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Archive for the ‘Professional development & preparation’ Category

To build babies’ brains, invest in the infant/toddler workforce

Posted in Achievement gap, Early educators, Infants and toddlers, National, Professional development & preparation on February 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

“If we care about equity, we have to build a system that nurtures healthy brain development starting at birth,” Shael Polakow-Suransky, the president of Bank Street College, said last month.

“When we provide babies and toddlers with regular access to a sensitively attuned caregiver, we literally feed the growing brain, helping to build the brain architecture that supports everything in life that follows—our learning, our behavior, and even our health.”

Polakow-Suransky was speaking at an event where Bank Street released a new report: “Investing in the Birth-to-Three Workforce: A New Vision to Strengthen the Foundation for All Learning.”

“We’re at a critical moment in this country where the question is not ‘why invest in early childhood?’ It’s ‘how do we invest in early childhood,’” Sarah Rittling, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, said at the event. (more…)

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Massachusetts’ PEG grant programs have improved outcomes for children

Posted in Federal, Funding, MA governor, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Research, Strategies for Children on January 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

Massachusetts has received great news.

The state’s federal Preschool Expansion Grant (PEG) program “had a powerful impact on children’s early academic skills. The program proved effective for all children on average,” Yahoo Finance reports.

The analysis of the PEG grant was conducted by Abt Associates.

Among Abt’s findings, according to a press release:

“PEG improved children’s readiness for kindergarten by providing:

• a sizable positive impact on children’s early literacy and math skills, and

• a smaller positive impact on vocabulary skills.”

“PEG had an even bigger impact on children from homes where English was not the primary language and for children with no prior formal child care experience,” Education Dive adds. (more…)

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Leading the Way: Nikki Burnett, executive director of Educare Springfield

Posted in Child care, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation on January 17, 2020| 1 Comment »

 

“I am a product of early education and care; and my daughter is a product of it as well,” Nikki Burnett told us recently. Burnett’s daughter is currently a student at Howard University.

As for Burnett herself she has come full circle. Born and raised in Massachusetts, in Springfield’s Mason Square neighborhood, Burnett worked for over a decade as a senior administrator at the American Heart Association. Now she’s back in Mason Square working as the executive director of the new Educare Springfield center, which just opened this month and is already at full enrollment.

Educare is an evidence-based national network of 25 early education programs with the sweeping goal of figuring out “the most effective and the most promising ways to work with each individual child and each individual family, and we do that with excitement and passion for the work,” according to Charlotte Brantley, the president and CEO of the Clayton Early Learning, Educare Denver.

Burnett echoes this ambition, explaining, “We may only have 141 children enrolled, but we are beholden to the education of all children.” Educare’s approach is to innovate and share its work on preparing young children to succeed in school. Burnett wants to ensure that all the children whose lives she touches aren’t struggling to catch up in kindergarten – as well as in first, second, and third grade. (more…)

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Voices from the Field: Clifford Kwong

Posted in Boston, Developmentally appropriate practice, Early educators, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Social-emotional development, Strategies for Children on October 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Clifford Kwong and Amy O’Leary. Photo courtesy of Amy O’Leary

“My mother is the one who tried to scare me around from education,” Clifford Kwong says.

“Every time I showed interest in education, she asked me not to do it.” His mother, who had worked in education for decades, warned that his student loans would be high and his salary would be low.

Her advice: choose business or science.

But as a student at Boston College High School, to fulfill his school’s community service requirement, Kwong chose to work at a child care center in Quincy. “They told me I was a natural,” he says of his time there.

He didn’t think much of this feedback at the time. He was on his way to college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he was taking his mother’s advice.

“I tried science,” Kwong says. “At the end of the day it didn’t feel like it was enough. Whereas at the end of a day doing community service, I felt great after working with kids.” (more…)

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Early education and higher education: powerful partnerships with community colleges

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early educators, Professional development & preparation on October 3, 2019| 1 Comment »

 

When early education and higher education team up, great things can happen.

One example is the Career Pathways Grant program, funding that the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) awards to all of Massachusetts’ community colleges to create more educational and professional development opportunities for early educators.

For instance, at Quinsigamond Community College, “10 students are taking part in a pre-college course focusing on student-based skills and introducing them to early childhood education topics and terminology. After they complete the course in the fall these students will transition over to college level early childhood education courses, where they will receive financial and other support services designed to help them succeed.”

At Mount Wachusett Community College, the grant is being used to “to provide free classes for Early Childhood Education professionals and training to help local childcare facilities.” (more…)

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A new bill calls for investing $1.5 billion in Massachusetts’ schools

Posted in Achievement gap, K-12, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children on September 24, 2019| 5 Comments »

 

There’s an exciting, new education bill in the State House: the Student Opportunity Act.

It calls for “an unprecedented $1.5 billion new investment in Massachusetts public education,” a fact sheet says.

The bill also notes that K-12 education can benefit from strong preschool programs.

“The proposal — jointly announced by House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Senate President Karen E. Spilka, and other legislative leaders — aims to bridge the divide in educational opportunities between poor and affluent systems by directing more money to districts that serve greater concentrations of students living in poverty or those with language barriers,” the Boston Globe reports.

 

(more…)

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NAEYC releases a new statement on equity

Posted in Early educators, NAEYC, National, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation on September 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

“It is with great excitement and deep gratitude that we share NAEYC’s newest position statement, Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education,” Amy O’Leary and Rhian Evans Allvin write in a blog post from the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

O’Leary is NAEYC’s board president as well as director of Strategies for Children’s Early Education for All Campaign. Evans Allvin is NAEYC’s executive director.

 

Amy O’Leary and Rhian Evans Allvin

 

The new statement is a rallying call and a roadmap of recommendations that “breaks new ground for the field and for NAEYC.”

The statement is one of NAEYC’s five foundational position statements, and it is endorsed by more than 100 leading organizations.

This statement’s core – “All children have the right to equitable learning opportunities that enable them to achieve their full potential as engaged learners and valued members of society” – pours a foundation for achieving a two-part goal to: (more…)

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UMass Boston will use new grant funds to revamp professional development for early educators

Posted in Dept. of Early Education and Care, Early educators, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation on September 3, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

Congratulations to the University of Massachusetts Boston for receiving a $12.4 million StrongStart Training and Technical Assistance Grant from the state.

The funding from the Department of Early Education and Care will support a wholesale overhaul of the training programs for the 70,000 early educators who work in 9,000 early education and care programs across the state.

The work will be led by the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation (the Leadership Institute), which is housed in UMass Boston’s College of Education and Human Development.

“We’re incredibly excited to partner with EEC to support the state’s early education and out-of-school time workforce. The new StrongStart system places Massachusetts at the cutting edge of innovation in the design and delivery of professional development for providers, educators, and leaders in the field,” Anne Douglass, the Leadership Institute’s founder and executive director, said in a UMass press release.

 

(more…)

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Special education and early education – meeting all children’s needs

Posted in Cognitive development, Developmentally appropriate practice, Early educators, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children on July 30, 2019| 1 Comment »

 

Early education classrooms are bright and fun, but they’re not always open to young children with disabilities.

Massachusetts works hard to meet these children’s needs through its Early Intervention program, but a new paper – “Early Childhood Special Education in Massachusetts,” written by Strategies for Children interns Annapurna Ayyappan and Marisa Fear — points out that there’s room for the state to make improvements.

In 2014, the federal government addressed the problem with a policy statement jointly released by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that said in part:

“It is the Departments’ position that all young children with disabilities should have access to inclusive high-quality early childhood programs, where they are provided with individualized and appropriate support in meeting high expectations.”

Getting this work done in Massachusetts, Ayyappan and Fear write, is essential:

“Early childhood education has the potential to provide children with the positive experiences that will establish a strong foundation upon which they can grow… Early intervention for children with developmental delays or disabilities targets the brain at a time when its services can have the greatest positive effects.” (more…)

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Recap of the State House hearing on early education and care

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, Funding, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children on July 10, 2019| 3 Comments »

Jessica Merrill, Titus DosRemedios, Kelly Savarese, Dawn DiStefano, Nicole Penney, Kim Davenport, Grace Cruz, Efrain Ponce Hamlet, Amy O’Leary, Clifford Kwong, Lisa Van Thiel. Photo courtesy of Kim Davenport.

Last week, there was a standing-room-only hearing at the Massachusetts State House where parents, teachers, and advocates called on elected officials to increase access to high-quality, affordable child care, expand preschool, increase educator salaries, and other priorities.

“Right now many parents struggle to access affordable childcare, and they often choose to stay home to avoid expensive daycare,” WWLP.com reports on the issues covered at the hearing, adding:

“Expanding full-day preschool would give parents the option of going back to work on a part-time or full-time basis.”

The multi-generational impact of having more preschool programs for children that would make it easier for parents to go work would be hugely beneficial for Massachusetts. This could be accomplished by a number of bills that were discussed at the hearing including: (more…)

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