On May 27, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing on early childhood education and reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
“We know that learning starts at birth and preparation for learning starts before birth,” said Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA). “Yet over three-quarters of children ages three to four do not have access to the early learning opportunities they need. As a result, nationwide, we spend billions of dollars trying to close gaps in student achievement that could be tempered by investing in high-quality early learning opportunities. By the time most children from low-income families reach kindergarten, their achievement levels are an average of 60 percent behind those of their peers from more affluent backgrounds. These same children also tend to possess vocabularies only one-third the size of their middle-class peers. These achievement and knowledge gaps expand over the summer months, when low-income students have less access to academic support systems and services. Yet we know that high-quality early learning opportunities provided by committed, capable, and caring providers can enable children to overcome these challenges and close achievement gaps.” Sen. Harkin added, “ESEA reauthorization offers an important opportunity to help states and school districts ensure that more young children are prepared to succeed in school. We must find more effective ways of supporting them as they transition into and move through elementary school. We must think about how early education programs can better align with existing K-12 systems. And we must better understand what educators, school administrators and parents need in order to effectively support and prepare young children to succeed.”
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said, “While I know today’s topic is the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education and we’ll hear a lot about Title I and how ESEA programs can support quality preschool, it’s important that we remember other major federal programs for early childhood education and child care, especially Head Start, Early Head Start, the Child Care Development Block Grant (or CCDBG), and IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]. Rather than trying to improve the early childhood experience solely though the reauthorization, I hope that the committee will also take the opportunity to make needed improvements to CCDBG and the Head Start program. While we’re behind in reauthorizing elementary education, it’s important to remember that the Child Care Development Block Grant has not been reauthorized since 1996, and that there are other critical changes needed to that block grant to ensure infants and toddlers receive high-quality care in a healthy and safe setting. To ensure children ages birth to five have the best start possible, it’s essential that our federal programs – ESEA, Head Start, the Child Care Development Block Grant, and IDEA – work together and all programs are pulling in the same direction and toward the same goal of all children, regardless of background, succeeding in school, succeeding in college, and succeeding in the workplace.”
Dr. Robert Pianta, professor of education at the University of Virginia, said, “The term ‘preschool’ encompasses a diverse array of programs under a variety of names and auspices for children who have not yet entered kindergarten. Again we focus here only on three broad types of programs serving children at ages three and four linked to largely separate public funding streams: private child care centers, Head Start, and pre-K programs in public education. Yet the real landscape of preschool is far broader and more complex. Enrollment of four-year-olds is split nearly 50-50 between public (including special education) and private programs. Private programs serve about 1.6 million four-year-olds, including children receiving public supports, such as subsidies to attend these private programs. Public programs include about one million children in pre-K (regular and special education and the 450,000 four-year-olds in Head Start). At age three, private programs predominate, serving roughly 1.4 million children. State-funded pre-K (regular and special education) serves only about 250,000 children at age three, while Head Start serves about 320,000 three-year-olds. The point here is that even if we focus only on a narrow ‘slice’ of the age three – third grade span, in this case, opportunities for three- and four-year-olds, we see little to no evidence of consistency in policy or on programmatic initiatives that create the templates for local opportunities for children and families. In thousands of communities across the country, children, particularly the most vulnerable, are funneled into one program at three and then shuffled to another at four, and yet another at five – or worse they are among those who lack access to any of these opportunities. And most have some other sort of child care (subsidized or not) at some point in the day or week. To be concrete, if the public schools cannot manage to offer universal full-day kindergarten, then how does one go about conceptualizing and designing a system of early education and care that is aligned with it? I hope you can see the need for an age three – third grade approach to policy and program improvement. For the considerable investments of time, money, and effort in early education of three and four year olds to pay off, a primary goal of policy and program development must now be the alignment of the learning opportunities, standards, assessments, and goals in early education with those in K-12.”
Henrietta Zalkind, executive director of the Down East Partnership for Children, described the comprehensive early childhood education services available at DEPC, saying, “DEPC recognizes that a parent is a child’s first teacher and plays a critical role in a child’s development during the early years and throughout his/her life. Throughout this phase in a child’s development, the needs of both the child and the family may vary greatly. DEPC seeks to address this by offering a continuum of evidence-based strategies and programs. Trained Family First counselors conduct needs assessments with families to determine the resources that will best address their needs. Families may receive information on child development and parenting issues, referrals to community resources, or access to subsidized child care. Families are connected with a variety of services, including parent-child playgroups that model appropriate interactions; support groups for parents of children with special needs or teen parents; parent education through evidence-based curricula…additional information through a parent information center; or workshops on topics, such as money management, healthy eating, helping your child have a smooth transition to kindergarten, or effective communication at parent-teacher conferences.” She continued, “DEPC has worked with both school systems to create a system of home-school contacts that facilitate a variety of transition strategies for children and families. Funded through Title I, More at Four, and Smart Start, these contacts provide home visits for entering kindergarteners, coordinate with parents and child care providers to facilitate school visits for children to spend time in a kindergarten classroom, and provide workshops for parents to learn strategies to support their child’s transition and healthy growth and development. These contacts help to identify children early for kindergarten (over 90 percent of children are identified before the first day of school) that not only allows for the opportunity to participate in transition activities (65 percent of kindergarten families participated in three or more transition activities), but also allows the school more planning time for student placement.”
Barry Griswell, president of the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines, and a member of the Berry College Board of Trustees, and Larry Schweinhart, president of High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Michigan, also testified.