Congress will take up early childhood education

Plans would align preschool programs with K-12 instruction

4/23/02 – The next item on the national education agenda appears to be early childhood education, now that the major K-12 education reform bill has been passed and legislation to reauthorize the special education act has been put on hold pending the final report of a presidential commission.

President Bush announced an early childhood education initiative earlier this month to strengthen Head Start, better coordinate preschool programs with state goals for K-12 education, and identify best practices.

Members of Congress, meanwhile, are drafting legislation to provide large funding increases for early childhood education.

According to the White House, early childhood, up to age 5, "is a critical time for children to develop the physical, emotional, social, and cognitive skills they will need for the rest of their lives."

Thirty-eight percent of young children receive care solely from their parents, the White House reports. The rest receive care from a variety of arrangements, including individual day-care providers and center-based programs, and much of this care is not of high-quality.

The President's "Good Start, Grow Smart" initiative includes the following elements:

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would develop a new accountability system calling for Head Start centers to assess standards of learning in early literacy, language, and numeracy skills.

• HHS would implement a national training program with the goal of training the nearly 50,000 Head Start teachers in early literacy teaching techniques.

• States would be asked to develop criteria for early childhood education, including voluntary guidelines on activities to build pre-reading and language skills aligned with state K-12 standards. To help states meet these criteria, they would be given more flexibility with their federal child care funds.

• The Education Department would initiate a broad public awareness campaign to provide parents, early childhood educators, and child care providers with information on the best practices in early childhood development.

• The Administration proposes a $45 million research collaborative between the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Education Department to identify effective pre-reading and language curricula and teaching strategies.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, is working with several co-sponsors from both parties on legislation for a $5 billion, five-year early childhood education program.

This proposal would provide incentive grants for states to leverage existing federal, state, local, and private funds to create coordinated systems of child care and education for children up to age 5.

To receive a grant, states would have to ensure parents have access to high-quality, comprehensive services for young children; ensure all parents have access to programs that promote the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of young children; and hold early childhood programs accountable for meeting standards.

The measure also calls for states to ensure comprehensive training for early childhood education teachers.

NSBA believes federal support for high-quality early childhood education programs is critical "if this nation is to make significant gains in the academic performance of our public school students."

Although NSBA's top funding priority right now is full, mandatory funding for special education, NSBA also supports a separate funding stream under Title I to allow local school districts to operate their own early childhood education programs, contract with another entity for these services, or make grants to another provider.

"In the long run, an investment in early education will substantially close the achievement gap," NSBA states.