Hey Abbott!

In 1998 the New Jersey Supreme Court mandated that 31 school districts provide universal pre-k services because of a lawsuit involving inequitable funding. The case, Abbott vs. Burke resulted in numerous changes in the districts involved in the lawsuit including the courts mandating of universal pre-k access in the districts involved. These districts have become known as Abbott Preschool Districts and their pre-k programs have been the topic of much eyeballing by policy makers and advocates interested in finding out if it would result in high outcomes for children.

Recently, Jennifer Dubin wrote a detailed story on A Preschool with Promise, a day in the life of an Abbott district preschool classroom. The center featured in the article, published by the American Federation of Teachers, is the Ignacio Cruz Early Childhood Center. Dubin describes a day of high quality services from the standpoint of children's experiences. She describes a rich and engaging day of learning that included reading and math instruction, pretend play, and social-emotional development. One of the key areas explored in the article is the differences between 3 year old and 4 year old curriculum. The primary difference is that 3 year old students focus more on social emotional development and gaining an awareness of the functions and processes of going to formal school. The 4 year old curriculum focuses on preparing students socially and academically for kindergarten.

Understanding the differences that should be addressed in a 3 year old vs. 4 year old classroom is a topic we have struggled with in my own school division. We have approached the issue by organizing a 3 year old curriculum team to consider what is appropriate to expect of childrens development before they leave their 3 year old year in Head Start based on Virginia's Milestones of Child Development. It is a hard process that has helped me understand the difficulty of vertical alignment of learning.

Lateral as well as longitudinal collaboration within the Perth Amboy school district has created a high quality environment for learning. Lateral is collaboration between the public schools and private providers who help achieve the vision of the district's superintendent John Rodecker, "The goal is to serve every eligible student, we thought we were close to that," The numbers keep growing." In January there was still a waiting list of 100 students. There is also vertical or longitudinal collaboration between the preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers. "Perth Amboy's kindergarten and preschool teachers began meeting together regularly to review state standards that outline what students should learn in each grade. Through these meetings, teachers align the knowledge and skills that children should acquire in preschool to the expectations for the transition to kindergarten."

All eyes are on the universal efforts in the Abbott school districts to keep the promise of a high quality pre-k experience. The results, at least from the perspective of children, seems to be right on track.

IMage: http://www.ourchildrenourschools.org/newsletters/nlf_intro.jpg

Wait Listed

A recent article in the Landcaster New Era, Wait list grows along with state preschool funding, describes a growing trend in early childhood education.  Although funding has been increased in some states, the need and interest in programming for our youngest learners has increased even more! 
 
The great thing about this article is the awareness it brings to the need for well-supported and funded pre-kindergarten programs.  After one year, Pre-K Counts states its participants have made “tremendous growth.”  Great!  Now, the frustrating part: the article mentions that the funding, although increased, is not enough to support the families that need and want these services.  It doesn’t make sense that a program with numerous life long benefits would be inadequately funded.  The money spent early in a child’s life will be saved in the coming years.  It is a classic example of a good investment that will mature over time.  Some of the comments associated with the online posting of this article were also frustrating.   It is frustrating to me, as an early childhood educator and as someone who respects children, to hear skeptics question which children need pre-k education.  The answer is EVERYONE!  Although there are higher risk students, every child has a right to be involved in early educational experiences.  Not every student is an English language learner, and not every student has developmental delays, but each child needs to practice interacting positively with their peers and developing good learning habits.  Early childhood classrooms provide a safe environment to develop those skills that are not always easy to assess.  Again, the pre-k issue comes down to closing the opportunity gap.  Parents need affordable and consistent programming that will support their child as he/she begins a lifetime of learning.  

It Will Happen in My Lifetime

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 my husband; a native Bostonian and die hard Red Sox fan, purchased a t-shirt that read “It happened in my lifetime,” which he still wears to this day with great pride.  While it was - and still is - a very appropriate slogan for the Red Sox, I can’t help but think it also lends itself well to the pre-k-for-all cause. The fact that all the political candidates have made pre-k a part of their platforms is telling; pre-k has finally become a major bipartisan issue. Regardless of your political affiliations, one thing is for sure: big changes are in store for pre-k in the very near future.

When I first started teaching I thought I would never see pre-k for all in my lifetime, but now I’m beginning to think I may. During the last ten years, I have seen a gradual shift in the public perception of pre-k. It’s the little things like conferences being offered nationally just for pre-k teachers, or even vendors offering products and services for pre-k (yes, even curriculum!) that give me hope.

In the last ten years the number of states offering pre-k has grown dramatically, states such as Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma now provide pre-k for all.  When I was looking for a job teaching public pre-k in 1999 my options were very limited, but as you can see from the map, things have changed.

There are those who are opposed to pre-k for all, and while I don’t have all the answers I can tell them this. The students in my classroom may be identified as “at-risk” when they arrive, but after 190 days spent in our pre-k program, they are so far ahead of their peers who didn’t attend public pre-k that the gap isn’t even a gap anymore - it’s a chasm and it can’t be bridged. Our kindergarten teachers notice a huge difference between those students who did and didn’t attend our public pre-k program. They spend all year trying to play “catch up” with those students who didn’t go to pre-k; many struggle with the higher standards of today’s kindergarten classrooms.

There was a time when kindergarten wasn’t widespread or widely accepted. I believe that pre-k will follow in the footsteps of kindergarten and will someday be accepted and offered in every state to every child. I know that one day, in the not too distant future, my husband and I will be wearing t-shirts with identical slogans, but they will hold different meanings.

Full Day vs. Half Day

For many years, pre-k in my school district was a half-day program. This meant that I had two classes: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our days were very busy trying to make the most of our 2 ½ hours together. It always felt like we were racing against the clock just to accomplish the bare minimum of our curriculum.  The teachers held out hope that some day our district would offer full-day pre-k.

In the fall of 2006 our district decided to pilot a full-day pre-k program and my campus was selected as one of the three to pilot the program. Now, our students are in school from 7:50am-3:10pm and thriving. We have more time to get to know our students' personalities and learning styles better and we teach more effectively. As a result, students adjusted to school more quickly and achieved more quickly.

Not only are children thriving, their families are thriving as a result. Most of our students' parents work--some hold two jobs just to make ends meet. When we taught half-day classes, many parents could not afford licensed daycare and had to hire babysitters to watch their children for the rest of the day.  With full day pre-k, most parents can still work full-time and pick up their children after a full day of learning--potentially saving money on child care.

The pilot program was so successful that this academic year, full-day pre-k is offered throughout the district. Our second year has been an even greater success because we now have a better feel for how much our students can learn in the full-day setting. Instead of spending all year focusing on letter identification, we have been able to delve into other areas such as math, in much greater depth than ever before.  Our students now have more time to spend learning concepts such as 1:1 correspondence, sorting, patterning, and number recognition.  Our full day curricculum includes more phonemic awareness skills, rhyming, syllables, and even reading (yes--you read that correctly--reading!).

Our kindergarten teachers are pleased by how prepared their students are now compared to when our classes were half-day. The parents are thrilled by how much their children are learning in pre-k. It is obvious that full-day pre-k is benefiting both our students and our community by providing a much needed, high-quality educational setting.

Circle Time Question: Pre-k and Hispanic Children

Last week, the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics released an important report called “Para nuestros niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics."  The report highlights the fact that much of the achievement gap between Hispanic children and their peers exists before they enter kindergarten. Citing research on how high-quality pre-k and other early childhood programs improve Hispanic children’s school readiness, the task force issued recommendations aimed at:

• Increasing Hispanic children’s access to high-quality early education;
• Increasing the number of Spanish-speaking educators; and
• Designing and evaluating strategies to strengthen Hispanic children’s language and literacy skills.

What do you think about these objectives and how we can achieve them? How does your pre-k program help Hispanic children and families overcome barriers like access and language?