How can K-12 education be improved?

Answers are being hotly debated. But according to a new report, too many people are overlooking a promising answer: K-12 should embrace early education.

“For years, the K–12 world has fundamentally underappreciated how the early years shape long-term educational outcomes,” the report — “Why The K-12 World hasn’t Embraced Early Learning” — explains.

Elliot Regenstein, a partner at the national education law firm Foresight Law and Policy, and the report’s author says:

“The goal of the paper is to provoke some much-needed conversation about strengthening the connection between K-12 and early learning. Massachusetts has always been a leader in education policy, and I hope it will be helpful to the state as it considers ways to continue improving its outcomes.”

In the report, Regenstein notes that there is good will to build on.

“It’s not that those K-12 leaders mean to ignore early learning. Indeed, many think of themselves as being in favor of early learning; they talk about its importance, and acknowledge research highlighting the importance of brain development in the early years.”

The problem: “…for too many K-12 leaders, early learning is ‘other’ – something they are in favor of even if it’s not really their job to do something about it. And the data are quite clear: the things that it is ‘their job to do’ will never happen properly without a stronger connection between the early years and what comes after them.”

The report looks at three challenges:

1 whether students have the proficiency they need to succeed in school
– among the problems in this area is that many children have fallen behind academically by third grade

2 how school accountability systems push leaders away from early education
– paradoxically, for example, many school accountability systems don’t start until the third grade when many students are already behind, and

3 the cultural divide that separates early education and K-12 education
– K-12 education with its state education agencies, superintendents, and boards of education is a radically different system than early education which “includes educationally-focused programs, but also a wide range of other health and human services programs.”

There is good news. In some districts K-12 is actively involved with early education:

“Boston is a popular example; while Boston’s mayors have been champions of early learning, the school district itself has done groundbreaking work. The collaborative work going on in Omaha through the Buffett Early Childhood Institute is worthy of national attention. The District of Columbia has made access to preschool a policy cornerstone, and there are many smaller districts that have invested in early learning as well.”

Other districts and states could follow suit. Regenstein says:

“The point of this paper is not to argue that school districts can’t succeed at early learning. They can, and we should highlight their successes at every opportunity. The point is that school districts will always act in their interest as they define it. Some districts have defined their interest to include a focus on the early years, and that is great. But many have not, for a host of entirely logical reasons – some of which are grounded in state policy. That gives states the power to affect that logic and make it clearer to districts that succeeding in the early years is in fact in their best interest.”

To inspire progress, the report makes a number of recommendations for action, among them:

• “Include early childhood leaders in any strategy discussions about improving high school proficiency and long-term outcomes”

• “Implement an accountability system that puts meaningful weight on the K-2 years”

• “Require the school improvement process to include a diagnosis of what’s going on before third grade”

• “Do a temperature check on school readiness statewide,” and

• “Build the capacity of district leaders to understand early childhood development”

“None of this is easy,” Regenstein warns. “…these are not necessarily levers that lead to quick results even under the best of circumstances; what’s proposed here is a set of changes that will likely require years to achieve their full potential.”

Nonetheless the payoff would be substantial. As the report concludes:

“The birth-to-eight years offer our best opportunity to improve long-term outcomes.”

While there are troubling and persistent gaps in early education and care, Regenstein says, “We can change all that – and the impacts of that change would ripple through the entire education system.”