Congress finally began rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act last week when a key Senate committee approved its version of K-12 reform, and it included gains for early learning.
One of the biggest wins was a provision that would clearly allow states to spend Title I funds – federal funds for high-poverty schools
- on early learning. This authority already exists, but how to use it isn’t always clear. I’ll let Early Ed Watch explain:
The reauthorization bill specifically gives school district’s the ability to reserve funds for early childhood programs – in eligible school attendance areas – before making allocations to high schools... This is another way of signaling that school districts can use Title I dollars for pre-kindergarten and other 0-5 early childhood programs. – “The Latest ESEA Proposal: A Deeper Look (Part 1).” New America Foundation’s Early Ed Watch blog. 10/18/11.
And states could use federal funds to align early childhood and K-12 standards, according to Pre-K Now.
Pre-K Now also reports the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill includes:
• “Early education is a now a priority in Race to the Top, the Investing in Innovation Fund, and Promised Neighborhoods Program.”
• “The definition of a charter school includes pre-k, which would allow charter elementary schools to operate pre-k programs with federal resources.” (This isn’t a big deal in Washington state because there are no charters here, but it’s still interesting.)
The group plans to release an update in the next couple of days on the Senate effort and we’ll link to it here. Check in with both Pre-K Now and Early Ed Watch to follow early learning changes and developments in the rewriting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Early Ed Cuts Achievement Gap in Utah: A new report shows high-quality pre-kindergarten dramatically narrowed the achievement gap and slashed special education spending in one Utah school district.
The study followed a group of students from pre-k through third grade in Utah’s Granite School District and the results were impressive. In mathematics achievement the gap between students in the lowest-income schools and the highest income schools was “essentially eliminated”- it fell to two percentage points from 28 percentage points, according to the report.
In language arts the gap between the two groups of students fell to 5 percentage points from 22 percentage points.
Overall, the school district saved $1.4 million in special education spending over the three years.
A link to an overview of the study is short and worth checking out here.
(Thanks to Child Care and Early Education Research Connections for highlighting this report.)