Focus on Early Childhood Education

Voices from the Field

W. Steven Barnett on a targeted and universal early childhood policy

As Michael Sadowski makes clear in The School Readiness Gap, disparities in knowledge and skills among ethnic groups and between rich and poor are substantial even before children enter kindergarten. In a soon-to-be-published paper, Clive Belfield and I assess the potential for preschool interventions to reduce these disparities. Although the disparities are often portrayed as sharp divisions, they are more accurately depicted as continuous and remarkably linear relationships with income. Poor children are 18 months behind the median-income child on a variety of skills at kindergarten entry, but the median-income child is equally far behind children in the top income quintile at school entry. For those who care about the optimal development of all children, this is a much broader problem than just one of children in poverty, though the lower the child’s income, the more serious the deficits. Thus, early childhood policies that address this problem most fully will seek to assist all children and will assist those children with the greatest needs the most.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with current early childhood policies. Although current policies increase access to preschool education programs to some extent, they miss far too many children in poverty. Participation rates remain extremely low for Latino children, in particular, even though experience in New Jersey shows that when they are offered access to high quality public programs they participate at high rates. Federal child care policy emphasizes numbers served, but pays little regard to educational quality and child development. Head Start and state prekindergarten programs explicitly focus on child development, though state prekindergarten programs vary greatly in their standards and quality. Despite the research cited by Sadowski, based on the larger body of research I would caution against concluding that Head Start is less effective than state prekindergarten programs on average. I suspect they differ little on average in their effects on children’s cognitive abilities, and some state prekindergarten programs clearly are less well designed to support child development than is Head Start. (As an aside, I would also caution against accepting the false dichotomy between play and learning.)

If early childhood policies are to have maximum impact on disparities, more intensive and extensive services are required. Some believe that these should be tightly targeted to children in poverty. My own view is that this approach has been tried for 40 years, and it doesn’t work very well. There are practical problems (poor children benefit from education with more advantaged peers, targeting is imperfect, etc.) and political problems (programs for the poor are viewed as charity, limiting quality and coverage). If programs are open to all children, more children in poverty will get better services. However, it will be necessary to deliver the most intensive services to children with the greatest needs, if there is to be substantial impact on achievement disparities. This requires a hybrid policy that is targeted and universal. New Jersey’s intensive Abbott preschools in the context of a larger Early Childhood Program Aid program are one example. The French approach to providing more resources to preschool programs in Educational Priority Zones is another.

W. Steven Barnett is director of the National Institute of Early Education Research.

Margaret Blood on preK teacher initiatives from Early Education for All

“The importance of teacher responsiveness to children’s differences, knowledge of children’s learning processes and capabilities and multiple goals that a quality preschool program must address…point to the centrality of teacher education and preparation.”

Eager to Learn: Educating our Preschoolers
National Research Council
Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy, 2000

In Michael Sadowski’s thoughtful article, Degrees of Improvement: States push to reverse the decline in preschool teachers’ qualification, New Jersey’s Ellen Frede poses the question that should be asked in every state, “Why should we think it’s OK for teachers who teach three-year-olds not to have the same qualifications as someone who teaches second grade?”

Unlike New Jersey, there is no court mandate for preschool education in Massachusetts. In the absence of such a commitment, the Early Education for All (EEA) Campaign set out to build a statewide movement for universal high-quality early education. In an effort to inform the development of An Act Establishing Early Education for All, we engaged 4,000 parents, early educators and others in an extensive community outreach process.

What we learned “on the ground” was echoed in the literature. It would be impossible to achieve our vision of high-quality early education without addressing essential professional development needs in a field plagued with low wages ($22,640 is the average annual preK teacher salary in Massachusetts), high turnover rates (29 percent), and the absence of a cohesive statewide system of professional development.

With generous support from the National Institute for Early Education Research, EEA co-funded a study by Dr. Nancy Marshall at the Centers for Research on Women at Wellesley College on the characteristics of the Massachusetts’ preschool workforce. This 2005 study found that 21 percent of the preschool teachers possess an associate’s degree, with 40 percent holding a bachelor’s degree. Of no surprise was the finding that the vast majority of those holding BA degrees teach in public schools. Yet only 13 percent of Massachusetts preschoolers attend a public school program.

These findings have bolstered our advocacy efforts to ensure the development of a statewide system of professional development for early educators. Our first step was to work with the State Legislature to create a consolidated Department of Early Education and Care with its own Board and Commissioner, and secondly, to embed in this department the statutory requirements to create a universal preschool system – using a mix of public and private programs - and to develop a statewide plan for the professional development of early educators.

EEA is advocating that the new department adhere to the Massachusetts Department of Education’s Early Childhood Program Standards for three- and four-year-olds, which include a requirement that at least one teacher per classroom have an AA within seven years and a BA within 14. While these timelines seem lax at best, given current capacity in Massachusetts’ higher education institutions, it would take 20 years to ensure that there is one teacher with a BA degree per preschool classroom. While the new department is expected to file its workforce plan with the State Legislature in early 2006, we have jump started the effort by working with the Legislature to establish a $1 million pilot scholarship program for early educators.

The creation of the department, with its mandate to design a professional development system, and the launch of the pilot scholarship program, represent the very beginnings of what EEA envisions as the foundation for ensuring high-quality “early education for all.”

Margaret Blood is director of the Early Education for All Campaign and president of Strategies for Children, Inc.

Karin Chenoweth on the importance of curriculum in high-quality classrooms

For anyone who likes kids and wants them to learn a lot, Robert Pianta’s findings (Neither Art nor Accident: New research helps define and develop quality preK and elementary teaching, HEL, January/February 2008) are good news: Students achieve more when they are in warm, sympathetic, caring classrooms that are well supported instructionally and organizationally.

This sounds so commonsensical that it almost qualifies as “well, duh” research. Certainly it confirms the intuitive sense that parents have about the kind of classrooms they want for their children.

Some of Pianta’s team’s other findings are equally important—for example, that poor children and children who are headed for academic trouble are highly unlikely to be consistently assigned to such well supported classrooms. Building on the work of others in both Tennessee and Texas, it is a short hop to say that if poor children and children at risk of failure were consistently assigned to the kinds of highly effective classrooms Pianta has identified, they would learn at much higher levels than they currently do.

In It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2007), I tried to get at the same question from the other end. I began by finding high-performing and rapidly improving schools where most of the children are either children of color or children of poverty or both, and then looked at the schools and classrooms. What I found were warm, sympathetic, caring classrooms where the teachers organize the learning environment well and where they provide a lot of instructional support. I would love to see how they stack up against Pianta’s analytic framework; at first blush it seems that my reportage and his scholarship overlap.

The importance of his work lies in his systematically identifying and codifying the behaviors and characteristics of teachers who provide emotional, organizational, and instructional support of students. By so doing, he is helping make transparent and explicit what teachers need to know and be able to do in order to help their students learn.

My greatest concern is that this work operates in a vacuum in terms of the question of what it is teachers are supposed to teach. That is, Pianta’s framework is designed to be applicable no matter what standards and curriculum are in place. But it seems obvious that teachers will be able to be more supportive instructionally if they have a good curriculum to teach. Teaching skill can only take you so far when the content is flawed, as is the case in too many districts and states. The lack of strong standards and curricula in many places may, in fact, account for his finding that few elementary school classrooms have strong instructional support even when they have strong emotional and organizational support.

Still, even with that caveat, Pianta’s work seems like the beginning of very important work that could help teachers improve their instruction and prepare for the classroom. In that way, the coaching his center offers represents great promise, not only for individual teachers but for the teaching profession as a whole.

Such work can only be good for the many students across the country—particularly low-income children and children at risk of failure—who desperately need to be in warm, sympathetic, caring classrooms that are well-supported organizationally and instructionally.

Karin Chenoweth is a longtime education writer who currently writes for The Achievement Alliance. Her most recent book is It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2007).

Carolyn T. Cobb on North Carolina’s “More at Four” initiative

North Carolina’s statewide preK program for at-risk four-year-olds started mid-year in 2001-02, serving slightly over 1200 children. The More at Four (MAF) Pre-K Program has grown to approximately 15,500 children and over $66 million for 2005-06.

This rapid expansion requires that some of our high standards be phased in. One key standard is the requirement for classrooms to have a teacher with a Birth-Kindergarten (or Preschool Add-On) License within four years. Time extensions are possible if progress is demonstrated. This teacher licensing standard applies for community settings and Head Start, as well as public schools. Our guidelines also specify that, once teachers reach the same credentials as required in public schools, they should be paid comparable salaries and benefits.

The state of teacher degree and salary for child care has been well documented by Herzenberg, et. al. (Degrees of Improvement). North Carolina faces similar challenges, although a statewide workforce study conducted in 2001 and again in 2003 (Child Care Services Association and FPG Child Development Institute) showed some gains in teacher credentials in child care and salary. These improvements are likely due to the emphasis on a star-rated license system (that includes staff credentials as one component) implemented in 1999 that includes tiered subsidy reimbursements, as well as quality improvement initiatives by the public-private venture Smart Start. In addition, the standards set by MAF have influenced both star ratings of centers in many counties and teacher pay for preK classes. Even so, progress is incremental.

Based on the data collected since the MAF Program inception, between 80 and 84 percent of lead teachers in the MAF classrooms have held a BA degree or higher each year. Because of the rapid expansion and need for teachers, quite a few lead teachers have started with a two-year degree and are working toward the MAF standard. However, the percentage of lead teachers attaining the B-K/Preschool Add-On credential has grown from 28.6 percent in 2002-03 to 51.5 percent in 2005-06 (see figure). That does not reflect some teachers in public schools who report a provisional license.

Supports for Teacher Credentials

In an effort to facilitate obtaining the B-K license, the MAF Program has established several support strategies. We provide approximately one million dollars annually specifically for MAF teachers to the Teacher Education and Compensation Helps Program (T.E.A.C.H.) run by the Child Care Services Association for various scholarship assistance programs, as well as health insurance support. TEACH provides partial funding for tuition, books and travel, with commitments by the provider for release time and bonuses or pay raises upon completion of requirements. For 2004-05, 277 teachers participated in one of the scholarship programs, and 158 semester stipends were awarded for collage students pursuing an early childhood degree and agreeing to work in a MAF classroom (or other classroom for at-risk children).

These resources are critical in maintaining progress toward higher teacher standards and pay. Still, we are facing the challenge of being able to support salary and benefit levels comparable to public school teachers. MAF funding is estimated to be about half the cost of a high quality preK classroom, and providers – especially private child care – are finding it difficult to meet those salary and benefit requirements. Other resources are becoming harder to access or there are other demands for their use (e.g., Title I in public schools or subsidy in child care). More state dollars will be required to maintain this high and important standard.

Carolyn T. Cobb is executive director of North Carolina’s Office of School Readiness.

Lou Danielson on the promise and challenges of Response to Intervention

In my view, the emergence of Response to Intervention (RtI) reflects a fundamental change in educators’ views of children’s learning that has been implicit in some education practices. I think that we have often functioned as if we believed that 10-15 percent of children would not become proficient readers and have been quite comfortable with an approach in which large numbers of students entered schools without prerequisite skills and in which these students along with some others would never become proficient readers. Response to Intervention offers an alternate and more optimistic future for these children; that is, if we increase the intensity of instruction focused on the specific skill deficiencies, we can greatly accelerate learning to the point that large numbers of these children will become proficient readers.

Of course, RtI is not just a belief. The article (Response to Intervention) cites some of the research that supports the benefit of early and intensive intervention in reading. The research is also providing much more detail about the technology of implementing effective RtI. This research provides information on important issues, such as how to monitor student progress as well as the rate of progress and level of achievement that should be considered responsive. Research will continue to inform our practices, even though many schools are already implementing RtI with good results. We have much to learn from these sites. The Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education is currently funding the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities, which has identified some schools across the country that have considerable experience implementing RtI. This center has also conducted important research on RtI, particularly as it relates to identification of children with learning disabilities.

When well implemented, RtI incorporates tools and interventions that have both been found to be effective, particularly in the content area of early reading. However, it is critically important that sites implementing RtI evaluate their efforts to determine that they are, in fact, implementing the research-based elements of RtI and to assess the impact of their efforts. Large-scale evaluations of RtI will be needed to assess impact and also to determine the extent to which there are negative, unanticipated consequences occurring, such as those mentioned by Michael Gerber.

The article addresses the use of RtI in early reading instruction in which the knowledge base supporting RtI is sound. We will need more research in other content areas to similarly support the use of RtI in such areas. This is not really a criticism of RtI, because this research is necessary to support effective instruction in other content areas, whether implementing RtI or not.

There has been a great deal of concern that many children are identified with learning disabilities because they have not received high-quality interventions, particularly in early reading. One problem is that there has not been a systematic way of ensuring that poor readers have received high quality instruction. RtI, when implemented well, will help enable schools to “rule out” this explanation for low achievement. RtI may then provide the dual benefit of helping to ensure that children who can become proficient readers with intensive instruction will do so and that children who have a disability will receive special education.

Dr. Danielson is the Director of the Research to Practice Division of the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education where, among other functions, he directs several projects that are helping states and school districts to implement RtI.

Sally Dias on vocabulary development and mathematics

In order to understand the universe, you must know the language in which it is written. And that language is mathematics.

- Galileo

Catherine Snow's emphasis on vocabulary building as essential for continual literacy development (From Literacy to Learning) applies also to mathematics. The language of mathematics cannot be reduced to a series of numbers, formulas and algorithms. As with any language, mathematics employs a complex and extensive vocabulary. Building that vocabulary is crucial to the process of developing in young children an understanding of mathematics as a way of knowing.

Vocabulary development in mathematics is equally crucial in developing children’s skill and fluency in communicating their mathematical thinking and understandings (and, of course, misunderstandings). Experiences in mathematics where language is emphasized and where teachers probe for children's understandings and ideas about mathematics are essential to later development. This type of diagnostic-prescriptive approach is particularly important for children at risk of poor achievement in mathematics.

It is especially important in the early years for every child to develop a solid mathematical foundation. Children's efforts and confidence that mathematics learning is within their reach must be supported. Young students frequently possess greater knowledge than they are able to express in writing. Teachers need to determine what students already know and what they still have to learn. (NCTM, 2003)

Early intervention in mathematics is especially important with educationally disadvantaged children, before the gap between their knowledge and understanding of mathematics is too wide, and before they experience too much failure. Early childhood, then, is a critical time for intervention in the learning of at-risk children in mathematics as well as in literacy.

Sally Dias is vice president of programs and partnerships in education and director of the Carolyn A. Lynch Institute at Emmanuel College, Boston, Mass.

David K. Dickinson on changing our conceptions of the intellectual capacities of young children

For decades early reading instruction has focused on children’s letter knowledge, their ability to attend to the sounds of language—phonemic awareness—and their decoding skill. Curricula teach these skills, teachers focus on them, schools mark progress by assessing them, and parents view them as hallmarks of reading success. Yet children from low-income homes continue to fall behind in reading comprehension as they move through the grades. Why? Research increasingly suggests that one major explanation is weakness in vocabulary and in children’s skill using language in the ways required for literacy success.

Research also suggests that preschool can play an enduring role in fostering language skills that have long-term benefits for reading. In a longitudinal study that I conducted with Catherine Snow, Patton Tabors, and others at Harvard University, we examined children’s language experiences in preschool classrooms. Later we tested children in kindergarten and fourth grade. Using analyses that controlled for the quality of support parents provided for language and literacy and for other home variables, we found that higher quality language supports in preschool were associated with better decoding and reading comprehension skills at the end of fourth grade.

Insights we gained regarding the kinds of experiences that support language growth, experiences like those described in Small Kids, Big Words: Research-based strategies for building vocabulary from preK to grade 3 (HEL, May/June 2008), were used when Judith Schickedanz and I created Opening the World of Learning (OWL). In this curriculum we take seriously the need to build code-related knowledge as well as language and conceptual knowledge. A fundamental principle guiding our development of OWL was the belief that all children should have access to the kind of high quality children’s books and intellectually enriching experiences that one can find in high quality preschools that served advantaged children. To this end we created four-week units that place high quality books at the core and systematically teach selected words as those books are read. Follow-up activities in small and large groups and in self-directed play (during “centers time”) provide occasions to deepen concepts and vocabulary.

But adopting the right curriculum is only the beginning of the process. Careful observations of the quality of conversations between preschool teachers and children have repeatedly found them lacking in intellectual depth. Judith Schickedanz and I have sought to change this dynamic as we have supported teachers in using OWL. We have met with success that points to the value of the supports the curriculum provides: Programs that have implemented OWL well have seen gains that are large enough to have measurable and lasting effects on later academic achievement. But these successes do not come easily. Implementing OWL well means reading and rereading books in ways that highlight and teach vocabulary, having small groups in which children get individualized instruction, and conducting informal conversations that build knowledge and language. Strong coaching, a clear understanding of the value of language, and sustained effort all are required.

If we are to change long-standing disparities in reading and associated language skills, we must change deeply entrenched conceptions of the intellectual capacities of young children. We also must find ways to help teachers become aware of and change how they converse with children in classrooms.

David Dickinson is a professor and interim chair of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Teaching and Learning. He is co-author of the Opening the World of Learning (OWL) curriculum.

Libby Doggett and Jennifer Rosenbaum on Recognition & Response and qualify teaching practice

In Nancy Walser’s article, Response to Intervention, our attention was drawn to the adaptation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) approach for use with prekindergartners, a technique called Recognition & Response. As early educators now working to secure high-quality preK for all three- and four-year-olds in this country, we offer both praise and caution regarding the methods and implications of Recognition & Response.

The excellent teaching practices used in RtI and Recognition & Response come from special education. Because children with disabilities often have trouble learning, special educators must be master teachers who can assess children’s skills, adapt state-mandated curricula and standards, individualize instruction and monitor progress. We laud Recognition & Response for promoting intentional, individualized, quality teaching and strong parental involvement in early education. PreK classrooms across the country, whether in schools, Head Start or childcare settings, can benefit from teachers who effectively employ these practices.

In an ideal world, where highly trained early educators, ongoing teacher professional development and support and strong linkages with elementary and special education are accepted practice, Recognition & Response has tremendous potential to enhance every child’s educational experience. Its capacity to effectively address all aspects of development—not just early literacy—relies on high-quality teachers and settings to maximize the learning that occurs through play and exploration, which is the foundation of sound early childhood practice.

Unfortunately, ours is not an ideal world. Early educators with the professional training necessary to successfully adopt and skillfully implement these techniques are in short supply. Research demonstrates that the most effective preK teachers have a bachelor’s degree, specialized training in early childhood education and ongoing professional development. However, only 13 states require this combination of credentials in all pre-k settings. Though Recognition & Response includes robust professional development, we worry that teachers lacking a strong educational foundation may misinterpret the approach as promoting inappropriate or overly teacher-directed activities.

Further, while we commend Recognition & Response’s goal of easing the transition from preK to elementary school through a “learner passport,” we also question the feasibility of this approach when the preK system is still developing. Only three states—Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma—currently provide voluntary preK for all four-year-olds. Ten states lack any formal, state-supported preK system, and most states serve fewer than half of their four-year-olds.

PreK is often a child’s first formal group-learning experience, and some children arrive with limited experience handling books and art materials, playing with blocks and interacting with a teacher and other children. At the beginning of preK, some children stand back and watch before jumping in; others jump in, fall, get up, fall again, get up again and finally succeed. But no matter how children approach preK, it must foster their development and love of learning and give them opportunities to be successful. Recognition & Response in the right states and in the right settings can do that, but in the wrong settings it can result in more unwanted worksheets and uninspired, teacher-directed activities.

Libby Doggett, Ph.D., has a background in early childhood and special education and is now the executive director of Pre-K Now. Jennifer Rosenbaum is the state policy fellow at Pre-K Now and will begin teaching preK in Washington, DC, next fall.

Herbert P. Ginsburg on misconceptions about mastering early math

Sharon Griffin and her colleagues have done the field a great service in addressing key issues of mathematics education for young children. First, she clarifies what is meant by learning to understand number. Early “numeracy,” as some people refer to it, does not involve only rote memory. Memorizing the first part of the “number string” (numbers up to about 12 in English) is required, but even more crucial is the linking of spoken numbers with ideas of quantity. Another way of saying this is that from the outset the young child needs to learn abstract ideas about number and to become familiar with the meaning and uses of different kinds of number representations (like the number line on a thermometer). As Griffin has described elsewhere, the child is engaged in learning “central conceptual structures”—deep-seated cognitive principles—about number. Lesson 1 then is that from the outset, learning mathematics is an abstract activity even for young children. No doubt this is also true in other areas of mathematics like spatial relations, shape, and pattern, topics that Griffin has not investigated intensively. Mathematics for little children is not baby mathematics.

As is widely known, low-income children do relatively poorly in school and need extra help to succeed there. Griffin argues that these children may not be sufficiently exposed at home to the kinds of activities that can promote the adequate development of the conceptual structures required to serve as a foundation for school learning. In particular, low-income children may have insufficient experience with adult generated language that can help them organize mathematical experiences. In any event, the effective solution is not remedial education after children fail; it is prevention in the early grades.

Many have described the problem; few have done anything about it. Griffin’s work represents a major exception. Her Number Worlds program is a comprehensive, organized attempt to help low-income children, from preschool onwards, to develop the kind of conceptual understanding of number that is essential to education. The Number Worlds curriculum assumes that the low-income children are capable of the work and does not involve them in intellectually impoverished activities.

In implementing Number Worlds, Griffin has learned a great deal about difficulties teachers experience in teaching early mathematics. First, she notes that pre-service students often have a misconception of what it entails: many think that early number is all about manipulating symbols, not understanding them. Further, she observes many inadequate teaching practices in the classroom. For example:
• Teachers introduce written symbols before insuring that children’s number words are linked to ideas of quantity.
• They sometimes ask children use manipulatives to solve symbolic problems before children understand what the symbols refer to.
• Under the pressure of high-stakes testing, teachers sometimes spend more time on drill than on using language to make the material meaningful.

These examples suggest that the one of the key tasks of early mathematics education is to address teachers’ conceptions of what mathematics education requires and to improve their practice. A fine curriculum like Number Worlds cannot succeed without professional development of this type.

Herbert P. Ginsburg is Jacob H. Schiff Foundations Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

William T. Gormley, Jr. and Deborah A. Phillips on looking inside the black box of early childhood education

Robert Pianta has performed a vitally important service to the field of early childhood education (Neither Art nor Accident: New research helps define and develop quality preK and elementary teaching, HEL, January/February 2008) by developing his Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). This technique for observing preK-5 classrooms enables researchers to assess classroom quality by breaking it down into several distinct dimensions. In addition to distinguishing between instructional support and emotional support, CLASS assesses classroom management skills.

Given the growing emphasis on state-funded preK programs, CLASS provides an excellent opportunity to look inside the black box of early childhood education to see what is going on in preK classrooms. Researchers need to know this so that we can look forward to the desired outcomes that high-quality classrooms are intended to achieve and backward to the teacher characteristics that are linked to certain classroom practices.

In our own research in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we have found the CLASS instrument relatively easy to learn and relatively easy to apply. It has enabled us to make comparisons between public school-based preK programs and Head Start programs within Tulsa and between Tulsa’s preK programs and school-based preK programs in other jurisdictions (see “Classroom Quality and Time Allocation in Tulsa’s Early Childhood Programs,” by Deborah Phillips, William T. Gormley, Jr., and Amy Lowenstein, 2007).

Like any other observational instrument, CLASS presents some challenges to researchers. When researchers conduct factor analysis using CLASS scores, they may generate a somewhat different set of factors than those identified by Pianta and his colleagues in other research sites. For example, with our Tulsa data, we replicated the “instructional support” and “emotional support” factors perfectly, but our third factor in effect combines the University of Virginia’s “classroom organization” and “student engagement” dimensions into one discrete dimension. Under such circumstances, researchers will need to choose between Pianta’s factors (an excellent base of comparison) and their own factors (a more authentic representation of the data). Researchers may also find it helpful to use complementary classroom observation measures, such as the Emerging Academic Snapshot technique developed by Carolee Howes and her colleagues.

If CLASS becomes more widely utilized, it could create extremely valuable opportunities beyond the world of academic research. For example, CLASS scores could contribute to school “report cards” that help public officials to choose between different pedagogical strategies and that help parents to choose between different schools.

Teaching is a craft that requires extraordinary skill, sensitivity, and imagination. Thanks to Pianta’s research, we are now able to specify how that craft plays out in classrooms all across the nation. Armed with that information, we can improve the quality of classroom experiences for relatively young children.

William T. Gormley, Jr., is professor of government and public policy at Georgetown University. Deborah A. Phillips is professor of psychology at Georgetown University.

Sybil Jordan Hampton on Arkansas’ preK initiatives

Arkansas scored 10 out of 10 on quality preK benchmarks in the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) Preschool Survey. It is one state whose continuing challenge is to raised the educational qualifications of its preschool teachers, not rescue them from decline. Yet, it is clear that here, as elsewhere in the country, there is more work to be done to improve the skills and credentials of those who teach Arkansas’ youngest students (Degrees of Improvement). Three statewide initiatives, working collaboratively, have been instrumental in enhancing preschool teacher educational qualifications.

1. The Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) program, a joint effort of the Division of Early Care and Education and the Arkansas Department of Education, was created in 1991 by a legislative act with funding of $10 million to serve children birth through 5 years with a variety of developmental and economic risk factors. Act 1841 of 2001 placed a 3 percent excise tax on beer to help fund early education.
2. A 2003 legislative act expanded ABC with an additional $40 million for The ABC for School Success (ABCSS) program serving free of charge any three- or four-year-old child whose family income is 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level or less. In 2005 an additional $20 million was added, so total funding is currently over $71 million. During 2005-2006 ABC and ABCSS will serve approximately 18,500 children across the state.
3. The Schools of the 21st Century (21C) model developed at Yale University and implemented in the Paragould, Arkansas, public schools in 1992, has spread to six other school districts in the state. In 2001 and 2004, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation awarded two five-year grants to expand the number of 21C sites, establish an Arkansas 21C Network and develop the infrastructure to sustain the growth of 21C. Currently there are 21C programs in 34 school districts.

21C schools provide preschool and other services and also provide training to teachers in center-based and family child care in the community. ABC program participants can use professional development funds to support staff seeking higher education degrees. These efforts are paying off: programs affiliated with the Arkansas 21C Network, ABC and ABCSS have an increased number of paraprofessionals with Child Development Associate (CDA) credentials. In 2004-2005, 72 percent of all ABC paraprofessionals (246 teachers) held a CDA credential, and 87 percent of all ABC lead teachers (214 lead teachers) had either a BA or master’s degree.

The expansion of early education and child-care programs in Arkansas has been inextricably linked to the goal of increasing high quality programs. The Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education (established in August 1997) created the Arkansas Early Childhood Professional Development System to provide leadership and guidance in professional training and education for all early care professionals and developed a professional registry to track training and approve trainers. Between 1996 and 1999 the number of Child Development Associate Credentialed (CDA) staff rose from 168 to 3,114, according to an Early Care and Education Report to Joint House and Senate Education Interim Study Committee, September 2000.

In Arkansas, the growing number of school-based preschool programs that support and develop private providers as well as incentives for center and home-based teachers and administrators have resulted in an increase in professional credentials. Arkansas’ ongoing educational equity and quality case has generated increased funding and support for preschool, despite the fact that early education has not been mandated by the Arkansas Supreme Court. The cup is half full. Strategies are needed to increase the number of Quality Approved/Accreditation childcare centers and homes, to enlarge the 21C Network, and to motivate colleges of education to produce teachers with the qualifications, knowledge and skills to teach all grades from PK-3, insuring alignment and expectations for children.

Dr. Sybil Jordan Hampton is president of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

Jim Hinson on addressing the whole child--and the family

Michael Sadowski’s article, The School Readiness Gap, highlights disparities that exist among our earliest learners, children who are often overlooked. Disparities by ethnicity and income are important issues that educators, school districts, communities, legislators, and the philanthropic community must use as the basis for intentional dialogue regarding the potential for universal access to early education.

There is an impressive body of evidence that points to the merits of universal early education. In the Independence School District, we have experienced those benefits with our comprehensive early education system. We have created a Braided School-Based Delivery model that weaves together early education and family services at each of our elementary schools. Our approach, influenced greatly by the work of Dr. Edward Zigler’s Schools of the Twenty First Century, is one that recognizes that student achievement can be fully realized by addressing the whole child and the family, a term that the early education community has long since embraced.

The answer to the school readiness gap is not to add another grade level to the K-12 system. The answer is to collectively seize the opportunity to develop a broader plan. This plan must focus on developmentally appropriate student progress by addressing the needs of the child both inside and outside our classroom walls. As Magnuson cautions, we must “treat each child as an individual.” This plan must have accountability for success.

The challenge of developing a plan to close the school readiness gap can be met. First, necessary partnerships must be developed prior to tackling topics such as school readiness gaps and universal early education. Second, school districts and early education communities must come together to embrace comprehensive education for children and families. Finally, we must eliminate the splintering of our resources and join together the erudition present in both fields.

I call on all school districts to take heed of the important research that is highlighted in Sadowski’s article. Disparities do exist that impact academic performance. School districts and the early education community must address hindrances they have created that impede the elimination of the achievement gap. School districts must reflect on their own practices, converse with neighborhood leaders, and call upon their community partners. To truly achieve success, we must deliver education in the context of a child and family’s entire life.

Dr. Jim Hinson is superintendent of the Independence (Mo.) School District.

Clara Jennings on opening the teacher preparation pipeline in early childhood education

It is rewarding to see that early childhood education as a profession has finally taken center stage for some state and national policymakers (Degrees of Improvement). The importance of quality child development experiences during the early years for a child’s success in school and beyond is well documented in the professional literature on early childhood education. Given what we also know about the importance of highly qualified teachers for preschool children’s readiness for continuous growth and development, it is urgent that we raise the bar for all individuals working in the public and private sector with young children. Requiring at least a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education or child development for teachers is a step in the right direction, and one that early childhood professionals have advocated for decades.

Achieving this goal will have implications for supply and demand in the field, as already seen in the state of New Jersey. It will require schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) to market their programs in different venues to attract the best and brightest individuals to the profession. However, the states and school districts must also address the salary issue by ensuring equal pay for early childhood teachers, regardless of their teaching assignment, as is happening in New Jersey.

Despite all the good intentions that SCDEs may have towards accomplishing this goal, many obstacles get in the way of large numbers of early childhood education professionals moving through the teacher preparation pipeline (See AACTE’s white paper “The Early Childhood Challenge: Preparing High Quality Teachers for a Changing Society”). Searching for solutions, AACTE and other organizations in the education arena have recently begun looking at developing articulation agreements that facilitate the transfer of students from community colleges to four-year institutions. Community colleges are the main venues of preparation for early childhood education teachers and paraprofessionals, particularly those much-needed teachers from minority backgrounds and those that are part of, and knowledgeable about, language-minority communities. Many of these teachers and paraprofessionals are working parents from middle- and lower-income backgrounds, for whom time, accessibility, and affordability are major obstacles that can prevent them from going beyond the community college to complete bachelor’s degrees. Making articulation agreements a standard practice would facilitate this process, but will require strong institutional commitments, along with widespread and permanent state funding. New Jersey and Oklahoma are excellent examples of how good legislation can turn a seemingly impossible project into a clear success.

Reaching the goal of having a “highly qualified teacher” in every early childhood education classroom should be a shared goal of all members of the education community. We all should push our legislators to follow these good examples and not only raise the bar but open the doors by securing funding for the preparation and fair pay of high quality early childhood education teachers.

Clara Jennings is dean of the School of Education at DePaul University.

For further information see Ardila-Rey, A., Jennings, C., Medrano, H., Swindler Boutté, G., Graves, S., Gutierrez-Gomez, C., Kagan, S., Kostelnik, M. (2004). The Early Childhood Challenge: Preparing High Quality Teachers for a Changing Society. Available online at http://www.aacte.org/News_Awards/Press_Room/ECEpaper.pdf.

Sharon Lynn Kagan on the era of “teaching accountability”

Bob Pianta (Neither Art nor Accident: New research helps define and develop quality preK and elementary teaching, HEL, January/February 2008) has brought life to the secret that every leader in business, industry, politics, and education has understood for decades: People matter, and they matter most. Indeed, the quality of any institution is unequivocally determined by the individuals who populate it, be it a Fortune 500 company, a great university, or a classroom. What Pianta does, and does well, is to give us a tool for better understanding and monitoring the quality of individual teaching performance in preschool and primary school classrooms.

For years, truisms about teaching have mounted, been studied, and been shelved: It is a science and an art; it is a mystery that unfolds with experience; it is the nexus between theory and practice. However true these statements, they all beg the question: Is quality teaching knowable and measurable? Pianta pushes us to be systematic and strategic as we consider the correlates of high-quality instruction. In developing CLASS, he offers a tripartite paradigm which acknowledges that quality teaching transcends subject matter; and that it involves the provision of emotional, organizational, and instructional support. As such, his conception of quality teaching not only advances the care and education of young children, but has the potential to revolutionize instruction across the educational spectrum. Gone are the days of instructional truisms and platitudes about quality. Enter the era of teaching accountability.

On the one hand, the concept of teaching accountability should render solace for those who shudder at child accountability as the sole accountability metric. Inventively, Pianta helps us disentangle the performance of children from the performance of their teachers, making it feasible to explicate the specific conditions that enhance learning. His observational assessment tool allows teachers to name and gauge diverse approaches to teaching, leading the way to improved instruction. In so doing, this approach also clears intellectual and operational paths for substantial improvements in professional development and in lending precision to measures of program quality. For this, we should be appreciative.

But there is danger, too. Teaching accountability, much like child accountability, cannot be the sole rationale for high-stakes consequences. Using data from teacher performance in the absence of understanding the social, educational, and fiscal context would be as erroneous as relying solely on child outcomes. Indeed, teaching accountability must be partnered with information on children’s performance to present a fuller picture of the teaching-learning dynamic; looking at children or at teaching as solitary referents belies the benefit of Pianta’s contribution. Pianta understands that holding teachers accountable for good instruction is at least as important as holding children accountable for their learning. Ultimately, both matter.

Sharon L. Kagan, Ed.D., is Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, codirector of the National Center for Children and Families, and associate dean for policy at Teachers College, Columbia University; and an adjunct professor at the Child Study Center, Yale University.

Michael L. Kamil on using different vocabulary strategies at different reading levels

The most important finding from the vocabulary research analysis conducted by the National Reading Panel is that explicit teaching of vocabulary improves comprehension. It is also true that students will need and will acquire vocabularies much larger than what can be explicitly taught. Therefore, the words used for explicit instruction must be carefully selected to correspond to what is needed at each reading level.

The role of vocabulary changes as reading proficiency increases and the changing role dictates different criteria for choosing words for explicit instruction. Beginning readers need an oral vocabulary that provides the oral language base for learning to read. Students learn to decode print to speech and use their oral language to comprehend what was decoded. When a student decodes a word, the representation must map onto oral vocabulary if it is to be meaningful. Decoding the print word ‘cat’ into the oral form ‘/k/ /æ/ /t/’ allows the student to interpret the print as a familiar word.

By contrast, any print word that is not in a child’s oral vocabulary results in a meaningless exercise. To illustrate this, suppose a child encountered the print word ‘ferple’ and decoded it appropriately. The oral representation would not allow the child to make the print form more intelligible—it would remain unfamiliar in both print and oral forms.

What this means is that at the early grades, students must have a sufficiently large oral vocabulary that the words they encounter in their readers will be meaningful when decoded. Publishers of educational materials attempt to limit the vocabulary in early readers to those words that students will likely know.

Students must have the oral vocabulary that appears in the materials they use for learning to read. A list like that of Biemiller’s Tiered Words in Small Kids, Big Words: Research-based strategies for building vocabulary from preK to grade 3 (HEL, May/June 2008), is an important source of those words as well as the order in which they are usually acquired. The farther a student falls behind, the less that student will be able to leverage word identification instruction for learning to read.

However, there are too many words in students’ vocabularies to be able to provide explicit instruction for all of them. An average third grade student knows as many as 25,000 words. To reach college levels, students must acquire at least 100 words every school day after third grade. Therefore, some vocabulary instruction should be how to learn vocabulary by using word parts—suffixes and prefixes—and adding them to root words, increasing the number of words a student could command.

Beyond third grade, vocabulary becomes increasingly print-based and technical. Print becomes the dominant means by which vocabulary increases. Selection of vocabulary for instruction must be related to the content domain. As students progress through the grades, criteria for selecting words for instruction should change and go beyond the Tier 2 words that are often suggested as appropriate targets of instruction.

Vocabulary research does not dictate a single set of instructional technique for vocabulary instruction for all students. Rather, vocabulary instruction should change with students’ underlying reading proficiency.

Michael L. Kamil, who served as a member of the National Reading Panel, is a consulting professor of education at Stanford University.

Laura Kohn on the continuum of quality preK-elementary teaching

Robert Pianta and his colleagues are making a critical contribution to our collective understanding of what quality teaching looks like in action (Neither Art nor Accident: New research helps define and develop quality preK and elementary teaching, HEL, January/February 2008). The power of their work comes from the fact that they have not just described quality teaching in words, but have recorded video samples of stellar teaching and tested the correlations between their ratings and student outcomes. This is a rich resource. In addition to coaching practicing teachers, there are obvious applications for assisting preservice teachers and principals in training.

I appreciate that the CLASS instrument puts appropriately equal weight on instructional practice, emotional climate, and classroom operations. We are all fearful that the whole child is being lost in the focus on reading and math outcomes. Yes, we want every child to be a proficient reader and mathematician, but we also want to foster their creativity, problem-solving skills, ability to work with others, empathy, confidence, and sense of greater purpose. CLASS can help teachers integrate these goals.

Yet it is worrisome that observers using CLASS see the most weakness in American classrooms in the instructional domain. What’s going on? Or what’s not going on? Those of us who have been ardent supporters of the standards-based reform movement (especially because of its potential to close race-based achievement gaps) have to ask ourselves: How is it, after 15-plus years of this effort, that our schools are not providing rigorous, challenging instruction at scale?

A final reflection: At the New School Foundation’s partner school, we find that the inclusion of prekindergarten in the school’s grade span helps all of the teachers remember the value of active, child-directed learning. And at the same time, our preK teachers get feedback from the kindergarten and first grade teachers about foundational skills students can master so that they are on track to hit critical benchmarks in second and third grades. CLASS reinforces the value of this continuum of teaching and instruction for students. It also offers practical tools for schools like ours to examine its teaching practices, support the induction of new teachers, and adjust practices over time.

Laura Kohn is the executive director of the New School Foundation in Seattle, which creates model public schools through long-term philanthropic partnerships.

Susan H. Landry on the definition of “quality” teaching

It is a critically important goal to develop tools for effectively measuring “quality” teaching in the preK and elementary school grades. Of course, a large challenge in achieving this goal is the determination of what “quality” means. Robert Pianta is correct in his statement (Neither Art nor Accident: New Research Helps Define and Develop Quality PreK and Elementary Teaching, HEL, January/February 2008) that our definition of good (quality) teaching is “all over the map.”

In a time when accountability is becoming key in the education of our children, it seems that the definition of “quality” teaching needs to be linked to whether specific teaching practices are supporting children’s learning of a broad range of social, cognitive, and specific academic skills. To know if this is happening, a quality teaching measurement tool needs to demonstrate that high scores and/or gains across a school year on teaching domains predict stronger gains in key aspects of children’s learning than is seen for children whose teachers have lower scores. Unfortunately, this form of examination has often not occurred. For the field of professional development of our teachers to move forward, greater attention needs to be given to providing specificity in our measurement of teaching practices.

A laudable goal of CLASS is to measure effective teaching and to inform professional development practices. CLASS is based, in part, on a previously developed teacher observation measure that does demonstrate some relations with child outcomes for 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades. It will be interesting as future work is conducted with CLASS to go a step further in understanding the relation between the teaching domains and children’s learning. For example, with separate measures of teachers’ emotional versus instructional support CLASS results may inform the field about the relative importance of these two teaching characteristics for different areas of learning. Also, it will be critically important to go beyond global measurements of instructional practices to include more fine-grained observations to determine what specific practices are promoting learning of math, reading, and science, as well as children’s understanding of their social world.

It is only when we begin to make this direct link between what the teacher is doing with what the child learns that we can effectively support our teachers.

Susan H. Landry is Michael Matthew Knight Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the director of the Children’s Learning Institute in Houston, Texas.

Gene I. Maeroff on the small miracles of learning math

Sharon Griffin's comments about an aligned approach to math during the preK-3 years resonate with what I learned during field visits for my most recent book. She speaks of "counting words" and linking these words to quantities "that give them meaning." People frequently speak of the miracle of learning to read, but isn't it also something of a miracle that small children gradually learn that numbers are representations and that a number attached to an object one time it is counted might be different the next time it is counted, when the order of the objects changes

I was fascinated when I visited Joyce Goubeaud's class at Ashby School in north-central Massachusetts to watch this veteran teacher help a group of preschoolers learn that numbers have names and that a sense of order prevails-4 follows 3, for example, and never comes before 3. Like a guide on a mountain trail, she led her tiny charges gingerly through the permutations of the number 5, having them sit in a line facing her and then switch positions each time after they counted off, demonstrating concretely that 5 remained 5 even if two of the children were in different places.

Griffin also mentions the need for children to grow familiar with patterns. Natalie Charbonneau at Ronald McNair Elementary School in Montgomery County, Md., held her prekindergartners rapt as they sat on a carpet in front of her as she-on the edge of the seat on a rocker-showed them strips of paper, challenging them to turn up their thumbs when the succession of green and purple boxes changed.

Of all the subjects, math surely has a sequential nature that makes teaching and learning during the years from prekindergarten through the third grade an experience during which one lesson builds on another. Certain manipulations prepare young learners to perform ever more complex tasks as their knowledge grows. The alignment of standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment is crucial within and across grades from pre-kindergarten through the early grades to make this happen in an orderly and productive way.

Delays in knowledge of which Griffin speaks are more readily commented upon and addressed in reading than in math. One reason that I and others call for greater emphasis on the years from preK through third grade is that skills in both reading and math must be imparted and reinforced to build a firm foundation during this period if there is any hope of improving outcomes at the upper grades.

I am impressed by what I saw of Singapore math-fewer topics, more depth, more problem-solving, and greater understanding. This approach, gaining support across the country, holds promise for the kind of approach Griffin seems to favor. I wrote in my book about American researchers who observed math instruction in China. They concluded that American classrooms could be bolstered by imitating the Chinese and prodding students to discuss what they are thinking and doing as they solve math problems. "Let's let them talk about what's happening," urges Griffin. Perfect.

Math is a language, a method of communication. Some students will end up communicating better in math than others, but all of them need the opportunity during the early years to learn the language that will allow them to participate in the conversation.

Gene I. Maeroff's latest book, Building Blocks: Making Children Successful in the Early Years of School, was published in fall 2006 by Palgrave Macmillan. He is a senior fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Deborah Meier on redefining "preparedness"

I was sad to read Michael Sadowski’s article The School Readiness Gap promoting more structured and academic kindergarten and prekindergarten versus settings designed for play, imagination, curiosity, initiative and nurturance. The claim that middle-class white kids get more school-like childhood experiences is startling, and hardly conforms to my observations. That hardly proves I’m right, but the counter-evidence is not convincing. Our conclusions regarding the value of early childhood rest on short-term impacts and standardized test results. (On the latter see the work of Sam Meisels, as well as studies galore on the reliability of testing for young children; on the former—count on one hand the number of studies that follow kids into upper elementary or high school.)

I’m also concerned at the frequency with which we continue to fall back on referring to disparities in performance as white/black differences, even after having demonstrated that a substantial, if not preponderant, factor is socioeconomic inequality. And we continue to be surprised—although the history of the world reminds us over and over—that advantage perpetuates advantages. Moreover, researchers rarely distinguish finely enough between poverty and near-poverty, near-poverty and low-middle class, etc., and completely ignore accumulated family wealth data (intergenerational advantages).

The idea that we must change kindergarten and first grade, rather than redefine “preparedness,” is misguided—especially since schools, with an increasingly white teaching force, are less and less likely to be places where children of color feel comfortable. “Preparedness” is defined as becoming docile, obedient, unmanly, and passive at ever earlier ages, plus knowing one’s ABCs, numbers, phonemes, etc. At an age when few males are interested in sit-down-and-look-at-books activities, we start earlier and earlier to classify the turned-off as disabled or recalcitrant, and their families as wanting in motherly skill. The extraordinary role of richly provisioned play is ignored—settings where youngsters' own initiative, agenda and interests dominate, and where strong bonds exist between children, teachers, and their families and communities. Families are increasingly seen as the root of children’s problems, not as a source of strength. It is not lost on children.

We have no long-term studies that support the current effort to introduce “academics”—meaning testable literacy and arithmetic skills, concepts, and vocabulary—ever earlier. We’ll wake up to the price we will pay too late. No civilization known to us has ever tried to do this before, and I suspect for a good reason.

All kids and all societies benefit from the imagination, play, fantasy-life and exposure to making, doing, and inventing that have been the hallmark of the years from birth to six/seven. The “American edge” in technology may be less due to strong academics than to our history of respect for ingenuity, for thinking out of the box. Imagine bridge-builders who never experienced the natural building-stages of childhood. Isaac Newton was an extraordinary model-maker in his youth, at a time in which even he did poorly in school subjects. It’s not only the occasional genius we’ll lose, but a society that welcomes and recognizes such genius.

Deborah Meier is director of new ventures at the Mission Hill School in Roxbury, Mass., and was the founding principal of the Central Park East schools in New York City.

Deborah Meier on transforming the world of childhood in school

My brother and I have a running argument about whether things are getting worse or better. When it comes to the schooling of young children, the answer is 'probably both!'

For the vast majority of young children, life in prior centuries was hardly golden. So as Stipek notes (Early Childhood Education at a Crossroads), the fact that in the United States today, young children of all races and income levels are more likely to be in a protected, educational setting is good news. But is starting school earlier necessarily a sign of progress?

Throughout human (and mammalian) history, the young have gained knowledge and competence largely through keeping company with adults, who in turn were largely engaged in their own activities. The novice learned through observation and immersion in a world of more competent performers. Children learned in the midst of experts who took it for granted that most of them would grow up to become as competent as the adults themselves. The idea of learning to be a grown-up through direct instruction, in settings in which novices far outnumber experts (10 to one is utopian!), is a recent development.

What remains unknown is how the introduction of this style of teaching and learning to ever younger humans will work out. Stipek and others note the increasing focus on academic skills and the accompanying tendency to assess children not through observation but through standardized tests. Catherine Snow, one of our renowned child-watchers (From Literacy to Learning), is rightly concerned about early literacy gaps. But what about early gaps in play, imaginative activity, strong interests, and tenacity? What about ingenuity, resourcefulness, and curiosity?

We need to transform the world of childhood in school. American educators are almost always interested in moving children forward and upward faster, rather than allowing them to become more deeply and broadly engaged in appropriate childhood tasks. An internally self-motivated child is often able to 'make up' for lost academic time. In Finland, children don't start to learn reading and writing until second grade but top the world in academic performance by the end of elementary school!

We need to reorganize childhood so that fathers and mothers can spend more, not less, time with their own young in settings that allow them all to blossom at their own pace, settings designed to expand the mindful curiosity of both caretakers and children, at home and at school. Before- and afterschool programs should emphasize activities that enhance children's sense of autonomy and agency, that allow them to take increasing initiative in setting their own agendas, and that let them experience and observe the broad mix of ages that was once readily accessible to children. The family is not the enemy of young children. Rather than starting school earlier and earlier, and having school last longer and longer, we need to turn around the relationships between novices and experts, learners and teachers, parents and schools, so that we can keep the spirit of a good, old-fashioned ' children's garden' (kindergarten) alive and well through 12th grade.

Deborah Meier is director of new ventures at the Mission Hill School in Roxbury, Mass., and was the founding principal of the Central Park East schools in New York City.

Samuel J. Meisels on whether Response to Intervention can live up to expections

Response to Intervention (RtI) has been proposed as an approach to teaching reading effectively and diagnosing learning difficulties (LD) better than is currently accomplished by conventional methods (Response to Intervention). Both areas are in need of improvement, but it is not clear that RtI is the solution.

The greatest difficulty facing proponents of RtI is that they have not been able to be clear about what it is. If it is no more than “problem solving” (as it is called by some), it’s hard to believe that this will remake reading instruction or special education. If, on the other hand, it refers to an explicit set of rules and procedures, that has not yet been made evident.

The literature on RtI seems to be based on two assumptions. First, that a child’s initial status can be accurately and fairly ascertained with existing on-demand tests that teachers can administer, and second, that current “evidence based” interventions are adequate for dealing with children who are having difficulty learning. Both of these assumptions are questionable. Some children may have learning problems that will not be adequately diagnosed from the few teacher-administered assessments that are permitted under “Reading First” and “Early Reading First.” Similarly, the curricula that are certified as evidence-based may not be suitable for children with these types of learning problems. When we are working with children who have trouble learning to read, we don’t want to limit our choices; we want to expand our options. Moreover, many early learning problems are not just a matter of remediating isolated skills; rather, they present problems of how to teach a variety of interlocking skills. This is made all the more challenging by the very different backgrounds and opportunities to learn of the children we are concerned about.

Another issue raised by RtI is the potential to confuse LD and problems of learning to read. The two areas present overlapping but distinctly different sets of problems. This does not mean that the same generic approach, RtI, cannot be used for both. But it does suggest that both the diagnostic and treatment procedures may be very different, depending on the child’s problem and background.

As it stands now, RtI is an idea or a set of beliefs about how to structure instruction. It closely resembles a diagnostic-prescriptive approach to teaching, which is a sound way to work with nearly any child having trouble learning something. However, it is not a panacea. It does not have explicit rules for how to assess or how to teach—which may be just right, given the diversity of children’s learning patterns and the narrowness of the “evidence-based” approaches that are available. But this lack of prescriptiveness makes it very difficult to evaluate its effectiveness or to describe it to potential adherents.

Sadly, RtI may be another instance of an educational innovation being adopted too quickly and without sufficient examination. Currently based more on belief rather than reason, RtI must not be oversold. Its fundamental premise—that of establishing a diagnostic baseline and then trying a number of different teaching strategies until progress begins to be made—first has to be understood and elaborated before extensive claims are made on its behalf.

Samuel J. Meisels is president of Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development located in Chicago. His primary area of research is assessment in early childhood.

Wendy D. Puriefoy on family, school, and community partnership in early childhood education

Much recent attention in public education has centered on pedagogy and on the alignment of curriculum and instruction to academic standards. This approach is on the mark and should continue to be pursued by educators and reform advocates alike. In addition, resources are needed to enable school district officials to implement these proven strategies to increase student achievement. When looking at issues in early childhood education, however, additional factors must be considered. Effective early childhood education strategy entails more than determining what to teach children up to 4 or 5 years of age or providing more professional development for pre-kindergarten teachers, though both are critical. Quality early childhood education starts with families and with community institutions that cater to the needs of families with children.

In isolating the pedagogical issues from other family and local issues, early childhood education advocates commit the same mistake that K-12 reformers have done for years; that is, to view a child’s academic life and home environment as separate domains. To fully address the cognitive, behavioral, and social development needs of young children, we need early childhood and preK programs that are part of a systemic and comprehensive strategy centered on families’ needs and realities.

Catherine Snow (From Literacy to Learning) tells us of the impact of economic class on literacy and language development in young children—the difference in the level of vocabulary, for example, between middle class and poor kids. This difference has meant that poor families have tended to rely on community-based programs to access necessary care and support. All families, but especially those living at or below poverty, need information about quality child care, nutrition, health and other services that directly impact children’s cognitive and behavioral development. Community institutions absolutely must collaborate and coordinate strategies to give these families comprehensive supports.

The good news is that many communities are pulling together to do just this. As Deborah Stipek has shown (Early Childhood Education at a Crossroads), policymakers at the state level now pay greater attention and devote greater monies to early childhood education. Many local education funds (LEFs), which make up the Public Education Network (PEN), are aligning reform initiatives and public engagement strategies along preK to 16 systems. In Providence, Rhode Island, for example, The Education Partnership established a preK and elementary community school in one of the poorest sections of the city. Programs within the school are linked to local job training and neighborhood revitalization. Parents also receive instruction on district academic standards and are trained in tutoring their children at home.

The result of this effort is a fluid mechanism that help families gather information on what their children need to learn in school, access quality services and programs in the community, and secure an understanding that public schools and other public institutions in their neighborhoods exist to help and support them.

Wendy D. Puriefoy is president of Public Education Network, the country's largest network of community-based school reform organizations (reaching 11.5 million children nationwide), working to improve publicschools and build the public’s support for quality public education for every child.

S. Paul Reville on the policy challenges facing advocates for early childhood education

As Deborah Stipek argues (Early Childhood Education at a Crossroads), there is “good news” to celebrate in the growing momentum in many states for increasing access to and building the quality of early childhood education. However, state policymakers confront a number of formidable challenges in taking this movement to the next level. Among these are:

• Budget constraints: Most of the states have been dealing with severe budget situations, in which fixed costs are rising at unacceptable levels and creating strong downward pressure on discretionary spending. Within this environment, early childhood education competes against other education interests, notably the behemoth K-12 system and higher education. Sometimes, early childhood education loses out in the face of such well-organized and overwhelming competition. Other times, policymakers assume that they have done their educational-funding duty by having made substantial efforts in one of these sectors, e.g. K-12 reform.

• System fragmentation: Not only are most state education systems fragmented into preK, K-12, and higher education boxes, but within the world of preK, there are a number of sometimes conflicting interests: private providers, nonprofit providers, public providers, early childhood educators and day-care providers of various descriptions. These interests not only compete but at worst, cancel one another out. Policymakers can get fed up with the internecine conflict and move on to areas represented by more unified interests.

• Complex delivery system: Serving this fragmented field is a complex delivery system that sometimes pits one government bureaucracy against another. Early childhood funding can be subject to intra-governmental politics which may have more to do with historical or current conflicts than with quality work in the field.

• Educational ambivalence: Public educators readily acknowledge the importance to their work of high-quality early childhood education, but these same educators are sometimes resentful of early childhood being funded at the apparent expense of K-12 funds. Conversely, private and nonprofit early childhood providers are understandably wary of the K-12 system’s scope and capacity and/or perceived interest in absorbing the entire pre-K system at the expense of existing providers.

The “good news” is that many states are proceeding in spite of these obstacles. The field has organized to overcome some of these obstacles and is speaking in a more unified voice about the need for increased access, higher standards, and a quality workforce.

Strong groups like Strategies for Children in Massachusetts are emerging to bring the fragmented field together and, with the help of outstanding advocate/leaders like Margaret Blood, the president of Strategies for Children, building a powerful, diverse coalition. The business community, seeing its own interests at stake, has joined the effort, while university researchers continue to supply data in support of a compelling case statement for the developmental and educational imperatives addressed by early childhood education.

Early education advocacy leaders have wisely pegged their fortunes to the deeply embedded standards movement that has so graphically underlined the achievement gaps in our society. Utilizing data that now show substantial achievement gaps, especially for students of low socioeconomic status, leaders are challenging policymakers to invest in early childhood education as the most promising strategy for closing those gaps before they become permanent. Advocates will need to be skillful in overcoming some of these substantial challenges, but they are clearly making progress.

S. Paul Reville is a lecturer in education at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and the executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy at MassINC.

Richard Rothstein on the many causes of the achievement gap

Preschool advocacy has become popular, and that is a good thing: disadvantaged children’s attendance at preschool can help narrow achievement gaps between middle class and disadvantaged children. But some cautions should be kept in mind:

* The achievement gap has many causes: less adequate early childhood preparation is one, along with health differences; the absence of positive peer and community influences; the lack of high quality after-school, weekend, and summer experiences; insufficient school resources (including high quality teachers); excessively large classes; family economic stress; unstable housing; and more. Closing the achievement gap will require simultaneous and intensive mutually reinforcing efforts in all of these areas. Preschool alone is a good thing to do, and will make some difference. But even with the best preschool experiences, the achievement gap will narrow a little, not a whole lot. Much has been made, for example, of the long term effects of participation in the Perry Preschool experiment: for adolescents and adults who attended the preschool as young children, there has been less teen pregnancy, better employment outcomes, fewer criminal arrests, more high school graduation, higher earnings. But less attention has been paid in discussions of the Perry experiment to the fact that the former preschoolers still had much worse outcomes than those of typical children. The outcomes were better only in comparison to the control group of similarly disadvantaged children who had no preschool.

* Discussion of preschool often confuses prekindergarten, which typically enrolls four year olds; preschool, which typically enrolls three year olds; and early childhood programs, which enroll toddlers. Research cited by Michael Sadowski (The School Readiness Gap) demonstrates that achievement gaps exist by age 3. It will help that some states are now offering (or considering the offer of) prekindergarten to all low-income children, because prekindergarten can try to undo some of these gaps from early childhood. But prekindergarten can’t fully offset the differences in learning ability which have already been deeply implanted before prekindergarten age. An effective effort to narrow achievement gaps substantially must include the offer to infants and toddlers from low-income families of high-quality early childhood programs where, for example, these children can be exposed to the more complex adult language to which middle class toddlers are routinely exposed. Such programs do not entail taking children away from their parents. Many disadvantaged children are already away from their parents, but are in low-quality day care programs, parked in front of television sets. A high quality early childhood program, with high adult-child ratios, well-educated caregivers, and adequate physical space for play that develops fine and gross motor skills, will be expensive. Research by Kathleen McCartney, using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, shows that fewer black and low income than white and middle class infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are enrolled in such high quality programs. Such disparities compound differences in home environments.

* We should be careful not to confuse school readiness with word and number fluency. Analysis of a federal survey, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, shows that a more important prekindergarten predictor of reading and math test scores in elementary school is not whether children enter kindergarten knowing how to count or read; it is their fine motor skill development. Effective early childhood, preschool, and prekindergarten programs balance literacy and number learning with free and guided play that draws on young children’s physical and imaginative abilities. And it emphasizes social skills and self-discipline (attention span, curiosity, self-control, interpersonal skills), which are also more important indicators of school readiness than early academic ability.

In short, there is no panacea for the achievement gap. Prekindergarten can make a contribution, but our expectations for its results should be tempered by understanding that multi-caused problems, like the achievement gap, require multi-faceted solutions.

Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and author of Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College Press 2004).

Wayne Sailor on the broader potential of Response to Intevention

Nancy Walser provides an excellent, concise description of the
three-tiered Response to Intervention (RtI) logic model with a nice example of how it can work as an approach to reading instruction in a first grade classroom (Response to Intervention). While some would argue for confining RtI to an approach for the diagnosis of learning disabilities, this paper shows how the logic has a broader utility in application to all students. As such it presents a developing alternative to the categorical medical model of special education. For example, the paper shows how RtI logic provides a bridge for blending special and general education in a collaborative relationship.

I would like to see future RtI position papers place greater emphasis on the central importance of data-based decision making using data from valid and reliable instruments that are directed to evidence-based interventions followed up with careful progress monitoring. Further, I would like to see discussion of parallel developments employing the RtI logic model in schoolwide Positive Behavior Support applications and how these parallel developments might be combined through tracking social/behavioral indicators integrated with academic indicators of pupil progress. Finally, I would be disinclined to link Tier III interventions directly to referrals for special education. Lucille Eber’s school-based mental health Wraparound approach in Illinois presents an example of a Tier III (tertiary level) intervention that may or may not be associated with an IEP.

Nancy Walser’s article provides a glimpse of how an RtI logic model can form the basis for clear linkages between standards-guided instruction and systematic estimates of school and school district accountability. It illustrates a clear pathway for children in special education to participate fully in school accountability measures. In March 2005, my colleague Blair Roger and I published an article in Phi Delta Kappan showing how the logic of RtI can be extended to an entire structural school reform model. Advanced technologies with emerging data-mining software can now enable school site governance teams to examine a range of levels of pupil progress on a variety of indicators. These levels include district-wide assessments; comparisons across schools; school-wide assessments within implementing schools; aggregate assessments within smaller learning communities within schools; grade-level assessments; classroom assessments; and individual pupil progress. Data-based decision-making processes geared to these assessments can lead to smaller grouping arrangements (second tier) for academic content enhancement strategies, as well as targeted group Positive Behavior Support interventions (e.g. classroom management) where student behavior may be impeding academic progress.

These processes applied on a school-wide basis guided by general education are just in their infancy. Much research to refine these practices is needed and will likely be forthcoming. Walser’s article provides a nice “heads up” for these emerging developments.

Wayne Sailor is a professor of special education and associate director of the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas.

References:

Sailor, W., & Roger, B. (2005). “Rethinking inclusion: Schoolwide
applications.” Phi Delta Kappan 86(7), 503

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports website, www.pbis.org

Eber, L. (2005). “Wraparound: Description and Case Example.” In George Sugai & Rob Horner (2005) Ed., Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Educational Applications, (pp. 1601-1605). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Judith Schickedanz on improving preschool instruction

Catherine Snow's comment (From Liter