Slowly but surely, many people – including elected leaders – are understanding the benefits of early learning. This article in today’s New York Times explains it rather succinctly:
It is not as though Mr. Obama is running against the wind. Major philanthropists including Bill Gates; Warren Buffett’s children; and George B. Kaiser, an Oklahoma oil billionaire, are financing education efforts for the very young. And the chairman of the Federal Reserve and many governors have said that expanding early childhood education should be a national priority.
Driving the movement is research by a Nobel Prize-winning economist, James J. Heckman, and others showing that each dollar devoted to the nurturing of young children can eliminate the need for far greater government spending on remedial education, teenage pregnancy and prisons.
That last sentence alone needs to be repeated again, and again, and again. Better student achievement doesn’t end with early learning, but building the foundation for learning is essential for success in later years.
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It’s hard finding any good news these days as states slash budgets, companies slash employment and everyone seems to be slashing expectations.
Washington State’s quality initiative for early care is a recent casualty. Georgia’s quality assessment program doesn’t appear any closer to implementation, but at least this important metric is a priority. Let’s hope the economic downturn doesn’t bury them.
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Voices for Georgia’s Children was among the exhibitor’s at the 26th Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators at the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government in Athens, Jan. 7-9. The two-day event is primarily a policy orientation for newly elected legislators as well as incumbents. Lobbyists swarm all over.
Tuesday’s plenary session, “Transforming Low Achieving Schools,” was an eye opener on a few levels. First, Mel Riddile with the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the 2006 National High School Principal of the Year, walked the audience through his transformation of a failing suburban D.C. high school. He showed that strong, committed leadership and sound practices allows any school system to improve with existing teachers, existing infrastructure and the typically disadvantaged student population. The basic formula is personalized treatment for individual students with an emphasis on attendance and reading/language skills.
The entire school system has to coordinate its efforts so that the primary schools hand off kids to middle schools with the appropriate skill sets mastered, and likewise from middle schools to high schools.
Can’t Georgia do this? Yes, it probably could. The last two National High School Principals of the Year have come from our state. The 2009 honoree, Morgan County High School principal Mark Wilson, revealed how the personalized approach to learning and community involvement have sent student achievement at his rural school on a steep upward trajectory.
After the academicians spoke, Georgia legislators on the panel, Dunwoody Republicans Rep. Fran Millar and Sen. Dan Webber roundly endorsed more funding for Georgia’s PreK program.
In today’s paper, this report from the International Study Center at Boston College shows marked improvements in math by U.S. fourth and eighth graders, although they still fall well short of their peers from many Asian countries and elsewhere.
Still, happenings at yesterday’s conference and today’s news is cause for optimism.
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Mike King writes in today’s AJC that rising costs are undermining
successful child immunization programs. He argues that the cost
benefits of immunizations against common diseases still greatly
outweigh treating the diseases themselves.
Georgia has been one of the leading states in providing child immunizations in recent decades. The larger and long-term issue of cost needs to be addressed.
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