After the State of the Union address this week I thought it would be appropriate to look into the details about Obama's plan for Pre-K. I received the e-newsletter from Early Ed. News Clips on a daily basis and Friday, there was a full article about Obama's plan for Pre-K. There are three main components to the plan
- A state-federal partnership to guarantee pre-K to all 4-year-olds in families at or below the poverty line and to have teachers with the same level of education and training as K-12 instructions. (The Washington Post)
- Expand on Early Head Start and expand on programs that already exist.
- Expand Nurse Family Partnerships which provides home visits to mothers who are pregnant through age 2 of the child to promote good health and parenting skills.
References:
New America Foundation: Early Ed News Clips. Retrieved from: http://earlyed.newamerica.net
The Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/read-obamas-pre-k-plan/#comments
Lorren,
ReplyDeleteI agree that this plan is a good start. I do still feel that every education based policy being implemented is focused on low income families. Although I do agree with funding to help these families, I also feel that middle class citizens are not getting the attention or the help they need in order to guarantee high quality education for their children as well.
I am looking forward to seeing the changes in preschool and pre K over the next 4 years.
It is long overdue for a partnership between childcare providers and elementary school teachers. Continuity of care will provide the strongest link in healthy development.
ReplyDeleteI was excited when all of this talk first started 10 years ago. I'm still waiting to see the changes.
Lorren-
ReplyDeleteI am also very excited for the President's plan. I received an agenda from ed.gov today and it reported that early learning standards would be created as a result. It also said that the public schools would need to provide preschool for four year olds that are up to 200% above the poverty line which made me happy because child care subsidy doesn't do this yet. I do have to say though, in my state, all of these things are already being done. Every Vermont child regardless of income has the right to go to preschool half day funded by the school district. In my town, the schools don't have the space to open up preschool so they partner with local providers to send the children to preschool. It has been working really good to form those partnerships.
Lorren, I wonder how the President's plan will affect services offered by Head Start. It seems like the President is calling for services that duplicate services already provided by Head Start except for the fact that the Pre-K services I'm sure will not be comprehensive like Head Start. I would like to see more funding to provide pre-k to middle class families and also more money to provide quality child care services for working families.
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