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Expert Task Force Calls for Broader, Bolder Approach to Education Policy

A task force of national policy experts with diverse religious and political affiliations, in public policy fields including education, social welfare, health, housing, and civil rights have launched a campaign to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little. In ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post, the task force, which was convened by the president of the Economic Policy Institute, calls for a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education to raise achievement levels for disadvantaged children.

Learn more at http://www.boldapproach.org/

Teachers’ Interactions with Children Critical Ingredient for Effective Pre-K Programs

A new national study finds that pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds are most beneficial when children experience instructionally and emotionally supportive interactions with their teachers. The study involved 2,439 children enrolled in 671 pre-k classrooms in 11 states. To read more about the findings go to http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=5217. A related article has been published in the May/June 2008 issue of Child Development.

Article citation: Mashburn, A., Pianta, R., Hamre, B., Downer, J., Barbarin, O., Bryant, D., Burchinal, D., & Howes, C. (2008). Measures of classroom quality in prekindergarten and children’s development of academic, language, and social skills. Child Development, 79(3), 732-749.

Using Tax Credits to Promote High Quality Early Care and Education Services

Tax credits have been used in a variety of policy areas to encourage increased investments in programs seen as “social goods,” such as clean energy and charitable donations. This paper explores financing strategies for early childhood programs by examining whether carefully crafted individual or business tax credits/deductions could 1) help finance early care and education; 2) spur additional private investment; and 3) create incentives for families to use, and early childhood program to offer, high-quality services. The researchers examine a range of tax incentives that have been used in other fields and could serve as models for early care and education finance, such as consumer/individual tax credits and deductions; occupational tax credits and deductions; and investment tax credits, deductions and abatements for firms. The findings suggest several recommendations about how to best structure and use tax credits. Among the key points: cost and stability of credits are critical; tax credits must be well linked to high quality “products,” in this case early childhood programs; if high quality programs are desired, parents must have ways to distinguish them, thereby making public education about quality important; and, for the tax credits to be effective, administration should be simple and infrastructure in place. Download at http://www.partnershipforsuccess.org/uploads/200712_StoneyMitchellpaper.pdf

New Resource for Parents of Children with Autism

The Autism Speaks 100 Day Kit is created specifically for newly diagnosed families, to make the best possible use of the 100 days following the diagnosis of autism. The kit contains information and advice collected from trusted and respected experts on autism as well as from parents of children with autism.

The 100 Day Kit includes a week by week plan for the next 100 days, as well organizational suggestions and forms that parents/caregivers can use to help with the paperwork and phone calls, as they begin to find services for their child.

The kit is available on line in pdf format for all to view and download. Users also have the ability to personalize their own kit with local resources in their area.

Go to http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/family_services/100_day_kit.php for information about any of these options.

Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision-Maker’s Guide

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University has produced an easy-to-understand guide to help policymakers interpret and assess the quality of early childhood program evaluations. It helps the reader to answer five key questions:

• Is the evaluation design strong enough to produce trustworthy evidence? This section explains the relative merits between experimental designs and other approaches, such as the regression discontinuity design.
• What program services were actually received by participating children and families and comparison groups? In order to be valid, the evaluation should ensure that the program was implemented as intended and served the intended population.
• How much impact did the program have? This section defines terms such as effect sizes, statistical significance, "intent to treat" impacts, and "treatment on the treated" impacts.
• Do the program's benefits exceed its costs? The most powerful intervention may not be the wisest investment, and this section explains why.

New RAND Study on Investing in Early Childhood Programs

The RAND Corporation has published a new paper entitled The Economics of Early Childhood: What the Dismal Science Has to Say About Investing in Children, by M. Rebecca Kilburn and Lynn A. Karoly. This paper summarizes recent research findings from the field of economics related to the benefits of investing in early childhood programs. It is meant to provide policymakers with a primer on how economic analyses can be used to help set agendas for early childhood policy and identify the benefits of targeting certain groups of children for help.

For complete information and to read the report go to http://rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP227/

Natural Resources Seeks Your Expertise and Help

Have Your Say: How Do You Define Approaches to Professional Development?

Technical assistance. Consultation. Coaching. Mentoring. Reflective Supervision.
Have you heard these terms being used interchangeably? A lack of consensus on what each term means is creating confusion. As a result, everyone involved in the professional development process—provider, teacher, and child—is affected. We invite you to be a natural resource by joining colleagues online to define these approaches or contribute examples of how you have used them.

The National Professional Development Center on Inclusion, an FPG project, has created starter definitions from the existing literature. With your input, we can create definitions that can be used to support decisions about professional development. http://community.fpg.unc.edu/discussions/wiki-pd-approaches

Talking to Children: Two Examples of the Difference It Makes

A Key to Literacy: Parents Talking with their Children
Schooling does matter, but literacy starts at home, writes Laura Pappano for the Harvard Education Letter. Teachers have long urged parents to read aloud to their children, but now there is a second and perhaps more powerful message coming from educators: talk to your kids! Mounting research that links language-rich home environments with reading success and school achievement is driving educators and community groups to target families long before children even register for school. It is highly probable that home support for literacy markedly influences kindergarten language skills and in turn, fourth grade reading comprehension scores. In fact, exploratory investigative discussions between parents and children are central to higher-level literacy, while the social-emotional bond parents have with children can amplify learning. Parents remain uniquely able to tailor explanations that click perfectly with their child and also provide more extensive opportunities for rich discussion than a teacher attending to a class of 25 students.
http://www.edletter.org/insights/familyconversation.shtml

Talking to Children: Why Some Mothers Do It More
Research shows that from a very early age, children are influenced by the manner in which their mothers verbally interact with them. An FPG study published in the May/June 2008 issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology examines how mother and child characteristics might influence the way mothers talk to their infants and demonstrates that mothers can help children overcome some of the risks to language development associated with poverty. A summary of the study is available online at http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~snapshots/snap53.pdf
To learn more see: Vernon-Feagans, L., Pancsofar, N., Willoughby, M., Odom, E., Quade, A., & Cox, M. (2008). Predictors of maternal language to infants during a picture book task in the home: Family SES, child characteristics and the parenting environment. The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(3), 213-226.

Resources for Advocates, Policymakers and Program Administrators

Early Care and Education Legislation Database
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has developed an Early Care and Education Legislation Database, which tracks early care and education legislation from the 2008 session. Issues include child care and child care financing, early childhood services, PreK, professional development, home visiting, infants and toddlers, and financing early education. The database is updated biweekly and can be searched by state, topic, status, primary sponsor, bill number or keyword. It is available at http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/ECELD.cfm

Children’s Budget 2008
A new publication by First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy organization, entitled Children’s Budget 2008 provides information on 180 different children’s programs funded by the federal government, from child health and education to child welfare and juvenile justice. It was funded with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and is meant to be a resource for advocates, policymakers, and program administrators. For more information and to access the guide online go to http://www.firstfocus.net/pages/3391/

Desired Family Outcomes of the Early Childhood Transition Process

The National Early Childhood Transition Center (NECTC) has published a new research brief describing critical family outcomes to be considered when designing transition services for young children. It is available online at http://www.ihdi.uky.edu/nectc/Documents/PRESENTATIONS/What's%20New%20Blurbs/familyoutcomes%20(2).pdf

Full citation: Harbin, G., Rous, B., Peeler, N., Schuster, J., & McCormick, K. (2007). Desired family outcomes of the early childhood transition process (NECTC Research Brief #5). Lexington, KY: National Early Childhood Transition Center.

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