Ready for School, Ready for Life
Research shows the early years are critical to a child’s future. A stimulating environment during those first five years creates a foundation that ensures a successful future in college, work and life. Starting earlier has also proven to have a significant return on investment, delivering at least $3 for every $1 invested.
Yet today, kindergarten is all too often viewed as the first step in education, rather than the next step. The result: less than half of children in Washington arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed. Additionally, one-third of Washington’s third graders are reading below standard. By third grade children should be reading to learn instead of learning to read. Investing in early care and education programs means investing in the success of each child, and also in the future of our communities.
Looking for updates on early learning during the 2010 Legislative Session? Check out our blog and legislative action page.
Supporting these near-term early care and education priorities is the first step to building a quality early care and education system for all kids so they are ready for school and life:
Expand the definition of Basic Education to include voluntary, early education for all 3- and 4-year-olds. Phased in starting with at-risk children and ramping up concurrently with all-day kindergarten.
Prekindergarten in Basic Education will align, integrate and build a continuum of quality services for pre-k to grade 3 to address the preparation gap and ensure all children are reading at grade level by 3rd grade.
Early learning for at-risk children is a fundamental strategy to close the preparation gap. Universal pre-kindergarten should be phased in lock step with full-day kindergarten, starting with at-risk children first. This will maximize social, emotional and academic gains over the course of elementary school and prevent the fade-out effect from occurring.
Serve children where they are. The program would be voluntary and use current mixed-delivery system to achieve the highest outcomes for parent choice and reach children where they are.
An integrated P-3 education. Shared governance and oversight duties between the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Department of Early Learning (DEL) will further align P-3 education. Once implemented as part of basic education, universal preschool will be under the supervision of OSPI and administered by DEL. Preschool outcome and kindergarten readiness data would be integrated with K-12 data system (under development). In order to successfully receive state preschool grants, programs would need to demonstrate program standards, assessments, accountability, and professional development.
Check out The Olympian’s editorial: Prekindergarten must be part of basic education.
Take steps necessary to ensure Washington will be competitive for a federal Early Learning Challenge Fund grant.
The federal government is poised to create a new Early Learning Challenge Fund for select states to develop birth-to-five programs that boost kindergarten readiness. Our state is well-positioned to compete for these grants, but we need to take action in 2010 to secure a win:
- Demonstrate commitment by protecting early childhood education investments;
- Signal Washington’s long-term commitment to high-quality pre-kindergarten by including it in the state’s definition of Basic Education;
- Build, refine, and expand the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), known as Seeds to Success, to ensure that a greater percentage of disadvantaged children from birth to age five participate in high-quality early learning programs;
- Develop and build a continuum of evidence-based services for families with infants and toddlers, including home visitation programs; and
- Enhance accountability by integrating early childhood education data into the K-12 longitudinal database.
Read LEV Foundation’s latest report to learn about our opportunity to secure critical federal dollars.
