Kindergarten

When technology is part of pre-K or early elementary classrooms, what does it look like? Are most teachers holding "computer time" in the corner, with kids putting on headphones to play games or click through books by themselves? Are children having chances to take photos or capture video of their marine field trips or block towers? Is someone helping them to scan books and conduct online searches for more information on whales or skyscapers?

Child development researchers are increasingly curious not only about how young children make early academic gains, but about how they grow as social and emotional beings. Qualities such as patience and the ability to bounce back after disappointment are crucial if a child is to perform well in school. But what about trust?

Five of the 23 winners of the latest round of the Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition included early learning as a focus. This means about $26 million from i3 will likely go to support early learning projects, focusing on children from birth through third grade. The winners will become official i3 grantees only after they secure matching grants, which they must do by Dec. 9.

Though good teaching is considered essential to children's achievement, much of education policy remains disturbingly silent on how to identify, promote and reward it. Studies consistently remind us of what children could achieve if they attended high-quality early learning programs and received high-quality instruction throughout their early grades of school. But the reality is that too many children experience teaching that is inconsistent from year to year and sometimes quite poor.

Reports of children learning keyboarding as early as kindergarten have sprung up, begging the question: What age is physically and developmentally appropriate for children to learn to type? Last week on BAM! Radio, I joined host Rae Pica and two other guests to discuss the in’s and out’s of teaching young children how to type on a computer.

Monday, the Census Bureau released its new Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), a second measure of poverty that was created to provide a fuller picture of poverty in the United States. This fuller picture shows more Americans may be living in poverty than was previously thought.

The new measure takes into account changes in families’ and individuals’ spending since the original poverty measures were developed in 1963, and the impact that poverty-reducing programs have on curbing poverty rates.

Before an audience of voters in Yeadon, Pa., on Tuesday, President Obama announced major changes to the Head Start program, which provides preschool access for children from low-income families, and scolded Congress for not doing more for education.

Identifying good teachers is a high priority in education reform, yet the debate rarely focuses on how education might improve if policies were based on teachers’ individual interactions with their students. This report argues for improving early education up through the third grade (PreK-3^rd) by actually watching teachers in action using innovative observation tools in combination with evaluation and training programs.  

Two years ago, when Jacqueline Jones was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as his senior advisor for early learning – a first-of-its-kind position –  the early childhood community celebrated. Recognition of the early years as educational years was long overdue, and Jones was an excellent choice given her work in New Jersey to create a high-quality system of early learning, beginning at age 3 and continuing up through 3^rd grade.

Then, of course, reality set in.

Last month, when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed that all public school kindergartners sit for "entry assessments" starting in the 2014-15 school year, the education blogosphere erupted.