At a time when President Barack Obama’s early childhood education agenda has been somewhat derailed, the U.S. Department of Education will be hosting a series of meetings to discuss critical topics in early learning.
Yes, it’s another listening tour.
It’s not clear exactly what will come out of the meetings, which will take place over the next two months and focus on everything from understanding preschool through grade three to issues of standards, assessments and family engagement. The meetings come as advocates for early childhood education are hoping to have influence over the government’s “blueprint,” for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The U.S. Education Department says on its website that the meetings “will help inform the work of ED and HHS (Health and Human Services) around early learning.”
The meetings will take place in Washington D.C., Denver, Colorado, Orlando, FL and in Chicago and will feature some of the top experts in the U.S., including Marcy Whitebook at the Center f or the Study of Child Care Employment to Ruby Takanishi, president of the Foundation for Child Development.
The first meeting on April 23 can also be accessed as a webinar.
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at 6:20 pm
I think the US Ed Dept should pay attention to infant/toddler
standards and principles even though schools rarely offer infant/toddler education and care. The reason is that the learnings in the first and second year are foundational for learning, and teachers in pre-K and K-3 need to build on the foundations of what a child has already learned. That is true for both reading and math, and also for social and emotional development. Teachers seem to assume that learning begins when the child is first in kindergarten, and they may now learn to assume that it begins in pre-K. But it begins at birth, or even before. If a child has not learned something basic, teachers need
to be able to try offering some of the missing foundational
learning, rather than starting that what they have assumed is the beginning.