Picking a good preschool: Security cameras, check!
Seven tips for choosing a good daycare center arrived in the Hechinger mailbag today from Kelly Mayberry, director of a daycare in Dallas. Not necessarily bad points. But what’s missing are tips for how to judge what’s happening educationally in an early childhood setting, probably the area most difficult for parents to judge. In the [...]
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’s impact on children
A summer guest of EarlyStories, Susan Sawyers, had a chance to participate in a radio discussion recently that focused on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the lives of young children, and its impact on their behavior and ability to succeed in school. It turns out that the younger the child is at the time of [...]
Lessons in early learning from Montgomery County
At a time when budget cuts are derailing public pre-kindergarten programs and other districts are trying to figure out how to integrate early learning, the Montgomery County school system in Maryland is touting a model for success they believe can be replicated to help narrow the achievement gap. The report is available on the website [...]
Could Title I fill in the early childhood funding gaps?
That’s the suggestion of Danielle Ewen of the Center for Law and Social Policy in an interview on the Washington Post today. She says Title I requirements are flexible enough for school districts to spread them beyond the elementary school years, where they’ve typically been spent. It’s an interesting proposal: Should Title I dollars be [...]
Preschool depression and poverty
The New York Times Magazine has a story about depression among preschoolers this week, which asks whether depression can be diagnosable among young children, and, if so, where it might come from. The article suggests that maternal depression can play a role, but is not definitive. The author writes: “Despite the assumption that these kids [...]
By the numbers: Early education favored more by RttT losers
In defending the Obama administration’s record on early education, officials have occasionally mentioned early education’s role in the Race to the Top competition. But in an analysis over on the Hechinger Report, we found that mentions of early education were more associated with losing applications. We counted the number of times that finalists in the [...]
Monetizing the work of preschool teachers
Preschool teachers make less than animal trainers; the average salary, at $27,450, is not much higher than the federal poverty level. While this is not news to those in the early education field, an entry in the “Economix” blog the other day has an interesting discussion about why. The story jumps off the New York [...]
To delay kindergarten, or not to delay kindergarten: a new study tackles the question
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 [...]
No Child ‘Left’ Behind
It’s International Left Handers Day, a time to celebrate the lefties among us! It’s also a day to recall that lefthandedness was once stigmatized. One of my colleagues says she would have been left handed, but her kindergarten teacher forced crayons into her right hand until she got the hang of it. Although some lefties [...]
Feds say early ed wasn’t left out of Innovation Fund
Education Secretary Arne Duncan got on the phone with early learning advocates today to talk about the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) competition and what’s in it for children age zero to five. The Department of Education announced the competition’s finalists last week, and some advocates say the list gives short shrift to early education [...]
