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!