June 19, 2020 – Volume 19, Issue 24

Universal high-quality preschool is estimated to close the reading skills gap between Black and White children entering kindergarten by 98 percent and the math skills gap by 45 percent, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s Access to High-Quality Early Education and Racial Equity special report released this week.

While high-quality early childhood education (ECE) “can reduce inequality, the nation is hamstrung by limited public funding to increase access to ECE and by the differentially low quality of pre-K provided to Black children,” write Dr. Steven Barnett and Dr. Allison Friedman-Krauss, the report’s authors.

Noting “the budget problems states currently face,” the report recognizes “providing all Black children access to high-quality preschool will not be a small task.”

But it also warns policymakers what would happen if preschool access and quality are allowed to slide backwards: Racial inequalities will worsen as surely as strengthening public ECE programs will reduce them.

ZERO TO THREE recently released State of Babies Yearbook: 2020, a report and advocacy tool on how the nation’s babies are faring.

“By nearly every measure across all states, children living in poverty and children of color face the biggest obstacles, such as low birthweight, unstable housing, and limited access to quality early learning experiences,” according to ZERO TO THREE. “The report further highlights major disparities that begin before birth, especially for Black children, driven by systemic racism and social injustices.”

NIEER is among several organizers behind Moving New Jersey Forward Amid COVID-19. The initiative seeks to support the development of school district planning that responds to the challenges of COVID-19.

The effort launched this week with “What Schools Need To Know About COVID-19 in Children,” an online video session with special guest Lawrence C. Kleinman, MD, MPH, FAAP, professor and vice chair for academic development, and director of the Division of Population Health, Quality, and Implementation Sciences in the Department of Pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. A pioneer and national leader in children’s health, Dr. Kleinman discussed the latest information schools need to know about COVID-19 in children. The session is available online.

Planned topics include health risks to children and staff, how other states and countries have reopened (or plan to reopen) schools, what we can learn from child care, transportation, budget implications, PPE, parent concerns, teacher and staff concerns, and more.

School districts must plan to meet the educational needs of children with considerable uncertainty and fast-moving changes in knowledge regarding COVID-19. This forum offers access to the latest information including successful examples from other states and countries, support for the use of data in planning and continuous improvement of practice, and a way for district leaders to learn from each other how best to move forward.

Forum organizers are longtime New Jersey school leaders Penelope Lattimer, Kimberley Marcus, and Michael Salvatore with Rutgers Professor Steven Barnett.

Researchers examining relationships between early childhood education parent engagement practices and children’s kindergarten readiness report “ECE parent engagement practices were indirectly associated with kindergarten academic readiness” and “connections between ECE and home engagement were strongest for families with low household incomes.”

Researchers recently examined the “support for families as they verify eligibility as a means for increasing enrollment completion rates” in publically funded early childhood education programs in New Orleans. They found that “text message reminders increased verification rates by seven percentage points (regardless of tone), and personalized messages increased enrollment rates for some groups. Exchanges between parents and administrators revealed the obstacles parents confronted.”

Examining Portuguese preschool children’s adherence with the Portuguese 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24hMG), researchers found “few preschoolers met PA [Physical Activity] and screen-time recommendations” and suggest “finding solutions for promoting better adherence and mainly identifying ways to reduce screen time and increase PA at these ages.”

Researchers investigating “the effectiveness of happiness and mindfulness training in promoting the parental self-efficacy in mothers of anxious preschool children” in Iran suggest “mindfulness and happiness training methods could have lasting effects on the parent-child relationship and change the anxious relationship between parent and child, leading to parental self-efficacy.”

Examining “the longitudinal relationships between home learning experiences and early number skills,” researchers suggest their findings “extend previous findings by demonstrating that interactive code-focused home literacy experiences in the preschool period predict growth in counting skills even when a broad range of language and cognitive abilities are controlled.”