News Archive for 2012
Feb 2, 2012 (Winston-Salem Journal)
Editorial: Benefits of early childhood education should be a no-brainer
Good preschool education for at-risk youngsters leads to better performance in school and, in adult life, less need for expensive social assistance, less criminal activity and more economic production.
Feb 2, 2012 (Hartford Courant)
Malloy proposes $12 million for early education
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a $12 million investment Thursday to improve and expand access to state preschool programs, an area he has identified as a priority for the upcoming legislative session that he wants to see focused largely on education reform.
Jan 30, 2012 (Reno Gazette-Journal)
Survey: Schools' progress static
One measurement that reflects the state's sagging grade of D in school financing is the C- in early education. State schools superintendent Keith Rheault said comprehensive prekindergarten education is a fiscal issue.
Jan 30, 2012 (The Detroit News)
Michigan kindergarten funding requires full day
In September, public schools must offer all-day kindergarten to receive full funding for each kindergarten pupil, under rules approved last year by the Legislature. Districts still can offer half-day programs but will lose half of their per-pupil funding for each student.
Jan 29, 2012 (The Blade, Toledo, OH)
Questions surround Head Start
[Steven] Barnett, who is also a professor of education, economics, and policy at Rutgers, said that although there is a great deal of monitoring and regulation of Head Start by the federal government, there is little focus on how much children learn.
Jan 28, 2012 (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
Closing the gap in early learning
In the past decade, Ohio and Kentucky joined a majority of states in dramatically increasing what they spend on early learning. The recession and state budget cuts, however, slashed early learning spending in both states since.
Jan 27, 2012 (The Dothan Eagle, Dothan, AL)
State pre-k program seeks efficiency to bring services to more children
While state pre-K programs are suffering cuts nationwide, Alabama's small pre-K program has held fairly steady in funding and is looking for ways to maximize its dollars to add more students to its rolls.
Jan 26, 2012 (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA)
Gov. Bobby Jindal proposes grading early childhood programs
A plan to rework Louisiana's uncoordinated system of prekindergarten and early childhood education programs is tucked in the list of Gov. Bobby Jindal's education agenda for the upcoming legislative session. The proposals would grade preschools, streamline governance and yank funding for underperforming programs.
Jan 26, 2012 (EdSource)
Experts say math preparation should begin in preschool
Education leaders in California are turning their sights to making sure students have a strong foundation in mathematics when they enter kindergarten. And that means introducing students to math in preschool.
Jan 25, 2012 (The New York Times)
Op-Ed: The True Cost of High School Dropouts
Like President Obama, many reformers focus their dropout prevention efforts on high schoolers; replacing large high schools with smaller learning communities where poor students can get individualized instruction from dedicated teachers has been shown to be effective. Rigorous evidence gathered over decades suggests that some of the most promising approaches need to start even earlier: preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, who are fed and taught in small groups, followed up with home visits by teachers and with group meetings of parents; reducing class size in the early grades; and increasing teacher salaries from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Jan 25, 2012 (Fronteras: The Changing America Desk, Phoenix, AZ)
The Latino Gap: Preschool Helps, But Not Enough Are Enrolled
There is a wealth of evidence that early education is key when it comes to narrowing the achievement gap between Latino children and their peers. But across the country and this region, access to quality affordable preschool is lacking.
Jan 24, 2012 (Parenting.com)
How to Raise Gifted Children
From Mozart in the womb to Chinese lessons in preschool, there are many parents eager to give their kids a jump-start on the sort of smarts our modern-day lifestyle equates with success.
Jan 22, 2012 (The News Dispatch, Michigan City, IN)
Tallian pushes to make kindergarten mandatory
State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, has authored legislation for the 2012 session that aims to give every Hoosier child the benefits of a kindergarten education. Parents would need to register their children for at least a half-day kindergarten program by the fall term of the school year in which the student turns 6.
Jan 22, 2012 (The Christian Science Monitor)
Toddlers to tweens: relearning how to play
Children's play is threatened, say experts who advise that kids from toddlers to tweens should be relearning how to play. Roughhousing and fantasy feed development.
She is not alone in her concerns. In recent years, child development experts, parents, and scientists have been sounding an increasingly urgent alarm about the decreasing amount of time that children and adults, for that matter spend playing. A combination of social forces, from a No Child Left Behind focus on test scores to the push for children to get ahead with programmed extracurricular activities, leaves less time for the roughhousing, fantasizing, and pretend worlds advocates say are crucial for development.
Jan 21, 2012 (Battle Creek Enquirer, Battle Creek, MI)
Editorial: No time to cut back: Funding early education now will pay off later
We understand the budgetary constraints that all governments face. But cutting back on efforts to ensure a better educated populace surely will backfire. Strong schools help create a skilled work force, which in turn yields contributing, taxpaying citizens.
Jan 20, 2012 (The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC)
Study lauds role of early ed
Poor children who get high-quality day care as early as infancy reap long-lasting benefits, including a better chance at a college degree and steady employment, according to a UNC-Chapel Hill study that followed participants from birth to age 30.
Jan 19, 2012 (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Editorial: Early learning
Early-childhood education, whether it takes place in the home or in a preschool or both, is the foundation of a productive academic experience. Like the foundation of a house, it must be put in place properly or the structure that follows is undermined. And trying to repair it later is usually futile.
Jan 19, 2012 (Orlando Sentinel)
Thousands of pre-K providers face probation
About 2,100 of Florida's pre-kindergarten providers 35 percent of the total likely will be on probation this year because not enough of their graduates tested ready for kindergarten this past fall, state data shows.
Jan 18, 2012 (The Beacon-Villager, Maynard, MA)
Fed funds boost early education as Patrick cites 'challenging' budget
While early education advocates on Tuesday cheered the receipt of $50 million in federal grant money to support pre-kindergarten programs, officials acknowledged that funding remains the key impediment to access for many families across the state.
Jan 17, 2012 (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Recession slows growth in public prekindergarten
The expansion in public prekindergarten programs has slowed and even been reversed in some states as school districts cope with shrinking budgets. As a result, many 3- and 4-year-olds aren't going to preschool.
Jan 17, 2012 (Miami Herald)
Fla. audit suggests possible fraud and waste
A sweeping new state audit has found widespread problems with a more than $1 billion program responsible for helping the state's pre-school children.
Jan 17, 2012 (Rutgers Focus)
Bilingual Education Can Start Preschoolers on Path to Success
Figueras-Daniel a research project coordinator for the National Institute for Early Education Research at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education who is working on a doctorate in education policy has seen firsthand the positive impact dual-language immersion programs have on preschoolers. Early exposure to a second language enhances cognitive abilities, such as self-regulation skills.
Jan 13, 2012 (The Sacramento Bee)
Plan to scrap kindergarten program spurs protest
California educators and childcare advocates are protesting Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to scrap a new program for children who are no longer old enough for kindergarten.
Jan 12, 2012 (Early Ed Watch blog (New America Foundation))
10 Hot Spots in Early Ed for 2012
A sluggish economic recovery from the recession, and the expiration of federal stimulus funds, presents more roadblocks to increasing funding for childhood development programs.
Jan 12, 2012 (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Utah looks at giving kids a boost before kindergarten
Education leaders are considering implementing standards outlining what children should know before they enter kindergarten in hopes of helping them be better prepared, but some say the state is creeping into an area where it does not belong.
Jan 10, 2012 (Los Angeles Times)
Head Start programs could face disruptions in funding, operations
The Los Angeles County Office of Education was included among more than 130 agencies around the country that did not meet federal performance standards and will now have to compete with other potential providers to receive funding. Head Start is a nearly 50-year-old preschool program for low-income families; about 1 million children are enrolled.
Jan 10, 2012 (The News-Times, Danbury, CT)
Educators see two sides to Malloy's preschool plan
[Connecticut Gov. Dannel P.] Malloy's call for a more coordinated system does not mandate early childhood education but suggests there should be universal access and benchmarks for all public and private providers to meet.
Jan 8, 2012 (The Times-News, Burlington, NC)
Pre-K program organizers are trying to do the same with less
During the past year, waiting lists across the state for the Pre-K program have increased just as funding cuts were implemented.
Jan 7, 2012 (North County Times, Escondido, CA)
Gov.'s budget proposal threatens transitional kindergarten plan
A proposed state budget released last week could derail a two-year kindergarten program for younger students that school districts in North County and throughout the state had been preparing to start this fall.
Jan 6, 2012 (San Antonio Express-News)
City lauded for Head Start changes
The city of San Antonio has solved many of the problems with the Head Start program since it took over closer management of it three years ago, according to a federal report released this week. Despite the good news, the city will have to compete for the first time against other agencies to keep managing the $48.8 million program.
Jan 6, 2012 (Exeter News-Letter, Portsmouth, NH)
A close call: Head Start survives state cuts
The state budget that passed last year, eliminated funding to the Head Start programs across the state, resulting in a $300,000 total cut.
Jan 5, 2012 (Hartford Courant)
Editorial: Urgent Steps Needed To Fix State's Shame: Education
Studies show that pre-K has lingering, positive impacts even decades later. But Connecticut ranks a miserable 29th out of 50 states in giving 4-year-olds access to preschool, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.
Jan 5, 2012 (The Augusta Chronicle, Augusta, GA)
Deal's pre-k plan restores 10 days, raises teacher pay, reduces pupils' slots
Gov. Nathan Deal said Thursday that he wants to add 10 days to the state's prekindergarten calendar this fall, restoring half the number he eliminated to help save the program in 2011.
Jan 4, 2012 (Chicago Tribune)
Daycare providers say kids are too inactive
Potential playground hazards, a focus on classroom learning and boring play equipment have children spending too little time being physically active at daycare, according to a survey of staff members at child care centers in Ohio.
Jan 3, 2012 (Education Week)
Challenges lie ahead for early-learning grant winners
The nine states splitting $500 million in Race to the Top early-learning grants must now deliver on a slate of ambitious promises to improve the quality of early-childhood education for tens of thousands of low-income children who rely on a patchwork of publicly financed child-care and preschool programs.
Jan 3, 2012 (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, CA)
Federal funding to expand preschool ratings program
At least 200 more area preschools will be rated on Los Angeles Universal Preschool's evaluation system to help parents decide on where to send their children to preschool, and increase accountability for early education programs.
Jan 3, 2012 (The New York Times)
Editorial: Raising Standards for Head Start
Last month, scores of Head Start grant recipients in about 40 states including those in New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore and New Haven were informed that they will be required to reapply for their grants because they do not meet certain administrative requirements.
Jan 1, 2012 (The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS)
State lacks early education system
When it comes to early education, there is agreement on what Mississippi needs: a seamless statewide system, uniform assessments of incoming students, greater investment of state funds. But the challenge will be making those things happen in another tight budget year when, even during flush times, lawmakers wouldn't commit the funds for the cause.