This week I explore a link to a website I have not observed
the website I decided to search was the Center for Childcare Workforce there
was a section of the site that was called “What’s New?”
The latest early childhood article in American Educator that
discusses the value of early childhood education.
Author
James Heckman writes, "The logic is quite clear from an economic standpoint.
We can invest early to close disparities and prevent achievement gaps, or we
can pay to remediate disparities when they are harder and more expensive to
close. Either way we are going to pay. And, we'll have to do both for a
while. But, there is an important difference between the two approaches.
Investing early allows us to shape the future; investing later chains us to
fixing the missed opportunities of the past. Controlling our destiny is more
in keeping with the American spirit."
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The ZEROTOTHREE newsletter and website had a great link to
this week’s issue of study. There was an article “Developing a Statewide
Network of Infant and Toddler Specialist”. The ZEROTOTHREE is the site I
selected at the beginning of the course. In this week study of equity and
excellence in early childhood education this article I found very informative.
This article was written in a joint effort between the national Infant and
Toddler Childcare Initiative (NITCCI) and the Early Head Start National
Resource Center (EHSNRC) at ZEROTOTHREE. In the article there was a section
titled “Quality of Infant/Toddler Childcare which stated research has made
aware that high-quality early childhood development programs help low-income
children obtain greater outcomes, both in school and in their communities. Also there has been longitudinal data that
shows these programs lead to an increase of early childhood students staying in
school, going to college, needing less remediation, being incarcerated far less
and committing fewer violent crimes than their peers who did not attend high-quality
early childhood programs.
There was also a multistate study done in 1995 that infant
and toddler care was generally poor to mediocre. The study used the Infant/Toddler
Environment Rating Scale (ITERS), this study reported that interaction between
caregivers and children were on average, mediocre (a score of 4 out of 7).
Activities for infants and toddlers were not appropriate receiving a “poor”
score (3 out of 7), and the average scores for health and safety were 2.5 out
of 7 reflecting a “minimal quality”.
In a reading this article I gained some insights on the Infant
Toddler Specialist Network (ITSN). Research suggests early brain development and
the critical importance of the early years for later development provided
information that stressed the importance of quality care for infants and
toddlers. Scientific and education communities have acknowledged the first
three years of life as critically formative years.
The article listed steps to create an Infant/Toddler
Specialist Network:
Step 1: Assess needs and rediness
Step 2: Develop a vision of the network; the scope and focus
of the work
Step 3: Find and secure funding
Step 4: Select an organization to administer the ITSN
Step 5: Build an administrative structure
Step 6: Design an evaluation
Step 7: Support the network
States such as North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Tennessee,
Illinois, and Ohio have shared several influences on their developments of ITSN’s.
Virginia started the process with the hope that achieving positive outcomes for
children begin with providing quality experiences in the earliest years of
life. New Jersey was hoping to improve the quality of early care and education
by beginning with the youngest residents of the state.
http://www.zerotothree.org/
The statement made by author, James Heckman, is profound. I recall first becoming aware of his fundamental point several years ago. It is truly a simple concept: invest in early learners, or reap the costly consequences years down the line. Thanks, for such an informative post.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, you have chosen an interesting website to research. I definitely can appreciate Mr. Heckman, “We can invest early to close disparities and prevent achievement gaps.” This is a veracious statement in describing equality. We as educators can embrace the fact that equality is the breadth of early care and education.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing a powerful point!
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. How true that it is easier to avoid problems than to have to try and fix those problems that have occurred for years. This is especially true of problems concerning human beings. It is a shame more individuals to do not share the same belief of investing in all young children now than later. Thanks for your post!
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI agree with James Heckman, statement because we certainly believed we need to close the achievement gap between our low-income and immigrants children with our affluent children. I have found it interesting how schools quality is so different from affluent community than low-income community because my grandsons have attended both type of schools. Now all five of my grandsons attend high quality schools; which I know they deserved to reach their admiration.