NAEYC Issues 10 Standards for
Quality Preschool and Child Care:
The National Association for the Education of
Young Children (NAEYC) has issued a 10-point
quality checklist designed to help families
determine the quality of preschool and child
care programs. The checklist is a tool derived
from and designed to be used in addition to the
organization's rigorous accreditation system. To
earn NAEYC accreditation, programs complete a
4-step review process that includes on-site
visitation. Accreditation lasts for 5 years.
NIEER Publishes New Early Literacy Policy
Brief:
Joining NIEER's series offering policy guidance
on early education issues is Volume 10 titled Early
Literacy: Policy and Practice in the Preschool
Years by Dorothy S. Strickland and Shannon
Riley-Ayers.
The 12-page
brief (PDF) discusses the growing focus on
early literacy and develops recommendations and
discussion in the context of five issues:
standards, curriculum, accountability and
assessment, teacher education and home-school
connections.
Online Training Resource for Child Care
Professionals
The National Association of Child Care
Professionals has recently launched Professional
EducationCenter, an online training resource for
child care professionals. Over 2,000 courses
providing 2,500 hours of training are available,
and participants will receive certificates
indicating training hours and Continuing
Education Units upon course completion. Click
here for more information or to sign up
Proven Benefits of Early Childhood
Intervention:
The RAND Corporation's recently released
research identifies the most effective practices
and features of early intervention programs,
based on a literature review and analysis. The
study focused on diverse programs throughout the
country that offered parent education and
support, including home visits, center-based
visits, or a combination.
Key findings include: Early childhood
intervention programs have been shown to yield
benefits in academic achievement, behavior,
educational progression and attainment,
delinquency and crime, and labor market success,
among other domains. Interventions with
better-trained caregivers and smaller
child-to-staff ratios appear to offer more
favorable results. Well-designed early childhood
interventions have been found to generate a
return to society ranging from $1.80 to $17.07
for each dollar spent on the program.
Information is available to download in three
forms:
a 200+
page report
a 3-page
research brief
a 20-page
summary
Healthy Mental Development for Young
Children:
The Commonwealth Fund has released a report, Improving
the Delivery of Health Care that Supports Young
Children's Healthy Mental Development: Early
Accomplishments and Lessons Learned from a
Five-State Consortium, highlighting five
states that are participating in the Fund's ABCD
II initiative. The initiative is designed to
improve the delivery of mental health services
for young children. The five states are
implementing policies and practices to improve
developmental services, in particular, those
that support the use of a standardized screening
tool. The states have found that active
partnerships with clinicians and pediatric
organizations have been crucial in obtaining
provider acceptance and support for improvement
projects.
The Effects of Investing in Early
Education on Economic Growth:
Many in Congress and the administration have
called for new investments in education in order
to make the United States more competitive, with
President Bush stressing the importance of
education in preparing young Americans to "fill
the jobs of the 21st century." Yet advocates of
early childhood education have only recently
stressed the economic benefits of preschool
programs, and it has been difficult to win
support for these short-term investments given
the long-term nature of the benefits to the
economy.
This
policy brief analyzes the impact of a
high-quality universal preschool policy on
economic growth, concluding that such a policy
could add $2 trillion to annual U.S. GDP by
2080. By 2080, a national program would cost the
federal government approximately $59 billion,
but generate enough additional growth in federal
revenue to cover the costs of the program
several times over.
7. Updating California's Income Limit for
Subsidized Child Care:
Child care provides critical support for
working families that helps parents retain
employment, remain off welfare, and move toward
self-sufficiency. However, California has not
increased the child care income limit &endash;
the highest income at which a family qualifies
for assistance with child care expenses &endash;
since 2000, when it was set at 75.0 percent of
the state median income (SMI), as required by
state law.
A new California Budget Project (CBP) Budget
Brief, "Updating
California's Income Limit for Subsidized Child
Care," finds that: As recently as 2003,
California used the oldest income data of any
state as a basis for establishing eligibility
for subsidized child care. The income limit
would drop from 75.0 percent of the SMI in
2000-01 to 60.5 percent of the SMI in 2006-07 if
the state continues to freeze the limit. A
family of three could have an income of up to
$43,536 per year &endash; $8,436 per year (24.0
percent) more than currently allowed &endash;
and remain eligible for child care assistance in
2006-07 if the income limit were updated.
Approximately 1.6 million California families
with children under age 13 have incomes at or
below the current income eligibility limit for
child care assistance. Approximately 312,000
additional families with children under age 13
would meet the income requirement for child care
assistance if the state increased the income
limit. Updating the limit would allow
California's working families whose incomes rise
to retain child care assistance for a longer
period and to postpone paying fees until their
incomes reach a higher level.
Are Children Ready For School? Assessment
of Kindergarten Readiness in San Mateo and Santa
Clara counties:
The first
bi-county assessment of kindergarten
readiness (PDF) reveals how local children
are doing, and what they need for school
success. The report provides the counties with
important data on the skill sets children need
to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. Key
findings of the report include: Children are
coming to school with a wide range of skills.
Most children come to school meeting teachers'
overall expectations (53% in San Mateo and 48%
in Santa Clara), but there is a wide range of
readiness.
The study identified about 7% of children
from San Mateo County and 13% of children from
Santa Clara County who need significant help
catching up. Communities can help parents work
with their children to prepare them for school.
Teachers prioritize on social/emotional skills
like being able to pay attention, control
impulses and play cooperatively. Understanding
the importance teachers place on social and
emotional skills makes it even more important
that our programs and schools work in the
context of developmentally and culturally
appropriate expectations for our
kindergartners.
High-quality preschool programs are a healthy
piece of the solution. Preschool was found to be
more effective in San Mateo County than Santa
Clara County. San Mateo showed stronger
readiness gains and for more types of children
when there was some preschool exposure. The
study focused on a random sample of schools in
each county. A total of 1,434 kindergarten
students were assessed in 76 classrooms four
weeks after the start of the 2005-2006 school
year. The results are generalizable to the more
than 26,000 kindergartners in public schools in
San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
WHAT WOULD PROPOSITION 82 MEAN FOR
CALIFORNIA? Proposition 82, which will
appear on the June ballot, creates a new state
preschool program funded by a tax on high-income
Californians. A new California Budget
Project Budget Brief, "What
Would Proposition 82 Mean for California"
(PDF) examines the issues raised by Proposition
82 and its impact on the budget. The CBP neither
supports nor opposes Proposition 82.
Finding High Quality Pre-K: A
Checklist: Research has consistently proven
that the benefits of pre-k are closely tied to
the quality of the pre-k program. But families
searching for a high-quality program often had
little help ... until now. Pre-K Now and the
National Parent Teacher Association (National
PTA) have created the "Finding
High-Quality Pre-K Checklist," (PDF) a
take-along resource that families can use when
visiting and selecting a program.
Our checklist covers dozens of pre-k quality
factors and gives parents specific questions to
pose to program staff and to ask of themselves.
With these questions, families will be able to
evaluate program features such as teacher
training and styles, classroom facilities and
management, and support for parental
involvement. Millions of families across the
nation will choose a pre-k program this summer -
you can ensure that many have the tools to make
the best decision for their children.
Compiled by Angie Garling,
Alameda County Child Care Planning
Council
