Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

“How do we go about the task of simultaneously expanding and improving early education – creating more classrooms for more children – while also shaping and improving what is happening in those classrooms?”

That’s the question Nonie Lesaux and Stephanie Jones ask in the article they’ve published in U.S. News and World Report: “Better Education Starts With Adults: Our treatment of educators and leaders is key to improving early childhood education.”

Lesaux and Jones are both professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and as our blog readers know, Lesaux wrote the Strategies for Children report, “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success.”

Their approach to expanding and improving early education is, as the article’s title states, to start with adults.

“It may seem initially counterintuitive,” they write, “but the solution is to take a closer look at the adults, not the children – specifically our educators and leaders, from schoolhouse to statehouse.”

“Quality starts with creating a thriving village of adults who are prepared, supported and compensated to impact children and one another. If tomorrow’s policies do not support and elevate those adults in the early education field, they will falter in the support they mean to provide for children.”

So, “when you look into an early childhood classroom, you may see great art on the walls, a 7:1 student-teacher ratio and lots of books, but appearances can be deceiving,” Lesaux and Jones note.

“Maybe ratios are often maintained by moving teachers and children around from room to room; many teachers have no instructional planning time, and their continuing education is sparse, often irrelevant and largely ineffective. In our own research, and the research of others, we have seen these very examples unfold.”

To “undertake the daily physical, emotional and mental labor required of their profession,” adults need:

• early education leaders who have “a strong understanding of child development,” as well as

• leaders who “understand business management strategies to make tough choices in the face of excruciatingly tight budgets nationwide”

• training and professional development, and

• instructional planning time

“Ultimately,” Lesaux and Jones write, “promoting children’s growth and development requires addressing the needs of the adults who design and drive the policies, processes and interactions that shape early learning environments.”