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This Week: Thank a Teacher

May 4, 2011

From elementary school students to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, people across the nation are taking time to thank a teacher throughout the week. That’s because this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to not only celebrate our educators but also to learn more about teaching as a profession.

Years of research have found that teachers play an extremely important role in the preschool classroom. Teacher qualifications are often an indicator of a pre-K program’s quality. Better education and training for teachers can improve the interaction between children and teachers, which in turn benefits children’s learning. The most effective preschool educators have at least a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early childhood. But while this is the norm in kindergarten classrooms, this is not always the case in preschool classrooms.

When we analyzed data from the latest State Preschool Yearbook, we found that 27 of 52 state-funded pre-K initiatives require that pre-K classroom teachers have a bachelor’s degree and 45 require lead teachers to have specialized training in early childhood. Only 16 state-funded programs require assistant teachers to have at least a child development credential or equivalent. While progress has been made in state policies regarding teacher qualifications since we first started analyzing data in 2002, still more can be done. The figure below provides a visual representation of the number of state programs meeting our benchmarks regarding teacher policies over the past eight years.

Since NIEER began tracking teacher qualification requirements, we’ve seen the most improvement in requiring 15 hours of professional development each year for lead teachers as well as more states requiring specialized early childhood training for lead teachers. Progress has been slower in requiring BAs for lead teachers, and fewer than half of all state-funded programs require a CDA for assistant teachers. And, when we moved away from state-funded preschool initiatives and looked at child care, the picture was bleaker. Only 16 of 50 states have any teacher education requirements, and none of those states require a bachelor’s degree.

A newly released policy brief from NIEER and the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, written by Marcy Whitebook and Sharon Ryan, says it’s not just the quantity of teachers’ formal education but also the quality and content of that education. Whitebook and Ryan find a mismatch between the qualifications for the most effective teachers and the supports that these teachers receive to improve upon their work. Indeed, the latest Yearbook shows that only 44 of 52 state-funded pre-K programs have a policy requiring teachers have at least 15 hours of professional development for lead teachers per year; only about half of programs require professional development for assistant teachers. States provide some supports for pre-K teachers to enhance their skills and credentials; notably, almost three quarters of programs provide some scholarships to teachers enrolling in training, though requirements and amounts vary considerably by state. Three programs provide no support to teachers, despite the benefit to students and teachers of keeping up with the latest in the early education field. See the figure below for percents of the 52 state-funded pre-K initiatives offering specific supports for their teachers.

Does the state provide any of the following types of supports to teachers to help them attain credentials or enhance their skills?
Scholarships	73%
Mentors	63%
Other	40%
Loan forgiveness	21%
None	6%

Whitebook and Ryan also note the disconnect between expectations for teachers and compensation policies. When asked if pre-K teachers are required to be paid on the same scale as public school teachers, only 17 of 52 state programs ensured this for all teachers; another 20 programs extended this guarantee only to teachers who classrooms were in public settings. And, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that in 2009, child care workers nationwide had an average salary of $20,940, ranging from only $16,750 in Arkansas to $24,480 in Massachusetts. In a staggering 40 states, the average child care worker salary is below the federal poverty level set by the Department of Health and Human Services for a family of four in 2009.

Research tells us what credentials make for the highest quality early educators, but state policy has a way to go in fully supporting them. State budgets continue to be tight, but states must prioritize a well-educated, well-compensated early childhood workforce to receive all the benefits we know pre-K can yield. As a nation, when it comes to thanking pre-K teachers, we might consider more than a shiny red apple.

- Jen Fitzgerald, Public Information Officer, NIEER
- Megan Carolan, Policy Research Coordinator, NIEER

1 Comment | Child Care, Preschool, Quality Early Childhood Programs, State-funded programs, Teachers | Permalink
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Teachers Must Get the Facts Out and Support Smart Evaluation, Pay and Tenure Reform

February 17, 2011

These days teachers find themselves swept up in the cross currents of an education debate about how to evaluate and pay teachers that is more polarizing and ugly by the day. Some days the debate generates much more heat than light, and this topic is greatly in need of illumination. Without at doubt, change is needed. The single salary schedule, which mandates the same salaries for teachers regardless of field, creates shortages of math, science, and special education teachers, and prevents some of the best from entering teaching. It makes sense for “star” teachers to earn more at the same level of experience. Tenure ought not to endlessly protect teachers who end up performing poorly or worse. Yet, that doesn’t mean that every proposed solution is a good idea; and some could turn things from bad to worse. Teachers should take the lead in helping the public understand their jobs and what works. For example, explaining how teaching is not just a matter of each teacher in her own classroom working independently and the many ways in which test scores really don’t capture all that is important about a child’s education.

The most recent example in need of illumination is a proposal released this week by New Jersey’s acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf. I find the basic ideas he proposes a pretty good list: more nuanced evaluations of teachers, no moving poorly performing teachers into “less important” teaching positions rather than out of schools altogether, and more clear reliance on supervisor observations and children’s learning to evaluate teachers. Doing this well is not going to be easy, however. Simply calling for teachers to be judged on value-added (VA) evaluations won’t do the job. Broadly speaking, VA calls for using student test scores in deciding how well teachers are doing. This approach has already become policy in some districts and it is beginning to affect which teachers stay, which teachers go, and whether they get a raise. Yet it is highly questionable whether any progress in improving the teacher corps can be made the way that VA is currently done. Too much depends on the children assigned to the teacher and our ability to correctly estimate the teacher’s contribution is far too weak. It matters who else teaches in the same school. First- and second-year teachers are early works in progress and their trajectory matters as much as the level of their performance.

The move to VA teacher evaluation across the country appears to be driven more by political agendas dedicated to blaming teachers and their unions rather than finding effective solutions. I don’t know what else could explain the way VA’s proponents gloss over the fact that as currently implemented it is built on a shaky scientific foundation. However, given this problem it seems likely that public servants like New Jersey’s Commissioner have not been fully informed about the limitations, presenting an opportunity for more illumination to benefit the policy debate.

The VA method calls for estimating through analyses of standardized test scores how much any given teacher helps or hinders the academic progress of students. The Los Angeles Times drew national attention to VA evaluation in a series in which an economist paid by the newspaper rated elementary school teachers according to this method, using a detailed set of data from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Based on this work, the Times then published a 6,000-name list of teachers and their ratings.

Enter the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado. Researchers there analyzed the work done at the Times’ behest and found that, while the VA model yielded different outcomes for different teachers, it did not tell them whether those outcomes measured what is important (teacher effectiveness) or something else, such as whether students benefited from other learning resources outside of school. One way to test the validity of the VA model is to investigate whether using it, a student’s future teacher would appear to have an effect on a student’s test performance in the past — something that is impossible in the world most of us inhabit. They found that future teachers did indeed affect the past learning of students, especially in reading, indicating the VA model is faulty. Read the rest of this entry »

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Three Easy Pieces (of Research) for Budget Deciders

August 27, 2010

As the recession drags on, it becomes ever-more-obvious the ABC (across-the-board cuts) approach to controlling government expenditures is harming our chances for a robust economy in the future. That’s because ABC looks at everything as a cost, ignoring investments in areas like early childhood education that are critical to future economic growth. ABC has been in especially heavy use at the state level. Over the past two years, some states have spared pre-K from ABC while others have not. Other early childhood programs have suffered from ABC, as well. Next year could see more of the same.

These cuts come at a time when evidence continues to mount on the critical importance of investments in children before they reach school. For budget deciders who may be considering future cuts and may not be not up on the latest findings, I offer three important, easy-to-understand pieces of research that have turned up just this year. Each looks at different impacts of investments on young children and underscores the importance of prioritizing investments in early learning and development.

1. Poverty’s Negative Effect on the Very Young. A University of California study tracking the lives of children born between 1968 and 1975 found that poverty during the period when children are infants to age 5 has a lasting detrimental impact on outcomes related to attainment such as earnings and hours worked. Negative impacts from poverty during this early period could be measured as late as age 37. Subsequent periods of poverty, when children were older, had fewer detrimental effects.

2. Why Good Teachers for Young Children Pay Off. Harvard economist Raj Chetty and colleagues have made public findings from a yet-to-be-published study of the life paths of children who were part of Tennessee’s 1980s-era Project Star. Chetty says students who learned more in kindergarten were more likely to attend college than kids with similar backgrounds and more likely to save for retirement and earn more. Here is his Power Point presentation: http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR_slides.pdf.

3. Negative Early Experiences Last a Lifetime. A research paper just out from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child presents evidence on how children’s early experiences become integrated into their response systems, leading to long-term effects in areas such as their overall physical health and ability to respond to stress and achieve. The authors call for, among other things, improving the quality of child care and preschool education.

Steve Barnett
Co-director, NIEER

4 Comments | Child Development, Economics, Outcomes, Research, Teachers | Permalink
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Is Preschool Too Early for Science? No!

August 6, 2010

For Curious Young Minds Eager to Understand Their World, This Age is Just Right

Related Reading

Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS)

Facilitating Scientific Ways of Thinking, Talking, Doing, and Understanding

Rochel Gelman
Kimberly Brenneman
Gay Macdonald
Moisés Román

Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co., Inc.
Baltimore, MD
144 pages, ISBN 978-1-59857-044-1
$29.95

Until recently, science has been the ignored academic stepchild of language and math. Mandated state testing as part of No Child Left Behind initially focused on language, expanded to math, and now includes science. Concern over U.S. students’ poor science scores has brought science teaching to the forefront and a 2007 National Research Council (NRC) report, Taking Science to School, calls for broad sweeping changes in how science should be taught and organized. States are now revising science standards to be less fragmented, fewer in number, and organized around “big ideas.”

As was the case with its academic siblings, where the preschool years became a focus for providing critical foundations for language, emergent literacy and math, educators are now asking whether science should be introduced in preschool. Science is not “new” to preschool since many states include science as part of their “cognition and general knowledge” school readiness domain and Head Start includes “nature and science” as one of eight designated readiness domains. However, a recent analysis of Head Start school readiness data in one state (Greenfield et al., 2009) finds that on average, children leave the Head Start program for kindergarten with science readiness scores significantly lower than scores on the other seven school readiness domains. Follow-up focus groups with Head Start teachers pinpoint lack of time and not feeling prepared or comfortable teaching science as two possible reasons why this mandated readiness domain receives short shrift. Is preschool, however, too early for introducing science? A “strict” interpretation of Piaget would suggest so. More recent research on children’s thinking, however, clearly show that despite much of young children’s thinking being tied to the perceptual here and now, young children can think and talk about many science-related topics. The 2007 NRC report reviews this research and argues for the importance and timeliness of introducing science to young children. This urgency has important relevance beyond its direct impact on science readiness, since part of learning science involves important domain general skills that are relevant in other areas of learning.

Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS) is a new publication that arrives on this scene, not as a rushed attempt to fill this gap, but rather as a mature program whose initial development began 20 years ago in preschool programs serving families at an Air Force base near Los Angeles. The development of PrePS has also benefited from its use at UCLA and in New Jersey, including programs serving ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged preschool populations. A central premise of PrePS is that young children are “scientists-in-waiting … naturally curious and actively involved in exploring the world around them” (p.2). A goal of PrePS is to foster these predispositions in the “privileged domain” of science where children have a natural proclivity to learn, experiment and explore. Teachers also play a critical role in PrePS guiding children in organized investigations of their everyday world, building on existing knowledge, and connecting this knowledge into deeper levels of understanding. As one PrePS teacher reflects, “It is not about what, as a teacher, do I want the children to be doing, but what I want the children to be thinking about … Then (I ask myself), what should they be doing to better understand the concept?” (p.18). Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Preschool, Science Education, Teachers | Permalink
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What the Yearbook Says About Teacher Qualifications

May 28, 2010

Findings from the 2009 State of Preschool yearbook indicate a slow down in the recent trend of increasing standards for teacher qualifications. Overall, for the 2008-2009 school year, 23 out of 38 states with pre-K programs failed to fully meet NIEER benchmarks for teacher qualifications. Qualifications include having a minimum of a BA degree and specialized training in early childhood education.

Consistent with the past two years, only 26 state-funded prekindergarten programs (out of 51) require their lead teachers to have a bachelor’s degree. However, almost all programs require specialized training in early childhood for their lead teachers (44 out of 51 programs). As states continue to deal with large budget deficits, there’s always the danger that current requirements could be watered down and/or eliminated from state policies. Proposals to upgrade teacher qualifications could also be put on the back burner.

During the 2008-2009 school year, there was a slight increase in the number of programs meetings the benchmarks for assistant teacher qualifications. Even so, only 14 out of 51 programs require assistant teachers to have at least a Child Development Associate credential or equivalent.

See how your state compares to these findings in this Yearbook teacher qualifications data table by clicking the image below. It contains information on types of required teaching certifications, in-service requirements, state supports for teacher education and salary information. For complete information on state-funded preschool programs, go to the 2009 Yearbook Interactive Database.

– Dale J. Epstein
Assistant Research Professor, NIEER

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Education Can “Shore Up” New Jersey’s Image

May 10, 2010

Linda Darling-Hammond’s recent lecture at the Education Law Center in Newark could not have come at a more appropriate time for concerned New Jersey educators. Except for heated debates between a newly elected governor and the New Jersey Education Association, the only notoriety that New Jersey has received lately has been Jersey Shore, a silly reality television show glorifying bar-hopping, fake tans and unruly hair poufs. Surely, New Jersey has more to offer than “GTL” (that would be gym, tan, laundry) and the popular show’s cast of mostly non-Jersey residents. Darling-Hammond’s lecture highlighted New Jersey’s progress as a national leader in education and her comments came against a backdrop of harsh economic reality that many in the audience clearly felt could have a deleterious effect on that progress in the form of imminent budget cuts.

Darling-Hammond, who is a Stanford University professor and nationally-known education policy expert, said that because of the state’s Abbott program, inequities between districts have been minimized, enabling minority students the opportunity to better succeed. Her point was that New Jersey’s outcomes should be looked to by other states and federal policymakers as they address the vast disparities that continue to exist among the nation’s schools and hinder the progress of our students. Darling-Hammond made no political comments, but she did stress that the gains that have been made over the past ten years here in the Garden State need to be continued.

One of the most attention-grabbing statistics that Darling-Hammond shared was that even though New Jersey boasts demographic diversity that’s similar to California, minority students in New Jersey scored higher on one test than did average students in California. Even naysayers should agree that this is a testament to the fact that the system in New Jersey has been working and that it should not be cut off in the prime of its game. Darling-Hammond’s praise is especially uplifting, coming, as it does, in the midst of the most passionate education debate the state has seen in a long while, one in which teachers have been the target of negativity on radio stations and newspaper blogs. As a former Camden teacher, Darling-Hammond made it clear that investing in teachers is the key to successful school finance. “Standards can’t teach themselves,” she said.

In a time when a majority of folks voted down their local school budgets and others rally for school choice, it seems that some of the data that Darling-Hammond so eloquently presented should be wider spread and better known by New Jersey voters. Maybe voters would take more notice if she got herself a fake tan and pouf hair-do!

– Alex Figueras-Daniel

Research Project Coordinator, NIEER

2 Comments | Achievement gap, Preschool, State-funded programs, Teachers | Permalink
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Steven Barnett: Thoughts on the State of Preschool

May 4, 2010

Today I visited a wonderful publicly funded preschool program run by the AppleTree Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. In D.C., 40 percent of 4-year-olds attend the District’s preschool programs and nearly a quarter of the 3-year-olds. The programs meet high standards and are adequately funded. I don’t know if all of them are up to the high standards of AppleTree, but I do know that far too few children in the rest of the nation have the opportunity to attend such programs. In fact, I think we may have reached a peak in 2009 when one-quarter of all children attended a state pre-K program at age 4, and things have turned worse since.

Preschool-age children across the country are feeling the impact of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Many parents no longer can afford pre-K for their children. Yet, at a time when the need for publicly funded preschools is growing in almost every state, the recession has led states to cut back on early education programs. Young children are caught in this squeeze play.

The State of Preschool 2009, a survey that ranks each state’s support for preschool education and tracks those efforts over time, shows a pause in what had been a rapid increase in state preschool programs. In some states enrollment has been cut back to the lowest levels in many years. Other states have cut quality standards or reduced the amount they spend per child.

As a result, the immediate future of pre-K seems much more perilous than past trends might suggest. Looking ahead, some states have already cut pre-K spending for 2011, including Arizona which has totally eliminated funding for preschool. Cuts are being intensely debated in other states.

We hope that our 2009 survey’s data on enrollment, quality standards, and funding will help inform these debates. I will briefly review the results.

Last year total enrollment in state-funded pre-K increased, but not in every state. In nine states—Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Oklahoma— the percentage of children enrolled actually declined. Although some of these declines are quite small, the need has increased, and many American children, particularly those in middle-income working families lack access to quality preschool education. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Early Childhood, Economics, Preschool, Research, State-funded programs, Targeted, Teachers, Universal | Permalink
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Close Encounters of the Pre-K Kind

April 5, 2010

Related Reading

Good Morning, Children: My First Years in Early Childhood Education

Sophia E. Pappas, 2009

Gryphon House, Inc.

Beltsville, MD

188 pp., ISBN 978-0-87659-078-2

$14.95

So much that’s written about preschool education these days comes from “on high” that we run the risk of forgetting how much it is, at its core, a series of close encounters between teachers and the likes of Kevin the serial anti-sharer, Alan the artistically inclined, and Ali the perpetually dancing cheerleader. In her engaging new book Good Morning, Children: My First Years in Early Childhood Education, Sophia Pappas provides an antidote to that and a window into the world that is her New Jersey Abbott Preschool Program classroom. Along the way, we become acquainted with Kevin, Alan, Ali, and their classmates and more important, what spells success for this teacher and the renowned pre-K program of which she was part.

Motivated by her quest to rectify social inequities, author Sophia Pappas became a member of the Teach For America corps, dedicating three years to teaching preschool in Newark, New Jersey. Before entering the education field, she studied political systems and leaders at Georgetown University and was an intern on Capitol Hill.

Good Morning, Children is a collection of her experiences as a rookie teacher and reflections on her classroom challenges and successes. The book also benefits from perspectives developed during her time as a blogger for Pre-K Now. Throughout her book, Pappas makes a strong case for the importance of supporting high-quality early childhood programs. An underlying theme of accountability on all major players in education – including teachers, directors, and policymakers – prevails. According to Pappas, school districts must have accurate criteria for what effective teachers look like and teachers should play a role in evaluating the curriculum they use.

In Part One, she describes her first-year experiences (and anxieties) of becoming a teacher. She covers a wide breadth of topics through personal narratives, including how she created a safe, inviting and print-rich learning environment, developed a daily schedule respectful of children’s needs, and worked collaboratively with her assistant, and how her preparations, self-reflections, and time with her mentor helped her to assert her leadership.

In Part Two, Pappas unpacks her thoughts and experiences with assessment, planning and instruction. She illustrates the importance of performance-based assessment to fully understand what preschoolers can do and to help inform instruction. Through short vignettes of her interactions with her students, Pappas demonstrates how using age-appropriate teaching strategies and flexibility advanced her students’ growth.

Pappas encourages readers to think about the broader picture. For example, she suggests that teachers think about the skills an average adult, politician or leader would need and begin teaching these skills in preschool. She highlights the importance of using literature to practice conflict-resolution skills. She also gives examples of how to think about the minute details such as what individualized instruction would look like for a particular student. In addition, she provides resources that worked for some of her students, specifically, an individualized action plan and behavior contract.

Good Morning, Children provides insight to all advocates of children’s education with an emphasis on educators. It confirms the importance of starting a solid and appropriate education for 3- and 4-year-olds and seeks to inspire preschool educators to fully grasp the importance of the role they play in providing a rich and comprehensive education through constructive play and differentiated instruction. Sophia Pappas puts heart and soul into sharing her story as an educator. As “a leader on the first line of defense against educational inequity” (p. 15), she gives her students a voice in the ongoing debate over appropriate early childhood education.

Reviewed by Marcie Weber

Early Learning Consultant, NIEER

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Bredekamp Book Illuminates Effective Practices

March 1, 2010

Sue Bredekamp, one of the foremost authors on early childhood teaching practice, is out with a timely new book. Few are as qualified to write a primer on effective practice as she. Many may recall Sue is the primary author of NAEYC’s Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs (1987 and 1997 editions) and co-author of last year’s revision of that well-regarded volume. Her new effort, Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education, just arrived at NIEER and first impressions suggest it builds on that foundation. Research-based practices are demonstrated by example, there’s a “What Works” section in each chapter, and she integrates play as a means to promote learning throughout.

The book is comprehensive, weighing in at 576 pages. Integrated into the package are classroom demonstration videos and an online lab component where early childhood professionals can participate in exercises. We will be conducting a full review of Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education for an upcoming issue of Preschool Matters. In the meantime, Bredekamp, always an engaging speaker, will be appearing at select venues this spring as part of the launch. Below are places, dates and contact information.

Ellen Frede
Co-Director, NIEER

Location/Event	Date	Coordinator/Contact Info
NC / State-wide 2-year curriculum committee (virtual meeting)	March 19	Caroline Hardy – carolineh@beaufortccc.edu
Santa Monica ECE symposium	April 7	Erica.deluca@pearson.com
San Diego EE symposium	April 8	Erica.deluca@pearson.com
NYC Launch event / Madison Avenue	April 15	Erica.deluca@pearson.com
Washington D.C. Launch event	April 16	Erica.deluca@pearson.com