Podcast: Bringing Principals and Preschool Directors Together

Last month, Ed Week published a commentary, “Ending Early Learning’s Haphazard Transitions,” that cited a new program in Pennyslvania putting together two groups of people who don’t normally connect: directors of early childhood programs and elementary school principals.  The piece was written by Harriet Dichter, Pennsylvania’s newly appointed secretary of public welfare; Robert C. Hughes, president and CEO of the National Institute for School Leadership; and Gerald Zahorchak, Pennsylvania’s secretary of education.

This spring 50 school leaders graduated from a trial run of the program, called the Early Childhood Executive Leadership Institute. The point of the program is to help leaders think about new ways to connect the early childhood field (often envisioned as birth to age 5) and the elementary school world (typically K-3).

For this podcast, we spoke with Secretary Dichter about why Pennsyvlania saw a need for this program, how it can bridge divides that hamper the ability to build high-quality systems of education for young children, and what policy changes Dichter thinks are critical to create those systems.

Early Ed Watch podcast — May 14, 2010

Bringing Principals and Preschool Directors Together

With our guest Harriet Dichter, Secretary of Public Welfare, Pennsylvania