More information from NIEER

What specific section(s) or information seemed particularly relevant to your current professional development?

Since I do not have a professional stake at this point, the information that is relevant to my personal life is the section on Special Education.  There is a wealth of information (publications and research) on various special education topics, including specific information on Autism.  Much of the information will help me when my son enters the public school system next year.

    

 Which ideas/statements/resources, either on the website or in an e-newsletter, did you find controversial or made you think about an issue in new ways?

I still have not received a newsletter from this organization.  In terms of the website, the entire website is a collection of research papers, publications and news releases about a variety of topics in early childhood education. 

One of the articles “Getting the Facts Right on Pre-K and the President's Pre-K Proposal” discusses the question of whether non-disadvantaged children benefit from pre-K.  I was happy to see that it supported the fact that all children benefit from a pre-K program.  One issue it presented that I had not thought about before is that research has shown that disadvantaged children showed larger gains when the programs contained more children from middle-income families.  This is great news!  My fear with the economic/business case approaches to early childhood programs is that there will be more support for programs that only include disadvantaged children versus children from middle class because research has shown that disadvantaged children show the most improvement.  Hopefully this research will be well publicized and children from middle class families will not be left out in terms of support for pre-K programs.

   

 What information does the website or the e-newsletter contain that adds to your understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

     

There is an entire section of the website that contains publications and research on economics and finance.  The article that I mentioned above (Getting the Facts Right on Pre-K and the President's Pre-K Proposal) is one example of articles that have a political basis.  I searched the word “neuroscience” and the website brought up several pages of publications on neuroscience in early childhood education.  While the website itself does not make statements of support or non-support, it contains a lot of information that would support either argument.

What other new insights about issues and trends in the early childhood field did you gain from exploring the website or e-newsletter?

According to the website, (NIEER) supports excellence and equity in early childhood education by conducting and disseminating nonpartisan research and policy analysis.  They publish an annual report on the state of preschool in the United States, based on a survey of state pre-K programs.  The report from 2012 states the following: Twenty-eight percent of America’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program in the 2011-2012 school year, reflecting no appreciable change from the previous year. Total funding fell over half a billion dollars, and per child funding was cut, marking the most dramatic year of funding cuts since the Yearbook began in 2001.

I was not surprised by this information due to the current state of the economy in this country, but I was still disheartened to hear it.  After all the research we have on the benefits of early education, this country still picks this program out of all of them to cut.  I see money wasted every single day here in DC and it makes me sick to think how much these programs and our children could benefit if the folks here were not so wasteful!

Poverty in Sweden and Switzerland

I asked both of my contacts about poverty they had encountered in their professional life or any issues of poverty that they have seen on a personal level.  Below is a summary of the response from my contact in Sweden:

Poverty is not a large problem in Sweden.  In terms of school age children, even if parents lose their jobs, everything they need for school is free.  Children are given school supplies, books, food, etc.  Children are also given the equivalent of $180 a month that can be used for clothes and food.  Children with special needs are given additional resources to assist them with their challenges. 

My contact is from a rural area in Sweden.  She thinks that things are a little more challenging in the larger cities (like Stockholm) where they are struggling with immigrants.  The immigrants (many from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan) remain segregated from the Swedish population and the government is struggling to deal with the multitude of issues surrounding that situation.


My contact from Switzerland has not responded yet.  I researched information on poverty in Switzerland and found an interesting interview that occurred in November 2010 with Hugo Fasel, director of a Catholic Church charity group called Caritas.  Switzerland had just completed its first national conference on poverty and he explained some of facts surrounding poverty and what needs to be done to fight it.  According to Mr. Fasel, in Switzerland there are 260,000 children living in poverty and the key to winning the fight is education.  He stated that without a degree, young adults are having a very tough time getting jobs.  Because there are several topics that are linked to poverty, there must be various approaches and tools to address each of them.  One issue he brought up was access to technology.  He states that children without a basic home computer fall behind their peers.

Although it makes perfect sense, this was the first time I have seen someone mention lack of access to technology at home as a key contributing factor to inequities in education.  We know that classrooms have incorporated computers and computer skills into the curriculum, but not being able to carry over those skills in the home put children at a disadvantage. 

 I hope to hear back from my contact in Switzerland before the weekend is over.  I will update the post as soon as I hear from her.

Share what you have learned so far from these exchanges (or from the podcast and website)

I am surprised at how much the government in Sweden supports its people.  It seems like there are many more supports and programs available for its citizens than here in the US.  However, I believe that their tax rate in the country is much higher than ours as well.  

Describe your new insights and information about issues of poverty

I have always known that poverty is a huge problem in this country.  I grew up in Appalachia and the poverty level is very high.  The poverty rate for Kentucky is 18.1% and in Ohio it is 14.8%.  The actual county in Ohio where I grew up is 17.4%.  I do not think the federal government is doing enough to address this issue.  We have some programs (Food stamps, WIC, etc.), but they are horribly mismanaged and abused.  If the government does not step up and do something, this country will be in even worse shape than we are now.

Web Resources

The organization I chose to follow is the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).  Their mission statement is:

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) conducts and communicates research to support high-quality, effective early childhood education for all young children. Such education enhances their physical, cognitive, and social development, and subsequent success in school and later life.

I signed up for the online newsletter last week, but as of today I have only received a welcome email.  I checked the website and noticed that the email newsletter only provides "periodic updates."  While on the website today I found where I could subscribe to email updates on Research and Publications Alerts and Preschool Matters...Today! Alerts.  I am hoping these emails will be distributed on a more regular basis.

What caught my eye on the website this week was the announcement of the publication of the 2012 State Preschool Yearbook.  This book is an annual report profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. This latest Yearbook presents data on state-funded prekindergarten during the 2011-2012 school year as well as documenting a decade of progress since the first Yearbook collected data on the 2001-2002 school year. Tracking trends long term is key to understanding the progress of early childhood education across the country and improving educational opportunities for America’s children.

The publication is extensive and I have not had an opportunity to review it, but one of the major issues that was pointed out in the summary was the following:

Twenty-eight percent of America’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program in the 2011-2012 school year, the same percentage as the year before. This stagnation in enrollment growth was compounded by an unprecedented funding drop of $500 million nationwide. The findings in this Yearbook raise serious concerns on the quality and availability of pre-K education for most of American young learners.

I think this publication will be useful to all my colleagues.  I am including the link below so you can go straight to the page:

http://nieer.org/publications/state-preschool-2012


13 July 2013

I finally received an email from NIEER Online News.  It is basically a bunch of links to newspapers, journals and other websites that have information dealing with early childhood.  For example, there is a link to the Zero to Three website that talks about their recent online event called Virtual Rally 4 Babies.  There are several newspaper articles that seemed interesting like New Georgia Early Learning and Development Standards for pre-K is announced and Senate Panel Approves Big Early-Childhood Education Boost.  I look forward to reading these articles.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1

When we discovered we were having a second set of twins, we decided that an AuPair was the best childcare option for us.  It was less expensive than having all of them in day care and we wouldn’t have to take all of them of the house in the mornings.  Our first AuPair was Emma and she was from Sweden.  Our second AuPair was Regina from Switzerland.  Emma is currently in college, but she used to work with her mom at a childcare center in Sweden.  Her mom currently works at the childcare center and I am attempting to contact her through Emma.  Regina currently works full time as an early childcare teacher and plans to make early childhood education a career.

Because of my position with the government, I cannot establish new contacts with foreign nationals.  Emma and Regina are already documented in my background investigation therefore I am able to continue contact with them.  They are my only options to use for this assignment.

I have sent emails to both girls to ask if they would participate in this assignment for me.  Regina has already responded and agreed to help.  I am still waiting to hear from Emma.  My intent is to contact them via email and Skype to exchange information.  I am very excited to use them for this assignment. Regina currently works full time as an early childcare teacher and plans to make early childhood education a career.  Emma and Regina both spent a year with us so they became part of our family.  I have attempted to maintain contact with them and this assignment will allow me to really catch up with them.

Part 2

I chose to study the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) website.  I visited several of the other websites listed in the reference section, but this seemed the most interesting to me.  I am currently receiving newsletters from Zero to Three and visit that web often for information.  I could have used that website for this assignment, but I have read several articles published by NIEER and was interested to learn more about it.   As for the websites I visited and did not choose, a few of them seemed a little difficult to navigate, a few seemed dull or bland (for lack of better terms), and one website had a political spin to it that I did not like. 

I look forward to navigating the NIEER website over the next few weeks and learning more about it.  I signed up for the newsletter today and looked through the special education section.