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Governor Baker Vetoes Funding for Early Education and Care and for Full-Day Kindergarten Grants

Posted in Full-day kindergarten, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Pre-kindergarten on July 20, 2015| 21 Comments »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Last week, on Friday, July 17, 2015, Governor Charlie Baker signed the fiscal year 2016 state budget into law. This budget has $162 million in line-item vetoes.

The vetoes include a $5 million reduction in funds for early education and care programs, as well as a $17.6 million reduction for full-day kindergarten grants.

The Legislature can vote to override these vetoes. But legislators need to hear your encouragement.

Please take a moment to send them an email and ask them to support early education funding in fiscal year 2016.

Thank you.

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Putting Play Back in Kindergarten Curricula

Posted in Curriculum, Developmentally appropriate practice, Full-day kindergarten, K-12, Language development, National, Play, Social-emotional development, Standards and curriculum on June 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

Play is making a comeback in kindergarten classes located in the Maryland suburb of Pasadena, according to a recent New York Times article, “Kindergartens Ringing the Bell for Play Inside the Classroom.”

But support for play varies based on class-related ideas about what children need most: more play or more academics.

Describing Pasadena’s new approach to play, the Times writes:

“Mucking around with sand and water. Playing Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders. Cooking pretend meals in a child-size kitchen. Dancing on the rug, building with blocks and painting on easels.

“Call it Kindergarten 2.0.”

“Concerned that kindergarten has become overly academic in recent years, this suburban school district south of Baltimore is introducing a new curriculum in the fall for 5-year-olds. Chief among its features is a most old-fashioned concept: play.”

Some teachers are excited about the new approach.

“But educators in low-income districts say a balance is critical,” the Times notes. “They warn that unlike students from affluent families, poorer children may not learn the basics of reading and math at home and may fall behind if play dominates so much that academics wither.” (more…)

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A Radio Series on Early Childhood in New Hampshire

Posted in Achievement gap, Cost and affordability, Full-day kindergarten, Funding, Health, National, Play, Pre-kindergarten, Research on May 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

How are our kids doing? That’s the question New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) has been asking in a series called “The First Decade: Early Childhood Disparities and the Future of N.H.’s Kids.”

So we’re taking a look at our New England neighbor to get a sense of how some of this region’s children are doing.

“When it comes to kids’ well-being, New Hampshire ranks high overall in survey after survey. But the real picture of how kids are faring goes deeper than that,” NHPR’s website explains. “Children in poor families continue to lose ground in everything from access to health care to quality education to opportunities to play sports.”

Worse, the opportunity gap between children from lower and higher ends of the income spectrum is likely to grow.

“On the whole, we’ve found that while children in New Hampshire are somewhat better off than those across the nation,” the website notes, “New Hampshire still has a growing trend in inequality in terms of poverty and family income, where low-income children and poor children are on the rise after decades of decline and income is pretty much all but stagnated for those in lower income groups in the past 50 years, but it has actually increased for families in higher income groups. This means that more and more, there is this likely growing gap in outcomes between worse- and better-off children in New Hampshire.” (more…)

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Massachusetts Senate Passes FY16 State Budget

Posted in Full-day kindergarten, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Pre-kindergarten on May 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Early on Friday, May 22, 2015, the Massachusetts Senate passed a $38.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2016.

During budget debate, senators approved additional funding for the early education and care provider rate reserve, bringing the Senate total to $5.25 million. In addition, an amendment was adopted to establish a new “Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative:” $500,000 to help communities expand preschool access for 3-year-olds. Amendments to restore funding for full-day kindergarten grants were not adopted, leaving the final Senate budget total at $1 million for this grant program.

Visit our website for a full listing of early education line items and how they compare across budget proposals.

The budget now moves to a six-member conference committee which will negotiate differences between the House and Senate FY16 budgets before sending a final budget to Governor Baker. Stay tuned for next steps.

For more information on early education in the state budget, contact Titus DosRemedios at tdosremedios@strategiesforchildren.org, or (617) 330-7387.

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MA Senate Ways & Means Committee Releases FY16 State Budget Proposal

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early educators, Full-day kindergarten, Funding, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children on May 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

On Tuesday of this week, the Massachusetts Senate Committee on Ways and Means released a $38 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2016. The proposal represents a 3.1 percent spending increase over FY15. It relies on $572 million in one-time funds and does not recommend any tax changes.

The committee’s proposal is themed “Lifting All Families,” and “makes targeted investments to foster shared prosperity, encourage overall economic growth and create new opportunities for people in all corners of our commonwealth.”

Among these targeted investments are increases to early education and care. The Department of Early Education and Care and its programs are funded at $545.51 million, roughly $6 million higher than in the House of Representatives’ FY16 budget. This includes a $12 million investment to serve children on the state’s income eligible waiting list for early education and care subsidies. The Senate proposal also consolidates two major subsidy access accounts, Supportive Child Care and TANF. (more…)

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Full-Day Kindergarten Helps Children Thrive

Posted in Full-day kindergarten, Funding, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget on March 31, 2015| 1 Comment »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

As more policymakers become champions of early education, “it’s important to remember that pre-K cannot stand alone – the years before and after pre-K are equally important to children’s development,” Abbie Lieberman writes in a post on New America’s Ed Central blog called, “Why Full-Day Kindergarten is a Key Piece of the Early Ed Puzzle.”

Full-day kindergarten is important, “because research indicates that kindergarteners benefit significantly from a full-day in the classroom. In fact, studies suggest that full-day kindergarten improves academic achievement and can lessen the achievement gap.”

Lieberman adds: “more time in the classroom means more time for high-quality interactions with teachers and peers, which translates to more learning. As Alexander Holt explains in Making the Hours Count: Exposing Disparities in Early Education by Retiring Half-Day vs. Full-Day Labels, ‘Time in a classroom does not guarantee opportunities to learn, but it is a necessary doorway to that opportunity.’ In short, it’s difficult for a child attending kindergarten for two hours a day to realize the same benefits as a child in the neighboring school district who attends for six hours a day.” (more…)

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Governor Baker’s 9C Budget Cuts

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education, Family engagement, Full-day kindergarten, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Pre-kindergarten on February 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

On Tuesday, Governor Baker announced his administration’s plan to close a mid-year state budget gap of $768 million. To do this, the governor relies on non-tax revenue adjustments as well as “9C cuts” to reduce fiscal year 2015 spending levels for nearly 300 line items. Baker explains his approach in a press release.

How did early education fare?

Overall, Baker reduced the Department of Early Education and Care’s budget by $5.5 million, including: a $2.1 million cut to the TANF access account; a $1 million cut to Head Start; a $1 million to Coordinated Family and Community Engagement grants; and $750,000 from the new K1 classroom grant program. EEC administration, Access Management, and waitlist reduction funds were also cut by smaller amounts.

In addition, Full Day Kindergarten grants were cut by $5 million. These quality grants are managed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and fund para-professional salaries, program curriculum, professional development, and other activities.

In light of these cuts, your advocacy will be critical as our state legislators debate the fiscal year 2016 budget.

So please participate in Rising Stars 2015 and send a message to Governor Baker and your state legislators today.

Stay tuned for more advocacy opportunities: Our policymakers need to hear from all of us. Together, we can advocate for and secure the investments in high-quality early education that will provide bright futures for the commonwealth’s young children.

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“Quality Counts:” Education Week Releases its Annual Report with a Focus on Early Education

Posted in Developmentally appropriate practice, Full-day kindergarten, K-12, National, Pre-K to 3, Pre-kindergarten, Research on January 12, 2015| 1 Comment »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Education Week magazine has released its Quality Counts 2015 report. It is a sweeping collection of articles and data that provide a thorough look at the educational opportunities and challenges that the country faces.

The subtitle of this year’s report is “Preparing to Launch: Early Childhood’s Academic Countdown,” highlighting the report’s focus on early education research and practice at the national, state, and local levels.

Noting in a press release that “support for early-childhood education has become a rare point of consensus along the ideological and political spectrum,” EdWeek points out that this consensus is only a starting point. There are still “disagreements over funding strategies and policy approaches threaten to unravel tenuous alliances that have bridged the partisan divide.”

Specifically, the report looks at how “new academic demands and accountability pressures are reshaping the learning environment for young children and the teachers and administrators serving them.” Education Week journalists explored:

– the policy debates surrounding publicly funded programs
– cutting-edge research on the early years, and,
– the academic and technological challenges that await the nation’s youngest learners (more…)

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Throwback Thursday: National Governors Association Pushes for Third-Grade Reading Proficiency

Posted in Achievement gap, Early educators, English language learners, Family engagement, Full-day kindergarten, Infants and toddlers, Language development, National, Pre-kindergarten, Reading proficiency, TBT on November 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

This post was originally published on November 25, 2013.

“The time is now to redesign this country’s approach to language and literacy instruction, and governors who choose to can lead the charge,” according to the National Governors Association (NGA) report, “A Governor’s Guide to Early Literacy: Getting all Students Reading by Third Grade.”

Acknowledging the fact that only one-third of America’s fourth graders are reading proficiently, the report points out that America’s governors can help address this challenge. They can build a bridge between knowledge and action, connecting what researchers know to what policymakers do.

What the Research Says

To provide the research background on the literacy issue, the report points to three widely accepted research findings:

1. “Starting at kindergarten is too late.” Because literacy skills start developing at birth and because achievement gaps show up early, infants, toddlers and preschoolers need effective, high-quality early education and care programs that introduce early literacy concepts.
(more…)

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A New Guide for Policymakers on Pre-K to Third Grade Initiatives

Posted in Assessments, Boston, Curriculum, Dept. of Early Education and Care, Full-day kindergarten, Funding, National, Pre-K to 3, QRIS, Reading proficiency, Standards and curriculum, Strategies for Children on November 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Micaela Bedell for Strategies for Children

Parents, mayors, governors, and President Obama are all talking about the importance of high-quality preschool programs and about how they can help children become proficient third grade readers.

But with all this energy and action, it can be easy to lose sight of how, specifically, policymakers can have a positive impact in these areas.

That’s why the Education Commission of the States has put together a guide for policymaker’s, an A to Z primer on early education called “Initiatives from Preschool to Third Grade.”

It’s a “reference guide for policymakers and their staffs on the most commonly requested topics from preschool to third grade,” according to the guide’s executive summary.

The guide says, “the primary programs and strategies policymakers have inquired about include: (more…)