In the U.S.A. for example where early Childhood Education is becoming increasingly high on the agenda, a substantial achievement gap exists before children ever arrive for their first day of kindergarten. Without a doubt children living in poverty, children who are learning multiple languages, and children with disabilities, regardless of nationality deserve better and as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) points out in its recent Call to Action, to close the gap, we must prevent the gap. Secretary of Education in the U.S, Arne Duncan proposes getting schools out of what she calls ‘the catch-up business.’
For decades, early learning programs have been judged primarily by their inputs—by the teacher/child ratio, by the educational credentials of their caregivers and teachers, by the cost of services provided. Inputs are important and there’s need to continue to pay attention to basic indicators of programme quality and safety. Although we know the indicators of high quality programmes, we also know that these programmes have often failed to receive adequate funding. Early childhood programmes must have the resources they need to provide high quality services to children and families and provide adequate compensation. We need to do what works and stop doing what isn't working. To prevent the gap, we must be ready to monitor and dramatically improve outcomes for young children.
Again in the U.S., President Obama speaks of the need to develop a seamless cradle-to-career educational pipeline but as the President has pointed out, that pipeline will never work properly unless the road to college begins at birth. To this end the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law that invests $5 billion in growing Early Head Start and Heat Start. It expands access to quality child care for 150,000 additional children. The Administration is also proposing to offer 55,000 first–time parents regular visits from trained nurses to help ensure their children are healthy and developing appropriately. There has also been the passage of the Early Learning Challenge Grants by the House of Representatives. The Challenge Grants, which would provide an unprecedented $1 billion a year for the next 8 years to allow more children from low-income families to attend high quality early learning programs.
vThe broad range of outcomes that we want for all of our children should be based on appropriate early learning standards. When these standards are developmentally appropriate and of high quality, they define for parents, teachers and communities what children should know and be able to do, and they can guide the development of strategies to assess the health, social, emotional, and educational outcomes for young children.
Now if we are to prevent the achievement gap and develop a cradle-to-career educational pipeline, early learning programs are going to have to be better integrated. That's why the Department of Education has adopted a birth through 3rd grade early learning agenda that embraces the full range of early childhood development.
Early learning programmes face the challenge of trying to increase access for children and parents, even as they try to boost programme quality and control costs, and retain a woefully underpaid workforce. Yet it is also true that the problem of navigating this iron triangle has been made worse by a lack of a uniform system of standards to guide effectiveness and accountability for early learning programs. For far too long, early learning has been done in separate silos in the government, with separate missions. Cognitive skills and schools readiness have often been treated as though it was an issue apart from supporting young children's social and emotional development.
For reform to succeed, the education sector has to do a much better job of working with other partners, particularly Health care sector. Such a partnership is critical to the success of the priority of the healthy development of children from birth to three.
Interagency groups need to be formed to identify evidence-based practices and strong models. Critical to the success of such models and practices would be early learning standards, curriculum and assessment, programme quality and monitoring standards, bolstering the early childhood workforce, coordinated data systems, health and mental health promotion and family engagement.
It is now recognized that non-cognitive aspects of early learning, like the ability to self-regulate and engage in cooperative play, are in fact crucial to school readiness and success. Health screenings for asthma, vision and dental problems, mental health concerns, and developmental delays are all vital to school success as well. Rather than treating social development and academic development as separate missions, it's time to recognize they are inevitably linked. As the National Research Council concluded, "Care and education cannot be thought of as separate entities in dealing with young children."
A great challenge to early learning programmes is to accelerate the shift from judging quality based solely on inputs to judging quality based chiefly on achieving the best outcomes of children's development and school readiness.
We know, for example, from recent studies by the National Research Council, that the systematic incorporation of math instruction for children in group instruction, child-initiated play, and other preschool settings leads to improved mathematic outcomes.
If we are going to do what work and abandon what doesn't early learning systems need to document, assess and adapt more readily.
We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children. Every child can learn and thrive, despite poverty, despite challenges at home, and neighborhood violence. The question is will we give them the opportunity?
