Teach Effectively!

According to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), a study examining the benefits of providing pre-kindergarten programs in New Mexico (US) revealed that there were significant and important benefits for children. Jason Hustedt and colleagues found that there were significant improvements in children’s language, literacy, and math competence associated with attending pre-k programs.

[Their] results show that New Mexico PreK produces consistent benefits for children who
participated in PreK, compared to those who did not, across all three years of the study. Positive impacts of PreK were found in each of three content areas important to early academic success – language, literacy, and math. Findings in literacy and mathematics were statistically significant in analyses for each school year of New Mexico PreK. Findings specific to our measure of early language were statistically significant for the first two years of the study, and using a combined, multi‐year data set.

I had to wonder what curriculum the New Mexico pre-k programs followed. It appears that about half of the sites do not report the curriculum they use. However, one uses Bank Street, nine use High Scope, and the remaining 60-some use Creative Curriculum. Imagine what kind of effects these pre-k programs could achieve if they used more effective curricula!

Hustedt, J. T., Barnett, W. S., Jung, K., & Goetze, L. D. (2009). The New Mexico preK evaluation: Results from the initial four years of a new state preschool initiative. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research.

The report is available for free. See the Website for the New Mexico PreK program.

I noticed with interest that there is a Web site entitled “The National Association for Reading First.” What’s it about? Here’s the text from the front page:

HomeMembershipState DataUpcoming EventsUSDOEShare Your VoiceContact UsAbout Us

Our Purpose

To promote the implementation of effective, scientifically-based K-3 reading instructional models related to addressing the literacy crisis in our nation

To promote and disseminate applied scientific research-to-practice information to guide effective reading instructional practices and interventions for all students

To foster a mutually informative relationship between scientific researchers and members of the professional educational community

Our Vision

All educational professionals will provide research-based instruction ensuring literacy success for all students.

Our Mission

Bridge scientific research and classroom practice to increase literacy achievement for all students.

Link to the Web site and explore on your own.

Reminder: I am a member of the Reading First Advisory Committee. I am not, however, speaking for the committee, my fellow panelists, nor the US Department of Education here. This entry simply reports the existence of the identified Web site so that others may know about it and make their own evaluations of it.

Over on Ed Week Professor Edward Zigler offered a recommendation about contemporary educational policy in the US. He argued that Title I should be modified so that it reflects the Head Start Transition program of the ’90s and the Chicago Child-Parent Centers. He (rightly, in my view) characterizes the current use of Title I funds as a “hodgepodge.”

Title I has never been a specific program with agreed-upon practices or standards. Rather, it is a stream of money bestowed on nearly all of the nation’s school districts and many private schools. School administrators can mount any type of initiative they feel will be beneficial to the academic progress of poor children.

Thus, schools are using the roughly $14 billion in annual Title I funding to support many undertakings: staffing and teacher training; whole-school programs; pullout programs; after-school sessions; reading, math, and science instruction; and myriad other endeavors. Much of the money is spent on elementary school students, but some of it goes to preschool (about $300 million) and to secondary education. With such a laundry list of activities, one would be hard-pressed to explain to taxpayers exactly what they are purchasing.

It would be good to change this. I’m not sure that the models Professor Zigler recommends are the best choices (there are a few models for whole-school reform that have strong records), but focusing the funding on evidence-based methods—not the usual hodgepodge—would be valuable.

Link to Professor Zigler’s editorial.