lows in 2010, 6/8/10.

The report also noted a drop in pre-k attendance as a major worry, since it could affect children’s performance for years, lowering math and reading scores in third and fourth grade, and potentially leading to higher high school dropout rates 

The broader spike in children living in poverty also will create problems in the future, according to Foundation for Child Development president Ruby Takanishi.

“Research shows that children who slip into poverty, even for a short time, suffer long-term setbacks even when their families regain their economic footing,” Takanishi said in a statement released yesterday. “This is especially true for children during their first decade of life. This means that, even if the recession subsides soon, the effects on these children will not. Unfortunately, we fear the worst is yet to come.”

Further Reading:

• 2010 Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI), Full report.
• Press release
• More than 1 in 5 kids live in poverty, USA Today, 6/8/10.
• Graphics from the report.

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 U.S. economy still may be weak, but the nation’s governors want to preserve funding for pre-kindergarten next year, proposing roughly the same spending as this year, $5.3 billion, Pre-K Now reports  today.

Overall, nine governors proposed boosting pre-k spending in fiscal 2011, totaling $78.5 million, while ten governors wanted to cut spending, ($100.5 million), according to the report “Leadership Matters FY11.” Ten states want to keep funding flat, while three others and Washington, D.C., expect spending to rise but are waiting on school funding formulas. (Overall, state pre-k spending would rise slightly by $8.2 million.)

Around the country, governors are increasingly embracing the research that shows high-quality pre-k is as important to children's learning as kindergarten or first grade. – “Leadership Matters FY11.” When times are tough, states need to recognize the threat and act to protect policy priorities that have the greatest return on investment.

But, the report may have buried the lead. When you look at the graphic of state pre-k spending over the last five years you see it jumped 83 percent, or $2.4 billion, from $2.9 billion in 2005 to $5.3 billion this year.

The report is far from a final scorecard. For example, it gives Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire a mixed review for initially proposing deep cuts in early learning and then restoring cuts and supporting an expansion of pre-k.

But, the report doesn’t note that Washington State lawmakers finished their work last month, preserving spending on child care subsidies and making a relatively small cut in the state preschool program, the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program. Overall, early learning enjoyed a decent budget season, considering the state of the economy.

In neighboring Oregon, meanwhile, the state’s Head Start Pre-Kindergarten program would receive a 5.7 percent increase in 2011 under the biennial budget plan.

These state efforts should encourage the Obama administration and Congress to add early learning to the debate over education reform, making pre-k the first stage in that effort, the report proposed.

The State of Preschool 2009 has a lot of important findings, including states that are leading in quality early learning – Oklahoma’s universal access to pre-kindergarten makes it number one - and those that are trailing far behind.

After Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Louisiana and Tennessee rounded out the top ten, according to the report from the National Institute for Early Education Research.

California, Texas, and Florida didn’t rank nearly as well – failing to achieve most of the quality benchmarks set out in the report. This is a problem because these three states are among the four with the largest number of children, according to the report.

Washington did well – its 33rd ranking for access to pre-k for four-year-old children was the state’s major flaw – and was among only nine states to meet nine of the report’s ten quality standards, according to Washington’s Department of Early Learning.

Even though Washington’s state spending per child dropped slightly to $6,890, it was the fourth highest level in the last eight years, which isn’t bad given the deep recession. (The dollar figures are adjusted for inflation.)

Find Work-Life Rhythm Not Balance: Parents are busy these days, but I recommend moms and dads take five minutes to read the new column on The Juggle, Living a Full Life By Embracing the Chaos.

I have maintained work-life balance is a crock, and that instead young families should try to strike a rhythm in their daily lives, which are defined by the spikes that stomach bugs, sports teams and work deadlines always bring.

“I am juggling family, a job and a personally fulfilling but time-demanding side project. Which is to say, I am doing what my mom asked of me. I am living a full life.” – Wall Street Journal, 5/5/10.

Check it out.

Congress is getting to work and this legislative session could see another round of debate, and maybe progress, on early learning ideas, with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act at the top of the agenda.

The debate over the key federal K-12 law has the potential to create one of the most fundamental shifts in education policy in recent years, linking early learning with the first years of elementary school and the overall school system.

Nothing is guaranteed – the Obama administration’s blueprint was fairly quiet on early learning – but interest groups are ramping up the pressure on the Democratically-controlled Congress to add child care, preschool and pre-kindergarten to the bill.

 “The problem is that it (the Obama administration’s blueprint) ignores the most rigorously evaluated and effective education reform of the last half-century: high-quality pre-kindergarten,” Marci Young, director of Pre-K Now, wrote in a guest blog post in the Washington Post. “To close achievement gaps and prepare students for success in school and in college, the administration and Congress have a clear option: build funding and other incentives for pre-K into the nation’s major education law.”

Pre-K Now also launched an email campaign, asking readers to send this message to policymakers in the nation’s capitol.

Congress has also begun work on its annual spending bills, and Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd and Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe are asking for $1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start and another $1 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Zero to Three reported.

 “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 infused funding into child care and Early Head Start/Head Start that allowed expansions in those programs within states. Since states created new opportunities for infants and toddlers to be served in child care and Early Head Start, it is important to maintain funding levels through appropriations that allow children to continue receiving services. – Zero to Three wrote in a request to readers to email their senators in another lobbying campaign.

Stay tuned for another busy year for early learning issues and advocates in the other Washington.

National policymakers are spending an increasing amount of time talking about integrating pre-kindergarten and the first years of school. If they want good ideas about how to do it they should look at Washington State.

Washington has emerged as a leader in the PreK-3rd movement, boasting  success stories that show off steps that lead to better transitions from early learning to kindergarten, according to the new report “Starting Strong in Washington State: Early Learning Lessons and Success Stories from Superintendent of Public Instruction.”

While the success stories are interesting, the report’s ideas of what works are more compelling. The analysis recognizes two of the elements in any successful PreK-3rd effort: involved parents and leadership.

Toppenish Superintendent Steve Myers is known as ‘the preschool superintendent’ in his district. “It only takes one person in your district,” Myers says. – “Starting Strong.”

There was also a twist on the trend of K-12 tests and curriculum invading pre-kindergarten. Instead, educators should “push” early education’s values of social and emotional development into the rest of the K–12 system, said Kristie Kauerz, senior intervention manager at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

One of those values is a connection with students, their families and teachers, according to the head of Fruit Valley Community Learning Center in Vancouver, Wash., Debra Elliott, who roams the school to get to know her families.

Now, I have already written about the great PreK-3rd success in Bremerton. So, I will end with one of the more impressive results of that effort.

…In 2009, 66 percent of Bremerton kindergarten students entered school knowing their letters—up from just 4 percent in 2001. – “Starting Strong.”

The report is only a few pages and worth checking out.

(Thanks to the Foundation for Child Development for highlighting this report.)

The PreK-3rd movement took a step forward in Washington state this week when three key players handed out $117,073 in mini grants to strengthen links between preschools and early elementary grades.

Thrive by Five Washington, the Department of Early Learning and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction awarded the grants to 13 school districts around the state to help them work on transitions to kindergarten, early numeracy and literacy.

“Local communities often have the best ideas, but the most limited funds,” Thrive by Five Washington president Nina Auerbach said in a statement. “These mini-grants are seed money to move promising ideas forward.”

The school districts will spend the money on a range of work, from buying evidence-based curriculum for child care centers to training providers to help smooth students’ transitions to kindergarten. Another interesting initiative will help develop meetings between early learning staff and kindergarten teachers.

To get a grant, a school district had to show “a local P-3 partnership that included the district, early learning providers and an existing early learning coalition,” DEL said.

As the U.S. economy slumped over the last two years, poor families faced longer waits for spots in state-funded preschools and pre-kindergartens in Washington State, as the number of families on waiting lists soared 263 percent, one group reports.

At the end of 2007, there were 1,246 four-and-five-year-olds waiting for spots in the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program – a state version of Head Start, the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP reported last month, citing figures from the Department of Early Learning.

As 2009 closed, the waiting list stood at 3,540 kids.

“The economy has had a devastating effect on children and families in Washington, and ECEAP programs are seeing more demand every day” the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP’s head, Joel Ryan, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, providers are struggling.

“With school district budgets also constricting some districts are downsizing their early education program and/or eliminating them outright.  Child care centers are also struggling to stay open with the difficulty w/ families keeping their subsidy in place,” Janet Anderson, an ECEAP provider in Sequim, Wa., said in a statement. “I think we are also seeing some program(s) closing down.”

There is no guarantee the waiting list won’t get longer. Currently, the Washington legislature is in a special session trying to finish the state budget. While the House budget plan would preserve ECEAP funding at current levels, the Senate version would cut $190,000, or roughly 29 slots, from the program, according to the group.

The 25-year-old program is focused on helping poor families - roughly two-thirds of ECEAP families earn less than 80 percent of the federal poverty line, according to the association.

“In a 12-year longitudinal study of ECEAP (1988-2000), researchers found that ECEAP children made significantly greater academic gains, displayed more positive behaviors, enjoyed school more, and had fewer health problems than non-ECEAP children.” – Washington State Head Start and ECEAP Association, 2/4/10.

Babies Want to Dance: Now I could have told you this based on my own babies’ dancing, but researchers found “Babies are born to boogie”.

 “The research showed babies respond to the rhythm and tempo of music, and find it more engaging than speech.” – LiveScience, via MSNBC.com.

The traditional image of a pre-kindergarten classroom is one of alphabet posters, blocks, colorful puzzles and lots of books, but streaming video, Internet-supported lesson plans and even podcasts are now showing up.

In a new PBS-backed survey, one third of pre-k teachers reported using digital media – everything from DVDs to Internet-based games - and a quarter of them used it every week. Their use is well below the two-thirds of K-12 teachers using this media, but those pre-k teachers who use it report using it just as much.

This report will only fuel the debate over digital media use in childhood, which often seems dominated by only two camps, those who strive to bar or limit its use and those who embrace its value. It turns out a majority of K-12 teachers already see that value, saying it helps their effectiveness, spurs students’ creativity and stimulates student discussions.

Does this reflect the thinking of pre-k teachers? The report suggests it might.

Pre-K teachers’ attitudes mirror those of K–12 teach¬ers, although their sentiments are not quite as strong—possibly because the sample of pre-K teachers who use digital media is not as large. – “Digitally Inclined.” (If you are too busy to check out the full report, there is a summary here.

Teachers, however, are not slapping a movie into a DVD player and working on tomorrow’s lesson plans. A majority of them use five-minute or 10-minute clips and strongly believe these videos are more effective when integrated into their broader curriculum.

Finally, social media increasingly is part of the early learning and K-12 worlds, with nearly a quarter of pre-k teachers belonging to an online community. A quick reading of key Twitter hashtags shows early learning educators use the 140-character service for professional development. (I’ll post a list of useful early education hashtags and Twitter profiles if I hear enough interest.)

Whatever your view of Twitter and Facebook, this report underscores the relentless rise and diversification of digital media in recent years, and its seemingly inevitable move into early learning classrooms. The fact is new media is a growing part of our lives, and its applications for children don’t seem all bad. Kids love those iPhone games and some even appear moderately educational.

What are teachers and policymakers seeing in early learning? Post your comments here or send me an e-mail.
 

School readiness is a core goal of teachers and parents, but those two simple words capture one of the most complex challenges in early learning, as experts struggle to define what it means and why it matters.

School readiness could cover everything from listening skills and social development to early literacy and even mathematics. In practice, Oregon officials are learning it’s not easy to measure, the Statesman-Journal reports in “Tracking Children’s Readiness for School Proves Complicated: State struggles with consistency in assessments.”

The story devotes a lot of space to Oregon’s various school readiness assessments and the idea that it remains a work in progress. It also highlights why school readiness matters: It can shape public policy, set priorities and help a child get a good or a bad start to school.

"It changes people's perceptions. It can change a teacher's perception of likely success in school. It can create parental anxiety. Worst of all, it can make a small student feel stigmatized and less capable," (Samuel) Meisels, (president of the Erickson Institute, which focuses on early learning) said. "If any one of those consequences occur, based on a poorly designed test, it's inexcusable to me."

In Washington, the definition of school readiness surely will remain a major topic in the state’s still emerging comprehensive early learning plan. Congress will also confront the issue when lawmakers debate the core federal K-12 law, No Child Left Behind, maybe next year.

What do you think should define school readiness at this critical juncture in early learning? Do not limit yourself to existing terms. Let’s add some new thinking to this debate.

More Babies: The American Academy of Pediatrics reports U.S. births hit a record level in 2007 - more than 4.3 million babies were born – up one percent from the year before. 

The report also found:

Teen births rose roughly one percent, running against a long-term decline.

Cesarean births were up two percent.

Infant mortality remained relatively stable, and the United States still ranks poorly in this critical area.