EarlyStories » Early Ed and High School Graduation

To delay kindergarten, or not to delay kindergarten: a new study tackles the question

Sarah Garland — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:50:45 +0000

USA Today has thrown a new log on the fire in the debate over whether delaying kindergarten is helpful to children. An article yesterday says nearly a million young children could have been misdiagnosed for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) because they’re simply too young to handle kindergarten.

The newspaper had exclusive access to a new study by Michigan State University, which found that younger kids in grades 5 and 8 tended to use Ritalin – the drug often prescribed for ADHD – more often than older kids in those grades. These findings will no doubt add fodder to the many parenting websites out there giving advice on whether to hold your child back from kindergarten to help them achieve in the long run.

This is certainly not the final word on the issue, however. While some studies have found that students do better on tests if they enter kindergarten later, others have found that delaying kindergarten can have detrimental effects on children. And as USA Today points out, often parents don’t have a choice: Preschool can be expensive, and kindergarten is free.

Follow children’s lead to help them succeed

Sarah Garland — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:48:22 +0000

The American Center for Children and the Media and Teachers College hosted a fun and provocative discussion this morning between Ellen Galinsky, author of the book Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs and Lisa Guernsey, the director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation. The book breaks down dozens of studies about early childhood development into a readable and usable guide on how “children learn best.”

I say fun, because Galinsky’s book is actually a “vook,” or a video-book, which lets readers view some of the thousands of hours of videotape showing children involved in psychology experiments that she collected in her research, a few of which were shown during the presentation this morning. This included a video of the famous marshmallow experiment, which can be viewed along with others on the book’s website.

The discussion was also provocative, especially for those of us focused on the how-children-learn-best question. In her opening remarks, Galinsky talked about her journeys around the country to interview children about how they feel about learning. When she talked to young children and observed babies, “the fire in their eyes is burning,” she said — “You can’t stop them from learning.”

In contrast, when she spoke to high school-aged children, most seemed “dead on arrival.” School was about not becoming a “bum on the street,” and not much more. The underlying quest of the book, she said, was finding out how to keep the fire burning as students get older.

The short answer, according to Galinsky, is to “help them follow their passion.” That is, teachers, parents, administrators and others should follow children’s lead and discover what they’re interested in, then encourage them to go deeper. By this she doesn’t really mean letting children loose to self-direct their own learning. Rather, she held up the example of schools that have seen progress in achievement by doing project-based learning that is based on student interests, which reminded me of some of my own reporting in New York City, where I visited a sports-themed school that has done wonders with high school boys by tapping into their passion for sports.

If it’s done right, Galinsky argues that this kind of educational environment will develop the Seven Skills that are essential for kids to get along in the world now and in the future. The seven skills, by the way, are as follows: Focus and Self Control; Perspective Taking; Communicating; Making Connections; Critical Thinking; Taking On Challenges; Self-Directed, Engaged Learning. Does this seem like an exhaustive list, or is something missing?

–Sarah Garland

Passionate Republican support for Early Learning Challenge Fund

Liz Willen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:52:09 +0000

With a big week looming in health care reform, many questions remain about the fate of President Barack Obama’s early learning initiatives.
Susan B. Neuman, a former assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education in former President George W. Bush’s administration, acknowledges in a piece for Roll Call that while her affiliation with the Repulican party has been lifelong, she wants her party to support student loan reform in part because of its impact on early education.
Neuman, a professor in education studies at the University of Michigan, comes out pushing hard for student loan reform and expressed her hope that the Senate passes it for many reasons including the $10 billion for the Early Learning Challenge Fund.
“This fund will promote improvements in early learning standards and ensure students in the next generation have the skills that they need for kindergarten and the rest of their education,” Neuman wrote. “The fund is targeted to at-risk children because the science is very clear that the first five years are where we can make a difference with this group. While serving in the Bush administration, my belief in the benefits of early education became even stronger. Economists, business leaders and child development experts agree that smart investments in early education are essential to closing the achievement gap.”
Republicans, Neuman says, “need to be part of the solution, and this bill aligns with their core beliefs.”
Neuman’s push comes at a time when all eyes in Washington and across the U.S. are watching health care reform this week. Early Ed Watch noted last week that the fate of Early Learning Challenge Grants may depend on what becomes of President Barack Obama’s health care plan and the bill Democrats may be ready to send to him by the end of the week.
Stay tuned.

Head Start and Teacher Training: An Issue Worth Examining

RLeeColvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:32:06 +0000

A recent television report scratched the surface of the many issues journalists ought to start exploring when looking at the planned expansion of the federally funded Early Head Start and Head Start.
The story reported on the lack of qualifications of Head Start teachers in Orange County, Florida and noted that many teachers involved in Orange County’s Head Start program may not be qualified. The story also cited recent test scores showing that Head Start students were falling behind others in the state and nation “in all the critical areas that help prepare them for elementary school.”
It did not delve into what will be a critical issue in the coming years as Head Start teachers will be asked to be certified with at least a bachelor’s degree. The issue comes at a time when Head Start should face scrutiny by journalists and the public after President Barack Obama pledged an expansion of Early Head Start and Head Start using $5 billion in federal stimulus money.
EarlyStories has noted that few journalists bother to visit Head Start centers and report on their quality or effectiveness. A recent conversation with W. Steve Barnett of NIEER yielded some excellent questions and points journalists might think about when covering Head Start.
Barnett, Co-Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University, suggested that reporters take a look at the extensive research available on Head Start, including a study by Westinghouse Learning Corporation and Ohio University, which concluded that Head Start produced few sustained educational benefits.
The study, Barnett noted, had “numerous methodological flaws and has been roundly criticized.”
Other studies are quite mixed; Barnett said the best long-term studies suggest “modest positive benefits across a wide range of outcomes including mortality and health.”
Barnett urges journalists to take a look at the ongoing Head Start Impact Study, a nationally representative randomized trial that he said provides the most rigorous evaluation to date of Head Start’s effects.

Initial results from the study released in 2005 found very modest gains from participating in one year of Head Start, “with the largest impacts on parent reports of their children’s literacy skills and receipt of dental care,” Barnett said in an email to EarlyStories. He added that while the results may be strong enough to justify the cost of Head Start on purely economic grounds, “even the most generous assessment of the results finds that the impacts on language and mathematics are disappointing and compare poorly to the impacts of other large scale preschool education programs as the programs providing the rationale for Head Start.”
Barnett wants to know why the federal government has released no further findings from the study — a question journalists may want to pose. He added several more good questions. For example, it how much of the Head Start budget is spent at the center level and classroom level and how much goes to particular aspects of the program’s mission such as: education in the classroom, health related services, and services to parents?
The Orange County story did not attempt to answer this questions, but it managed to create a dialogue in the community about what qualifications Head Start teachers — who in this case earned little more than $13 an hour — should have. In addition, it raised questions about the value of the program and the quality of what learning is — or is not — taking place.

A Tale of Too Long Hair in Kindergarten

RLeeColvin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:18:28 +0000

With all the learning and socialization that needs to take place in kindergarten, it’s hard to imagine a school district getting caught up in a struggle over how long a child’s hair can be. It’s even harder to imagine a child being ordered to learn in isolation because of his hair.
Yet that’s exactly what happened in rural Needville Texas, according to a story in the Houston Chronicle, The paper has been following the case of a five-year-old American Indian boy who was kept out of class for several months because of the length of his hair.
The school district maintained the boy had violated the school’s dress code, which forbids boys from wearing their hair long. The boy was told he could wear his hair in one long braid tucked into his shirt, but when he arrived wearing two braids outside his shirt he was ordered to attend classes in isolation.
It took the involvement of a federal judge to rule that the Needville School District had violated state law and the U.S. Constitution by punishing the boy for his religious beliefs. The boy’s father maintained that the part-Apache Indian child considered his long hair sacred, and held to a tradition of not cutting it except during major life events.
The case drew the interest of the American Civil Liberties Union after the boy was suspended for not complying with a school’s dress code policy that required short hair. The boy’s parents had sent him to school in braids. The ACLU lauded the judge’s decision.

Oklahoma Pre-K in the Spotlight

Liz Willen — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:18:42 +0000

Following up on the attention paid to the new Bill Gormley study of the effects of the state’s $7,000 per year prekindergarten program I came across this ABC television report from May. It shows the power of television when done well. I particularly liked the video of a kindergartner who had attended pre-k writing letters (steady, clear, nicely formed) while, on a split screen, a kindergartner who had not gone to pre-k tried to do the same. (wobbly lines, some unrecognizable letters, slower).
The ABC report quoted candidate Obama saying he supported pre-k because it would return $10 for every dollar invested. I’ve now come across economic returns estimates of between $2.36 and $17 for each dollar invested. (See Clive Belfield’s report as well as this oneby Steve Aos at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy.)
Not sure where Obama’s number comes from but what’s important is that each of these studies makes different assumptions, uses different methodologies for evaluating costs and savings, and covers different time periods. Point is that even the lowest estimate shows a better than one-to-one return. That return has to be evaluated against the returns from other social interventions, some of which are highly targeted and others, such as public schooling in general, that are universal.

Asking The Tough Questions: Why Pre-K Follow-up is Critical

RLeeColvin — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:06:24 +0000

Ann Doss Helms of the Charlotte Observer posed some interesting questions in a Sunday story on Bright Beginnings, a pre-kindergarten program in Charlotte-Mecklenberg schools with a big promise — to transform the lives of at-risk children and help them succeed later on.

Her story found the $23 million a year program has not kept its promises and that the school system cannot say what its academic impact has been. The Chief accountability officer of the district told Doss Helms that analyzing the success of the pioneer class — now high school freshmen — isn’t on their radar, at a time when long-term research on the impact of public pre-kindergarten is lagging. A sidebar to the story shows how little data a researcher hired to analyze the program has received.
As states and governors consider investing public funds in pre-kindergarten, it’s critical for journalists to follow-up the way the Doss Helms has done and hold the programs and public officials accountable. The questions her story poses — including what factors determine and shape a student’s success, and what influence a strong pre-kindergarten program might have — must be part of the public dialogue.

Better Early Start Urged From Cal State Chancellor

RLeeColvin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:40:47 +0000

Charles B. Reed, who oversees 46,000 faculty and staff and 450,000 students on 23 California campuses, weighed in on the future of the littlest Californians in an op-ed piece that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.
Reed has his hands full managing young adults at the country’s largest senior system of public higher education. His plea, though, was aimed on giving a better beginning to those he hopes will become future students. Reed noted that solid pre-kindergarten programs can pay long term dividends in the years to come — and that only about half of eligible, low-income, preschool-age children in California receive a publicly subsidized pre-K start.
Reed noted two recent reports on this issue worthing taking a look at: the first from the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence and a second was convened by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.
The report found that the achievement gap in the K-12 years begins when kids first enter kindergarten class — and that those who start behind, stay behind. “Without a strong beginning, these children can only grasp at an elusive dream,” Reed writes.

The Price We Pay

RLeeColvin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:40:59 +0000

Teachers College Prof. Henry Levin and Clive Belfield of Queens College (formerly of TC) are getting attention for “The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education,” an interesting book they edited that tries to calculate the costs to the economy of school failure. It’s worth checking out because part of it tries to find interventions that actually work and then tries to figure out if they are cost effective. (Of course that calculation gets into all sorts of non-quantitative stuff like values, one’s philosophy regarding the role of government and society’s obligations to its members.) For example, the economists calculate that offering preschool the quality of the legendary Perry Preschool Project of 40 years ago to 100 children would produce an additional 19 high school graduates. But the study concludes that a high school reform program called First Things First provides far better bang for the buck.

WashPost Jay Mathews on Dropout Solutions

RLeeColvin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:30:47 +0000

I admire the way Jay Mathews, the Washington Post’s education columnist and reporter, takes on the real stuff of education and does so in a plain-spoken, non-wonky, real-world way that is always interesting. Good example is a column he did focusing on Levin and Belfield’s new book (see previous entry). A book on the
economics of education sounds daunting but Jay lays some of the important ideas out quite well. He notes, for example, that Levin and Belfield calculate that providing the equivalent of the Perry Preschool Project from 40 years ago to 100 children would produce an additional 19 high school graduates.