High Quality Diverse Delivery Systems Summit IV, Early Childhood Education: Promising Progress

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High Quality Diverse Delivery SystemsSummit IV,
Early Childhood Education Promising Progress
Libby Doggett, Ph. D. Executive Director
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Pre-K Now

• National non-profit, public education and
  advocacy organization.
• Mission is to collaborate with policymakers and
  advocates to lead a movement for high quality,
  voluntary pre-k for all three and four year olds.

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Salute to your success

• Explosion of research
• Brain research
• Economic data
• State evaluations
• Part of education reform in early grades and
  reaching goals of NCLB
• Concern about achievement gap at kindergarten and
  beyond
• It works and public supports pre-k

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Pre-K Around the Country

• Access increased a remarkable
• 20 between 2005-06 and 2006-07
• Nationwide, over a million children
• attended a state pre-k program
• The South continues to outpace all
• other regions of the country
• 4 and 3 year olds are seeing gains in
  access
• 10 states still have no investment in
• pre-k

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Research Matters Abecedarian Academic Benefits
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Quality Matters (NIEER Benchmarks)

• Standard No. of states
  2006-2007
• Comprehensive early learning standards 41
• Teacher has BA 27
• Teacher has specialized training in pre-k 36
• Asst. teacher has CDA or equivalent 11
• At least 15 hours/year in-service training 37
• Max class size 20 41
• Staff-child ratio 110 42
• Vision, hearing and at least 1 support service 35
• At least one meal
• Site visits for monitoring 38

Source National Institute for Early Education
Research
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Pre-K Champions matter Superintendent Cecil
Picard

• We have been singled out for our improvements in
  teaching quality and we have created a renowned
  early childhood education program, LA 4. While
  there is still much work to be done, our state is
  firmly on the road leading toward true education
  reform."

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• Pre-K for All
• Legislation and funding in place Florida,
  Georgia, Oklahoma
• Legislation in place New York, West Virginia,
  Illinois, Iowa
• School funding formula Maine, Oklahoma,
  Wisconsin, Vermont, District of Columbia, West
  Virginia
• States Moving beyond Targeted Programs
• Texas has added children in military families and
  foster care
• Governors in Tennessee, New Mexico and Virginia
  have all expressed a desire to provide pre-k to
  all four year olds
• Governor Corzine added New Jersey to the list of
  states that use the school funding formula for
  targeted pre-k Other states include Colorado,
  Michigan, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Texas

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Could pre-k for all produce similar benefits for
the middle class?

• Middle class children have fairly high rates of
  the problems that preschool reduces for
  low-income children.
• Reducing these problems could generate large
  benefits.
• Income Retention Dropout
• Lowest 20 17 23
• 20-80 12 11
• Highest 20 8 3

Source US Department of Education, NCES (1997).
Dropout rates in the United States 1995.
Figures are multi-year averages.
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Cognitive Readiness Gap
Source National Institute for Early Education
Research, 2004
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Social Readiness Gap
School Readiness Gap
Source National Institute for Early Education
Research, 2004
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The benefits of pre-k for all children
Effects of Tulsa Pre-k Program by Race/Ethnicity
of Student
Source The Effects of Oklahomas Universal
Pre-Kindergarten Program on School Readiness.
Gormley, W. (2004). Georgetown University Center
for Research on Children in the U.S.
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Having the Right Governor MattersGrowth of state
support for pre-k nationwide
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Having the Business community and other unlikely
allies mattes
Natural Allies Child care providers
teachers/directors Other advocacy groups Head
Start community Unions K-12 advocates and
community leaders Legislative champions Unlikely
Allies Law enforcement Business (Chambers,
United Way, large employers) Older/Retired
citizens Doctors and pediatricians Legal
community Faith/religious community Candidates
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• Diverse Delivery in the States
• About 30 of children served by state pre-k are
  in non-school settings
• All states offering pre-k allow for diverse
  delivery (direct grantee or subcontract)
• Two states require that a minimum percentage of
  pre-k be delivered in community-based settings

www.preknow.org
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Benefits of a Diverse Delivery System

• Gives families a choice of quality programs in a
  variety of locales
• Delivers services of varying durations (half day,
  school day, full working day)
• Builds on strengths of different parts of our
  system and blends philosophies and approaches
• Increases physical capacity so we can serve more
  children
• Improves overall quality of ECE system
• Helps bring disparate programs together into a
  system of early education

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Collaboration across the country

• Around the country community providers and
  schools are beginning to align learning
  expectations.
• In NY community programs can afford to buy new
  equipment and teaching materials
• In NJ more teachers in community programs are
  getting their BA degrees and teacher
  certification,
• In NY more low-income children are gaining access
  to services,

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• Collaboration around the country
• WI programs serving children with special
  needs are expanding and creating more integrated
  classrooms
• OK has opened up its professional development
  for the all staff in community settings
• In NJ children in community programs are doing
  as well as those in school based programs.
• In TN early childhood experts see increased
  use of developmentally-appropriate practices
  across all settings

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We cant solve tomorrows problems with todays
solutions 

• We need to redefine public education more broadly
• We need to use collaborative models from special
  education and alternative schools
• We need to realize these are all our children

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Children are the messengers we send to a future
we cannot see.