Month: March 2012

In addition to offering state pre-K and child care subsidies some states support pre-K by adding on to the federal Head Start program. Supplementing Head Start programs with state funding allows states to build upon the federal Head Start program–funding more children, providing extended-day and/or extended-year services, or making quality improvements. This is especially important for several states that don’t otherwise fund pre-K at the state level. In 2009-2010 this included Idaho and New Hampshire. Delaware, Minnesota, and Oregonserved enough additional children through their Head Start state supplements for these to qualify as de facto state pre-K programs by NIEER’s definition.

Please visit National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) for the complete blog post.

As NIEER noted in a 2004 policy brief, “Child assessment is a vital and growing component of high-quality early childhood programs. Not only is it an important tool in understanding and supporting young children’s development, it is essential to document and evaluate program effectiveness. For assessment to be widely used though, it must employ methods that are feasible, sustainable and reasonable with regard to demands on budgets, educators and children. Equally important, it must meet the challenging demands of validity (accuracy and effectiveness) for young children. It is the balance between efficiency and validity that demands the constant attention of policymakers — and an approach grounded in a sound understanding of appropriate methodology.”

Please visit National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) for the complete blog post.

Assessment of children participating in state-funded pre-K programs has been highlighted recently, in part due to the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge funding competition’s focus on assessment strategies for our youngest learners. In response, Educational Testing Service (ETS) has submitted to the field State Pre-K Assessment Policies: Issues and Status, a timely report on the status of policies for the assessment of learning outcomes at the pre-K level.

It was with no small measure of alarm that we learned this week of a proposal in the North Carolina legislature to completely privatize pre-K classrooms by the summer of 2013. It’s part of a draft report that calls for pre-K to be the exclusive domain of child care centers and to be removed from the public schools that currently serve about half the state’s preschoolers. It also would decrease eligibility from an annual family income of about $50,000 to $22,000— for all practical purposes, the poverty line.

Please visit National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) for the complete blog post.