International Perspectives

The Critical Importance of Curriculum

Sara Mead — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:24:00 -0400

Last week Common Core, a national group that advocates for a rigorous, content-rich curriculum covering the full range of academic subjects for all children, published a report looking at curriculum and learning expectations for students in nine countries that outperform the United States on major international assessments. Their conclusion: These countries outperform us in part because they have higher expectations and expose students to a broader, more in-depth curriculum. Key quote from Common Core director Lynne Munson, "We believe that the content of a student’s education has a greater influence on his level of achievement than does delivery or accountability systems. So reform ideas like standards or tests don’t impress us unless they make content a priority. Thus far, the debate in this country over those measures has discounted the importance of content." Worth checking out.

E.D. Hirsch in New York Times on Teaching and Assessing Reading Skills (3/24/09)

Must See YouTube: Teaching Content is Teaching Reading (2/11/09)

A Call for Clarity In Early Elementary Standards (3/27/08)

While many of these countries have curricula and learning expectations for the early grades, Common Core sampled curriculum and guidelines starting in fourth or fifth grade -- leaving us with some questions: What, for example, have Hong Kong's fourth graders learned in the early grades that allows them to "Investigat[e] some simple patterns and phenomena related to light, sound, electricity, movement and energy" by fourth grade? Bringing Hong Kong or Finland-style curriculum and expectations to the later grades won't do much good if children's experiences in preschool and the early grades haven't exposed them to rich content knowledge that they can draw on to learn new ideas and concepts in the later elementary grades.

As research by both the American Federation of Teachers and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has shown, the early elementary school years are home to some of the weakest areas in existing state standards, and the early grades curriculum -- particularly for low-income students -- is too often a "content-free zone." What can we learn from other countries about improving children's access to high-quality, rich content -- in a full range of academic subjects, including music and the arts -- in the early grades?

Shakira's Early Education Advocacy

Sara Mead — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:11:00 -0400

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article about pop singer Shakira's efforts to encourage Latin American governments to invest more in education, development, and health of their youngest children. Key graf:

Celebrity philanthropy, rock ’n’ roll philanthropy, is no longer a novelty, but what Shakira and ALAS were trying was indeed new. They were looking to use the power of pop to help the populations not of distant impoverished lands but of the Ibero-American world from which they come. They have a policy focus — early-childhood nutrition, education and medical care — that is on a scale beyond the reach of private charity. It requires the steady effort of the state.

Shakira and her fellow advocates are focusing on Latin American countries that are poorer than the United States. But you could say something similar--about the need for increased investment in children's wellbeing and development, and that such investment requires a more robust public role--in the United States as well.

Primary Education Shake-up in England

Christina Satkowski — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:41:00 -0500

Americans aren't the only ones expecting national-level policy changes in early childhood education. In England, schools are preparing for what could be the biggest shake-up in primary education in decades, according to news reports. In early December, Sir Jim Rose, an advisor to English Schools Secretary Ed Balls, issued an interim report on the state of English primary education. His recommendation: Shift away from teaching about discrete subjects and introduce more opportunities for children to play and develop cognitive and motor skills.

The final recommendations of the Rose Review, as his report is called, are not expected until later this year and, if accepted by the government, they won't be in place until 2011. But, the new ideas have already caused a stir in England. Not only do they represent a major shift away from the National Curriculum of 1988, a set of concepts that are supposed to guide the instruction of all English students beginning in preschool. These changes come with a concerted emphasis on early education and early education alignment. On that last point, especially, U.S. policymakers should take note.

Many of the recommendations in the Rose Review focus on children aged 5 and 6 -- the two years known in England as Key Stage 1. The report recommends scrapping the current curriculum that specifies 12 subjects for mastery, such as history, geography, music and art, and replacing it with six more broadly drawn "areas of learning," including "human, social and environmental understanding" and "understanding the arts and design." This change would mean that Key Stage 1 would look less like the Key Stage 2 curriculum, which is for ages seven to 11, and align it instead with the curriculum for the public preschool program, called the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The preschool curriculum features more play-based learning and is also built around six areas of learning and development, which are similar to the six "areas of learning" proposed by the Rose Review.

What is driving these changes is growing evidence (found in this report from the U.K.'s National Foundation for Educational Research and elsewhere) that a child's transition from preschool to the first year of formal schooling can be abrupt, unsettling and foreign to young children who are suddenly expected to sit still for longer periods of time and offered less time for play. The Rose Review says schools can ease this transition by extending play-based learning into the upper grades.

The Rose Review makes another interesting suggestion regarding the early education continuum. It suggests that writers of England's national curriculum consider the primary grades in two-year phases, clustering 5 and 6 year olds, 7 and 8 year olds, and 9 and 10 year olds. While it is hard to say how this would look in practice, the intention is to promote a smooth, progressive inter-grade curriculum. It is an initiative similar to preK-3 alignment efforts and "early education academies," which have been shown to improve elementary student achievement in the U.S.

Another recommendation in the report: Better communication between preschool and Key Stage 1 classrooms. English preschool students receive assessments of their academic and social skills (called "Profile" assessments), but these are passed on to Key Stage 1 teachers only half the time, and few teachers find them useful. Rose's fix? Find ways to increase usage of the profiles, encourage more contact among preschool and Stage 1 teachers, and have preschoolers visit Stage 1 classrooms to minimize apprehension about the transition.

The preschool-to-kindergarten transition is a big issue in the U.S., too. In 1998, the National Education Goals Panel prodded educators to smooth the transition to help achieve its goal of having all children kindergarten-ready. Some states and school districts have developed their own transition programs. They include calling parents ahead of the first day of school, holding open houses and distributing flyers. Yet these efforts are often too little, too late. Many are hampered because children come to kindergarten from a diverse array of preschools and registration continues late into the summer. Teachers often do not know who their students are until a few days before classes start, if then.

Alignment should apply to foreign language learning too, according to the report. English students should start learning foreign languages earlier, it says, beginning as early as age 7 instead of 11, as is current practice. Examples of elementary-school instruction for languages like Spanish and Mandarin can be found around the U.S., and some of these classes are even offered in preschools. Yet often these lessons occur infrequently, like once a week, or they last just one year. Young children can absorb foreign language skills like sponges, but they can lose them just as quickly if these skills are not reinforced throughout their academic career. While schools should be allowed to choose which and how many languages they teach, the report suggests that children study a single language over four years so that "there is a very clear expectation that children will make significant progress in their ability to communicate in the language."

Officials from both sides of the political aisle in England have qualms about Rose's recommendations, according to media reports. Conservatives worry that re-aligning parts of the curriculum with preschool years could erode standards, and Liberals want teachers to have more freedom to set their own priorities, though the report does appear to give them control over how they teach. Could a similar debate be kindled here in the United States as we find new approaches to linking preschool to elementary education? Until we know how proposed reforms will look, it's hard to say, but "building up" from the early years is a strong step in the right direction.

How Does Early Education and Care in the U.S. Stack up to Other Developed Countries?

Sara Mead — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:15:00 -0500

For obvious reasons, this blog focuses primarily on early education policy issues in the United States. But sometimes taking a step back and looking at early education in other developed countries can offer a useful perspective on our own early education challenges.

That's why a recent report from UNICEF's Innocenti Research Center is particularly valuable for individuals working on early education policy issues. The report postulates that the developed world is undergoing a transition in how we care for an educate young children. Due to a combination of economic and social changes that have increased mother's participation in the workforce, and growing awareness of the importance of children's early years for long-term development and learning, young children in OECD countries are spending amounts of time in organized child care settings. In the words of the report, "Today's rising generation in the countries of the OECD is the first in which a majority are spending a large part of their early childhoods not in their own homes with their own families but in some form of child care."

The report's authors, rightly, recognize this transition as both a potential opportunity to improve child development and early learning--particularly for disadvantaged children whose homes may not provide sufficient support for early learning--and also a risky time, with potential for children to be harmed if policymakers don't make thoughtful choices to support families in this transition.

To provide information about the child care transition, and to help policymakers make wise choices about it, the Innocenti Research Center has developed a list of 10 benchmarks against which countries can measure how they are doing in early care and education. These benchmarks include:

Parental leave of 1 year at 50 percent of salary
A national plan with priority for the disadvantaged
Subsidized and regulated child care services for 25 percent of children under 3
Subsidized and accredited early education services for 80 percent of 4-year-olds
80 percent of all child care staff trained
50 percent of all staff in accredited early education services with tertiary education and relevant qualification
Minimum staff-to-child ratio of 1:15 in pre-school education
1 percent of GDP spent on early childhood services
Child poverty rate less than 10%
Near-universal outreach of essential child health services

How does the United States stack up on these indicators? We achieve only three of the 10 benchmarks (Subsidized child care for 25 percent of children under 3, 50 percent of staff in accredited early education centers with tertiary degrees, and minimum staff: child ratio of 1:15) and rank below 18 out of 25 OECD countries. While the United States compares pretty well with other OECD countries on benchmarks of child care and early education access and some quality measures, we fall short on others--particularly access to paid parental leave, where we are one of only two OCED countries to provide no paid parental leave at all (Australia is the other). And because of the lack of parental leave, the United States actually has a higher percentage of 0-3 year-olds in child care than all but four OECD countries.

In addition to listing and ranking countries against these benchmarks, the UNICEF report provides a useful overview of the policy questions and challenges nations and states face in building systems and policies to respond to the child care transition. These include:

Parental leave
Whether the goals of early education and care should be defined as school readiness or broader cognitive and social development
Whether early care and education services should be universally available, targeted to disadvantaged children, or some hybrid of the two
The extent to which the delivery system for care and education should incorporate diverse providers
Access
Defining quality in early care and education; and
The amount of resources states should devote to subsidizing early care and education.

These topics will sound strikingly familiar to anyone involved in early education and care issues in the United States, and the report's analysis of them in international context provides useful perspective for debates here at home.

Despite the significance and quality of this report, it's gotten relatively little attention here in the United States. That's a striking contrast to both how the U.S. media greeted last week's announcement of TIMSS results comparing U.S. 4th and 8th graders to their international peers in math and science (note: we're actually doing pretty well!), and how some other OECD countries are greeting this UNICEF report. When we were in Finland recently, the Finnish early childhood experts and officials we met with there were quite concerned about the fact that Finland scored only 8 out of 10 on the report's benchmarks, even though the two areas in which Finland didn't meet benchmarks reflect reasonable policy decisions that I don't think, in context, actually reflect negatively on how Finland cares for and educates its youngsters. In contrast, the United States' poor showing on these benchmarks does reflect some ways in which we are falling short in meeting the needs of our youngest children in their families. But I've seen not a word about it since coming home. U.S. early childhood advocates and policymakers take note: This is an important report, and you'd do well to pay attention to it!

Education in the Election: The View from Canada

Sara Mead — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:05:00 -0400

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Canadian columnist John Ibbitson offers an interesting perspective on the current U.S. presidential race. Ibbitson notes that the tenor of the campaign debate has pushed education reform out of the public view in this race, and wonders why, given the issue's importance to America's future. Ibbitson makes a pretty bold prediction:

But mark this: After this election, education will be one of the two or three issues that dominate political debate. Why? Because it's simply too huge a problem to ignore.

Ibbitson goes on to identify high dropout rates and poor showings on international assessments as key indicators that the U.S. education system is struggling. That's similar to something David Brooks wrote earlier this year when he identified the skills slowdown--the stagnation in the percentage of Americans attaining higher education credentials or even a high school diploma--as the major challenge facing the United States in the coming years. The exploding financial crisis this week has focused attention elsewhere, but it's undeniable that getting us out of the hole created by the current crisis is going to require, among other things, a new generation of American workers capable of competing with their increasingly educated peers in other countries, and more importantly of developing the next generation of transformative innovations--real innovations, not just financial chicancery--that have been behind our economic success over the past century. And that requires a renewed focus on improving the quality of educational outcomes for all our students--including those who have historically been underserved.

A lot of the conversation about these issues focuses on high school reform, college access, and strategies to increase the number of young people taking advanced coursework in math and sciences--all important goals. But these initiatives can only succeed if they build on an early education system that equips children with the foundational skills and knowledge they need before they can tackle advanced content. We know that children who cannot read proficiently by the end of third grade are at risk for school dropout and a host of other problems, and that remedying our failure to help these children succeed early is much more difficult and costly than doing it right from the start. Yet only 33 percent of our 4th graders read at the proficient level. Building a strong early education foundation--starting in the preschool years and continuing through kindergarten and quality early elementary school--must be a top priority for the next administration, regardless of who wins in November.

Ibbitson isn't entirely correct that education's been AWOL from the current campaign debate. Just take a look at this discussion with top education advisers to both the McCain and Obama campaigns to see that both sides are doing some interesting thinking here. And, in a development that Early Ed Watch is particularly gratified to see, both McCain and Obama have endorsed quality early education--although they clearly have very different views on what the federal role in supporting early education access and quality should be. Unfortunately, the media hasn't focused much attention on these issues. There's also an interesting conversation going on among Democrats about the future of Democratic thinking on education issues--New America is hosting a discussion on this topic Friday; more information here.

Growing Up in China

Sara Mead — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:14:00 -0400

Psychology Today has a fascinating article (ht: Alyssa Rosenberg) about the mental health implications of China's one-child policy on the current generation of young adults who grew up in one-child homes. The piece focuses heavily on both the pressure many Chinese children are under to fulfill all their parents' dreams for their offspring's success, as well as the lengths some Chinese families go to to indulge their only children. These anecdotes get far more play than research findings the article glosses over, however:

Yet despite the stereotype, the research has revealed no evidence that only kids have more negative traits than their peers with siblings—in China or anywhere else. "The only way only children are reliably different from others is they score slightly higher in academic achievement," explains Toni Falbo, a University of Texas psychology professor who has gathered data on more than 4,000 Chinese only kids. Sure, some little emperors are bratty, but no more than children with siblings.

Per Falbo's comment about academic achievement: One interesting point that the article makes is that China embraced the one-child policy in the 1970s not only as a population control measure, but also with an explicit goal of raising a generation of exceptional children who benefitted from the more intense resources parents can devote to educating and developing a single child--and these children, as adults, are indeed fueling China's current economic boom.

One way in which China's new middle class is investing more in its children is by increasing demand for quality preschool and childcare programs, and for-profit companies that provide quality childcare and preschool are seeing a growing market in China and other growing Asian countries. How do the services these companies offer compare to those they deliver in the United States?

The article emphasizes the pressure Chinese children are under to succeed academically, and this line in particular caught our attention: At one top Beijing kindergarten, students must know pi to 100 digits by age 3.

Lots of bloggers have been commenting on Nancy Zuckerbrod's recent article about the higher pre-k achievement expectations her American-born daughter faced when the family moved to England. And we do think that expecting pre-kindergarteners to understand fractions seems awfully intense. But that pales in comparison to this.

Photo courtesy of flickr user Micah Sittig, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hips Don't Lie

Sara Mead — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:35:00 -0400

This weekend, a who's who of Latin pop stars, including Shakira and Ricky Martin, held free concerts in Buenos Aires and Mexico City to build awareness for the importance of early childhood development and raise funds for ALAS, a nonprofit started by Latin American artists, including Shakira, Wyclef Jean, and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, to pressure governments and businesses across the region to support programs that improve early childhood development for poor children. The above clip is from the Buenos Aires concert.

Let's hope their message was heard: There are 54 million children under the age of 5 in Latin America, 32 million of whom live in poverty, and improving childhood development and education for these youngsters is essential for the region's future progress. Someone seems to be listening; last week ALAS raised $200 million in funding for its mission from Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim Helú and Howard Buffet (son of Warren Buffet, who's made significant investments in early education in the United States as well).

Bangalore's Growing Preschool Market

Sara Mead — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:50:00 -0400

It's become a cliche among politicians and early education supporters to argue that the United States needs new early childhood investments to prepare our youngsters to compete with workers in India and China--or "Beijing and Bangalore" as Barack Obama recently said. But, as a recent article about preschool franchising in India reflects, parent demand for quality early education options is growing in India and China as well.

Currently, the preschool industry in [India] is estimated to gross about Rs4,004 crore ($985 million). The sector is likely to cross Rs13,821 crore by 2012, a growth of more than 28% per year, according to estimates from brokerage firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. With nearly three-quarters of the country’s population under the age of 35, the demand for quality preschools is expected to only intensify.

As economic development progresses in these countries, and job opportunities lure workers away from their extended families, more and more parents need high-quality childcare for their children while they work. At the same time, increasingly affluent families are demanding better, more educationally oriented options for their children. This creates a huge growth market for for-profit childcare and preschool providers (both local companies and American providers are seeking to get in on the game), as well as new economic opportunities for women in these countries to operate childcare and preschool programs.

As we talk about the need for increased early education investments to help our workers keep up with foreign competitors, we shouldn't lose sight of the growing market for early education options in the very countries we're seeking to compete with.