Bookmarks

New Report Highlights Teacher Development as Key Strategy for Boosting Pre-K Quality: The report, Lifting Pre-K Quality: Caring and Effective Teachers, focuses on the need to move on from so-called input-based strategies to strategies that have more evidence of positive impact on children. The report advocates for more, better professional development for teachers and points to two models of teacher development programs that it views as successful examples.
Bessie Tartt Wilson Initiative for Children: The BTW Initiative's new report, "Blueprint for Early Education Compensation Reform" is available at this link. It outlines four strategies to improve pay for child-care workers, Head Start teachers, and those who work with young children outside of public schools. The report recommends: developing a career ladder with clearly defined titles and duties; wage increases as educators increase their responsibilities; bonuses for training and higher degrees; and building an early education endowment fund.
Alliance for Early Childhood Funding — Innovative ideas in early care ...: The new website for the Alliance for Early Childhood Funding provides extensive resources.
Understanding Quality in Context: Child Care Centers, Communities, Markets, and Public Policy: A new (July 2010) research study from the Urban Institute focuses on key elements of child care quality. While research has told us a lot about key dimensions of quality—for example the role of stable, well-trained staff—and has delineated major barriers to achieving it, we know little about what influences the variation in quality of services, even among programs that face similar challenges. This study begins to address that gap by focusing on child care center directors and analyzing how their decisions and perspectives, and the context within which they work, affect the quality of their programs. Through that work, we considered each program's financial stability, staffing, and reliance on outside standards and licensing requirements. Ultimately, our goal is to identify what supports quality in some centers, what blocks progress in others, and how public policy can do more to ensure that all children get off to a good start.
Three Easy Pieces (of Research) for Budget Deciders « Preschool Matters… Today!: Blog post by Steven Barnett in the August 27, 2010, edition of Preschool Matters about three important new pieces of research on the value of investing in early childhood, with links to the research.
The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood - Center on the Developing Child - Harvard University: Health in the earliest years—beginning with the future mother’s well-being before she becomes pregnant—lays the groundwork for a lifetime of vitality. When developing biological systems are strengthened by positive early experiences, children are more likely to thrive and grow up to be healthy adults. Sound health also provides a foundation for the construction of sturdy brain architecture and the achievement of a broad range of skills and learning capacities.
Parents and The High Cost of Child Care: 2010 Update | NACCRRA - The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies: Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2010 Update provides average costs of child care for infants, 4-year-olds, and school-age children in centers and family child care homes in every state. The average cost that parents paid for full-time care for a 4-year-old child in a center ranged from more than $4,050 in Mississippi to more than $13,150 a year in Massachusetts. The average center-based child care fees for an infant exceeded the average annual amount that families spent on food in every region of the United States. Monthly child care fees for two children at any age exceeded the median monthly rent cost, and were nearly as high, or even higher than, the average monthly mortgage payment in every state. Data are from a 2009 survey of Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) State Networks.
Council on Anthropology & Education - Policy Initiatives: Scroll down on this page to link to a new policy brief, Ethnographic Knowledge for Early Childhood, which focuses on how ethnographic research in early childhood settings can inform early childhood policy.
The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers (Article in NY Times 7/28/10): Report on a new study by economists who found that kindergarten has lasting economic value. "Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more."
Special Report | The American Prospect: This is a Special Report on Reading by Grade Three: A National Goal to Help Every Child Succeed in the July/August 2010 issue of The American Prospect. It includes articles about the importance of health care, playful learning, and supporting emergent literacy in the years from birth to five.
'Newsletter Notes Federal Initiatives That Boost Indicators & Evidence': Several new federal initiatives give a strong role to measurement--both performance measures and well-being indicators--as a means for identifying needs and documenting improvement. The Spring 2010 issue of The Child Indicator summarizes these initiatives--Race to the Top, the Investing in Innovation Fund, Promise Neighborhoods, and the Social Innovation Fund. The newsletter also highlights recently released reports on indicators of child well-being, including a recent Kids Count report on reading proficiency.
Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Poor and Vulnerable Children in ...: An article in the latest issue of the on-line early childhood journal, Early Childhood Research and Practice. Four key strategies for improving the capacity of early care and education programs for preventing and addressing mental health problems in young children in poverty are outlined: (1) expanding use of early childhood mental health consultants, (2) building effective partnerships with mental health and other community-based systems, (3) providing support and training for teachers, and (4) establishing family-based supports such as those provided by Head Start and Early Head Start. The article concludes with suggestions for research and policy changes to remove barriers and support this work.
Mental Health - Head Start: The Children's Mental Health section of the Head Start website includes valuable information and resources.
Invest in Coös County, Invest in Kids! About The Coös County Family ...: The web site of the Coos Family Support Project! Includes links to research and resources, including resources for families. Also includes information specific to Coos County.
Office of Child Development (OCD) @ the University of Pittsburgh School ...: The University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development (OCD) is a university-community resource and management facility dedicated to improving the lives of children and families in Pittsburgh, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the nation, and around the world through research, education, practice, and policy.
OCD attempts to improve the lives of children and families by conducting a variety of multidisciplinary, community-driven, responsive, collaborative projects that turn knowledge into action. The site includes excellent resources for families.
CSEFEL: Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning: The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) is focused on promoting the social emotional development and school readiness of young children birth to age 5. CSEFEL is a national resource center funded by the Office of Head Start and Child Care Bureau for disseminating research and evidence-based practices to early childhood programs across the country. This site has extensive resources, including excellent information for parents.
Partnership for America's Economic Success: Home: The Partnership for America's Economic Success is a coalition of economists, policy experts and advocates mobilizing business leaders to improve tomorrow's economy through smart policy investments in young children today. They have assembled a stable of solid economic evidence on the societal benefits of a broad range of investments in children, and assessed the communications and coalition building efforts needed to advance these policies. Now, this information is the foundation of a national campaign to make the success of every child the nation's top economic priority.
birthtofivepolicy.org > Home: The Birth to Five Policy Alliance works to fulfill the American promise of opportunity for all. Forty-two percent of our nation’s children under 6 live in low-income families and the “opportunity gap” is rooted in these very early years. The Alliance’s goal is to shift the odds for our youngest, most vulnerable children so they can grow up eager to learn and ready for success in life.
The Heckman Equation: This website from Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman provides a variety of tools and information on the economic case for investing in early care and education.
Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire: There is a link here to a new report, "Rural Families with a Child Abuse Report are More Likely Headed by a Single Parent and Endure Economic and Family Stress."
National Center for Children in Poverty: NCCP's new report, Indicators for Social-emotional Development in Early Childhood: A Guide for Local Stakeholders, is available in full at this link.
Smart Start and The North Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc.: Information about North Carolina's Smart Start initiative. Smart Start is North Carolina's nationally recognized and award-winning early childhood initiative designed to ensure that young children enter school healthy and ready to succeed. Smart Start is a public-private initiative that provides early education funding to all of the state's 100 counties.
The Future of Children - Home: This issue of The Future of Children, published by the Brookings Institution, focuses on Preventing Child Maltreatment. Includes an article on the use of Home Visiting Programs to prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. The entire issue can be downloaded from this site.
Resources (Goffin Strategy Group): Click on Leadership Development in Early Care and Education to read a report on leadership development activities nationwide with a compendium of information about individual initiatives. The Early Childhood Development Initiative for the North Country is on page 14.
CDC - Parent Portal: A new and user-friendly site from the CDC, designed for parents, covering everything from safety at home and the community to immunization schedules and developmental milestones.
The Foundation for Child Development: This report, "Taking Stock: Assessing and Improving Early Childhood Learning and Program Quality," from the National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force, is an excellent resource on evaluation.
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University - Center Publications: Scroll down to link to "Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision-Maker's Guide," from the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation. Increasing demands for evidence-based early childhood services and the need by policymakers to know whether a program is effective or whether it warrants a significant investment of public and/or private funds—coupled with the often-politicized debate around these topics—make it imperative for policymakers and civic leaders to have the independent knowledge needed to be able to evaluate the quality and relevance of the evidence provided in reports. This clear, concise guide from the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation helps prepare decision-makers to be better consumers of evaluation information by posing five key questions that address both the substance and the practical utility of rigorous evaluation research.
Early Childhood Assessment: Why, What, and How: This site gives full access to (and ordering information for) an important new report on Early Childhood Assessment and evaluation by the National Academies Press. The book includes chapters on the purposes of evaluation and assessment and explains the differences between program evaluation and evaluation based on child outcomes, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each type of assessment. An excellent resource.
Child Trends: This section of the Child Trends website contains links to a series of recent (spring 2009) reports on evaluating quality in early childhood settings. These are valuable resources for those involved with evaluating and improving early care and education quality.
Childstats.gov - Home: The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, or the Forum, is a working group of Federal agencies that collect, analyze, and report data on issues related to children and families. The Forum has partners from 22 Federal agencies as well as partners in private research organizations. This site has links to a comprehensive report on America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being, including indicators in the areas of Health, Education, Family and Social Environment, and several other areas.
Child Care and Early Education at CLASP:: CLASP's child care and early education work is dedicated to promoting policies that support both child development and the needs of low-income working parents. CLASP conducts policy analysis, research, and technical assistance to expand access to and resources for high-quality, comprehensive child care and early education; build effective child care and early education systems including child care subsidies, Head Start, pre-kindergarten and other early education initiatives; and ensure these systems can be responsive to the developmental needs of all children, in particular infants and toddlers and children in immigrant families. CLASP's child care and early education work highlights state-by-state data where available.
A project of the Early Childhood Funders' Collaborative supporting state efforts to prepare our youngest children for success | Build Initiative: The Build Initiative supports State efforts to create comprehensive early childhood systems – coordinated, effective policies that address children's health, mental health and nutrition, early care and education, family support and parenting programs, and services for children with special needs.
National Advisory Committee on Rural Health - Publications: The NACRHHS is a 21-member appointed citizens' panel of nationally recognized rural health and human service experts that provides recommendations on rural issues to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Each year, the Committee issues a report focusing on three key rural topics. This year’s report is the culmination of a year-long effort that included site visits to North Carolina and Minnesota to learn about the implications of each topic at the community level.
Child Trends: Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at all stages of development. Its mission is to improve outcomes for children by providing research, data, and analysis to the people and institutions whose decisions and actions affect children, including program providers,the policy community, researchers and educators, and the media. Research areas include: Child Poverty, Child Welfare, Early Childhood Development, Education, Health, and all areas that impact the developing child. Recent research includes the report, Disparities in Early Learning and Development: Lessons from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort, which identifies low income and low maternal education as the factors most strongly associated with poorer cognitive, social-emotional, and health outcomes among very young children. It also finds that the more risk factors a child has, the more profound the disparities.
Early Ed Watch | New America Blogs: Early Ed Watch, a blog at the non-partisan New America Foundation, provides analysis, reporting, and commentary on early education, with a focus on policies that affect children's access to high-quality, aligned early education programs from ages 3 through 8. Includes excellent resources and links.
Carsey: North Country Indicators: With support from the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund, the Carsey Institute has undertaken this benchmark and indicator work to provide North Country leaders with the information they need to understand and guide the change taking place in the region as they endeavor to move from managing decline to building a sustainable future that attracts and retains young people.
FINE: Family Involvement Network of Educators / Family Involvement / HFRP - Harvard Family Research Project: FINE: Family Involvement Network of Educators at the Harvard Family Research Project offers access to current information about family and community involvement in early care and education.
Child Care & Early Education Research: This web site, co-sponsored by the National Center for Children in Poverty and several non-profit organizations and government agencies, offers a comprehensive, up-to-date, and easy-to-use collection of more than 14,000 resources from the many disciplines related to child care and early education. Provides easy access to current research in the field.
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE): The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment is at UC Berkeley. Through research, policy analysis and policy development, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) focuses on issues relating to the several million teachers and providers currently working in center-based and home-based early care and education settings in the United States. Site includes links to recent research on preparing teachers of young children and the state of professional development in early education.
NCCP | Strategies for Early Learning Events: This links to the Strategies for Early Learning Project at the National Center for Children in Poverty. The Project sponsored four webinars in 2009 to promote the dissemination of the growing knowledge base about the most effective ways to ensure that young children enter school with the necessary early literacy and early math skills, particularly through professional development strategies. Webinars are archived here, and provide excellent resources about effective professional development strategies in early childhood. The NCCP home site also offers abundant research and resources about children and families in poverty.
Zero to Three: Zero to Three Home Page: Zero to Three provides an extensive collection of resources aimed at supporting the work of professionals who work with young children birth to three and their parents in a variety of early childhood settings. The information is continually updated and refreshed and is anchored in evidence-based practice and scientific research. Site is organized into three areas: professionals, parents, and public policy. Excellent resources for mental health professionals and early childhood teachers working with infants and toddlers.
National Scientific Council on the Developing Child: The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (NSCDC) is a multi-disciplinary collaboration comprising leading scholars in neuroscience, early childhood development, pediatrics, and economics. The Council works to build strong, informed, bipartisan leadership in both the public and private sectors to close the gap between what we know and what we do to promote successful learning, adaptive behavior, and sound physical and mental health for all young children.
The Foundation for Child Development: Improving child well-being and promoting educational success by Third Grade: The Foundation for Child Development (FCD) is a national, private philanthropy dedicated to the principle that all families should have the social and material resources to raise their children to be healthy, educated and productive members of their communities. The Foundation seeks to understand children, particularly the disadvantaged, and to promote their well-being. We believe that families, schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses and government at all levels share complementary responsibilities in the critical task of raising new generations.
National Institute for Early Education Research (nieer.org): The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers serves as a national clearinghouse for research and resources on all aspects of early education. Sponsored by the Pew Memorial, it is a strong advocate for universal preschool. NIEER publishes "The State of Preschool," a state-by-state survey, each year.
Economic Impact Studies: The NH Department of Employment Security has issued several economic impact studies that can be accessed at this site, including one on the Economic Impact of Child Care (2009). This study highlights the importance of available child care in New Hampshire. Parents’ ability to work is an essential part of New Hampshire’s economy. Quality child care is pivotal in balancing work and family responsibilities. An estimated 43,000 parents are able to participate in the workforce because they have access to child care. How would the economy look without these workers? This study examines how available child care impacts the labor force.
Linking Economic Development and Child Care: The Linking Economic Development and Child Care Research Project aims to better identify the economic linkages of child care from a regional economy perspective. This Project, located at Cornell, supports states and localities interested in using an economic development framework to build coalitions with the economic development community, business interests and policy makers to help craft new approaches to child care finance. This site provides a quantitative database of economic demographic and policy data for all 50 states and a qualitative database of all state and local studies (completed and in-progress). The site also includes research reports, copies of state studies, advice on economic analysis, and profiles of new approaches to child care policy.
Linking Economic Development and Child Care: This is a special issues of the Journal of the Community Development Society (vol. 47 no. 2, June 2006) on the Economic Importance of Child Care for Community Development. This special issue, edited by Mildred E. Warner, focuses on the economic significance of child care in three areas: the importance of child care for the long term prospects of children, child care’s importance for parents as workers and child care purchasers, the importance of the child care industry for regional economies.
Issues & Research: This is the "Early Learning" section of the National Conference of State Legislators website, with links to reports, articles, briefs, etc. on issues and policy recommendations related to early childhood development.
Herr Research Center for Children and Social Policy: Early childhood mental health research projects: Links to research reports on Early Childhood Mental Health from the Herr Research Center at the Erikson Institute.
Herr Research Center: Research in early education and care: Links here to research reports from the Herr Research Center for Children and Social Policy at the Erikson Institute in Chicago. This includes a link to the Family Child Care Network Impact Study.
Families-Schools - Spotlights: Resources from the Families-Schools Organization of The Center on Innovation and Improvement. Families-Schools provides resources to strengthen school communities. The Center on Innovation & Improvement is a national content center that supports regional centers in their work with states to provide districts, schools, and families, with the opportunity, information, and skills to make wise decisions on behalf of students.
W.K. Kellogg Foundation: Overview - SPARK: The SPARK initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation – Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids – worked to create a seamless transition into school for vulnerable children ages 3 to 6. SPARK supported partnerships of selected communities, schools, state agencies, and families to ensure that they work together effectively for children’s early learning. With the initiative serving as a catalyst or “spark,” the goal was to ensure that vulnerable children are ready for school and schools are ready for the children.
Blandin Foundation - Grants, Scholarships, Community Leadership and Public Policy: Investment in the earliest years of a child's development, from birth to five years, is a key determinant in their future success--and in developing health communities, now and years from now. For the past decade, Blandin Foundation has provided sustaining support and convening for early childhood programs in Itasca County Minnesota that help strengthen families and give children a strong start in life.
Special Studies - Early Childhood Development | The Federal Reserve ...: Information about economic benefits of investing in early childhood development from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.