March 31, 2018

Early ed comes out ahead in federal spending package

Credit: Erin Brownfield, EdSource
Early education advocates are enthusiastic about at least some aspects of the $1.3 trillion federal omnibus spending package passed by the House and Senate and then signed by President Trump on March 23, with significant implications for children in California. 

One is the dramatic funding increase of $2.37 billion to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act. This increase, which is the largest in the program's history, would nearly double total CCDBG funding to $5.22 billion. According to Kris Perry, president of Save the Children Action Network, "This deal will allow over 200,000 more low-income children to receive access to high-quality child care programs, which we know levels the playing field for all children."  That suggests that 20,000 or more children in California could benefit from the increase. 
 
The funding increase would also allow for full implementation of the 2014 reauthorization of CCDBG which includes health and safety standards and increases to provider reimbursement rates. The proposal also includes $610 million in new funding for Head Start. Head Start's executive director Yasmina Vinci said, "This increase will mean that programs can better support teachers and staff, more children will have access to full-day, full-year early child education, and more infants and toddlers will start off life with the Head Start advantage." 

According to the nonprofit think tank New America, the funding increase for CCDBG will also be used to improve professional development for the child care workforce and help meet the needs of parents who work non-traditional hours.   For more on the child care funding increase, check out this report by Gina Adams from the Urban Institute, and this one  from the National Women's Law Center.   
 
In another victory for children's advocates, despite fears that the federal government would drastically cut support to after-school and summer programs, the budget agreement includes $1.21 billion in funding for these programs, which will provide thousands of children in high-poverty areas help with reading, math and science homework after school as well as important nutrition services. Read about why after-school advocates are still on edge at this link.  
 

"Superdiversity" -- a term that's increasingly on the early education radar  

While states across the country are making strides in establishing
Credit: Erin Brownfield 
effective teaching strategies for students who speak more than one language in bilingual education classrooms, far less work is being done to support educators in multilingual classrooms where children speak a wide range of languages and come from diverse cultural backgrounds, especially in preschools.
 
This is a key observation in a recent report produced by The Migration Policy Institute. The report titled, "The Language of the Classroom: Dual Language Learners in Head Start, Public Pre-K and Private Preschool Programs," examines successful teaching practices to support young students in a classroom where several languages are spoken.
 
The report uses the term "superdiversity," to define classroom settings where multiple languages, dialects and cultures are spoken and represented. The report states that the percentage of children who speak a language other than English at home has more than doubled in the last three decades, "intensifying the need for educators, researchers and policymakers to provide effective programs that promote" school readiness.

While the study focuses on schools in Boston, the findings highlight effective teaching practices for diverse student populations similar to the diversity levels in states like California. California has approximately 1.4 million English learners in the state's public schools. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, of the top 10 districts in the country with the highest concentration of students who speak more than one language, California ranks first, fifth and sixth highest.
 
Statewide, Spanish is by far the most common language spoken. Among students who speak more than one language, 83.5 percent of those students speak Spanish, followed by 2.2 percent who speak Vietnamese and 1.5 percent who speak Mandarin. While there has been research on effective practices for dual language learners it is often limited or focused on bilingual settings where Spanish and English are spoken and not those where various languages are spoken, the report states.
 
Examples of practices to support "superdiverse" preschool students include incorporating home languages into morning announcements so that children are exposed to a wide variety of languages every day and recruiting family members from diverse language groups to come into the classroom for story time and activities.  
   
The report also suggests that
local school districts gain a better understanding of the language and cultural background of students and their families through home language surveys or parent-teacher meetings. In addition, it urges leaders to develop classroom structures that allow teachers more flexibility to learn about their students' home languages and incorporate them into classroom curriculum and class activities.
 
--Ashley Hopkinson, EdSource
Early Education Reports from EdSource

Child care funding measures reach the ballot in two California counties

Credit: Christopher Futcher istock   
Voters in Alameda and San Francisco counties will have a chance on June 5 to approve tax measures funding ambitious childcare programs that organizers say would provide enough subsidies for all low- and middle-income families who need them.

The two measures would each raise more than $140 million annually to expand existing childcare programs, boost the educational quality of those programs and increase the pay of childcare workers. The goal is to help parents go back to work after the birth of a child and improve children's readiness for kindergarten.

"Child care is a huge expense for most families. Outside of housing, it's often a family's biggest expense," said Margaret Brodkin, director of Funding the Next Generation, which pushes for subsidized childcare initiatives statewide.

Read more at EdSource


Editor's note: Funding the Next Generation is hosting a free conference on June 25th in Los Angeles. Described as "a free symposium on how to create local dedicated funding streams for opportunities and supports for underserved children and youth" the event is geared to advocates, organizers, service providers, elected officials, civic leaders, policy experts, parents and youth. Topics include revenue for early care and education, juvenile justice reform, after-school, youth development, and family support. Read more about the conference at this link.  
 
There are many benefits to starting science education early -- very early
 
Photo courtesy Bay Area Discovery Museum
Science education for most children in California begins in elementary school, but it should start much sooner - in infancy, even - for children to achieve their full potential as young scientists, according to a new report by the Center for Childhood Creativity.

"Humans are wired to want to understand the world around them. We come out of the box that way," said Elizabeth Rood, co-author of the report and director of the center, which is based at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. "Even kids who are pre-verbal have pretty sophisticated reasoning skills. The sooner parents and teachers introduce scientific vocabulary and concepts, the more likely kids will have the tools to help them succeed in science later on." 

Read more at EdSource
   
 
  Photos: Ashley Hopkinson, EdSource 
As social and emotional learning becomes more common across California, teachers are looking for innovative ways to incorporate it into class discussions or activities .

Hands-on strategies that are in
tentional about building social and emotional skills typically provide the best experience for young children, said Maurice Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab.

Elias said teachers who are passionate about a subject, like animals, can more easily connect those passions to social and emotional skills and pass it along to students.

Commentary: Great teachers make every student
feel included

  
At their recent annual conference, the California Charter Schools Association awarded Rocklin Academy Gateway kindergarten teacher Kaelin Swaney their 2018 Hart Vision Teacher of the Year award.  In a commentary for EdSource, Jillayne Antoon, Rocklin Academy's director of Growth and Community Engagement explains why the choice of Kaelin Swaney is especially noteworthy.
Nearly a year ago, a student who had been transitioning from a boy to a girl brought the book " I am Jazz" to class and asked that Ms. Swaney read it out loud. The autobiographical children's book describes the life of a young transgender child. Just like she had for other students who had brought books for her to read, Ms. Swaney read the book to the class. Following the reading, she closed the book and the class went about their normal routine.

This simple act created a firestorm of unwanted attention for the student and her parents as some used it to push broader agendas around transgender issues. Ms. Swaney was thrust into local and national news stories that questioned her fitness to be a teacher when she only sought to ensure that this student, like every other in her class, was treated with dignity and respect.

With the benefit of time and perspective, this award now allows us to reflect on why this ordinary day in the classroom demonstrates the extraordinary value of a great teacher.

EARLY ED IN THE NEWS
In-home child care is not just "watching cartoons"
 
As part of New America's series of blog posts about the early education workforce, in-home child care provider Tracy Ehlert writes about lack of awareness among the public, and even providers themselves, that child care providers working from their homes also benefit from advanced education in early childhood development. "Too few of my colleagues understand it's not enough to just love children, change their diapers and clothing, feed them, and play with them." And members of the public, she writes, ask questions like, "Why do you need a master's degree to sit at home and watch cartoons with kids?"

"For in-home childcare providers to be recognized as the professionals so many of us claim to be," she writes, "we must step up to what this designation requires -- acquiring more formal education."

Read more

The impact of Sweden's gender-neutral preschools 
 
In an article for The New York Times, Ellen Barry looks at Sweden's experiment in gender-neutral preschools, which began in 1996. In many of Sweden's government-funded preschools, the curriculum urges teachers and principals to take steps, such as restricting stereotypical toys and gendered language, to "counteract traditional gender roles and gender patterns." Children are encouraged to engage in activities that are "outside the limitations of stereotyped gender roles." A study of such programs found that the children at these schools "do not show a strong preference for playmates of the same gender, and are less likely to make assumptions based on stereotypes."

Read more

Erin Brownfield, editor
ebrownfield@edsource.org