Early Ed Roundup: Week of June 23 – June 27

Secretary Spellings Defends Reading First

The disappointing results of the May IES report on Reading First impacts haven’t dampened Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings enthusiasm for the program. On Monday, Spellings released the results of several state evaluations of Reading First that show that the program, which found gains in reading comprehension, as measured by state assessments, for children participating inthe Reading First, including English Language Learners and students with disabilities. Louisiana reported that fewer students need special education after participating in the program, Arkansas said that Reading First schools did better on a third-grade benchmark exam than did non-participants, and California reported that gains from the program continued through grade 4. President Bush proposed to restore funding for Reading First to $1 billion next year, but the House Subcommittee that oversees education appropriations voted earlier this month to eliminate Reading First funding altogether.

Study Shows Performance Gains By Pre-K Over Head Start in Oklahoma

Oklahoma enrolls a higher percentage of 4-year-olds in its universal pre-k program than any state in the country, mostly in public school-based programs. But some Oklahoma youngsters attend pre-k in Head Start centers that also participate in and receive funds from the state pre-k program. Oklahoma’s school-based and Head Start pre-k programs both have relatively high standards, including a low teacher-student ratio (10-1) and a requirement that all teachers have a B.A. degree in early education, yet student performance assessments show that the programs are producing very different results. A study by William Gormley, Deborah Phillips, and Ted Gayer published this month in the journal Science finds that low-income students in Tulsa pre-k classrooms showed a gain of 9 months progress in pre-reading tests compared to 5 months gain for Head Start students of similar backgrounds. Tulsa pre-k students made greater gains on on pre-writing tests (8 months compared to 3 months in Head Start) and students in both programs made similar progress on pre-math tests. The study’s authors suggest program design and curricular focus may contribute to the differences. For example, Tulsa school-based pre-k programs placed greater emphasis on practicing letters, while Head Start programs emphasized fantasy play in Head Start. Another issue may be alignment: Because the school-based programs have a better sense of the skills and knowledge children will work on in kindergarten, they may focus more on developing the foundation for those skills in the pre-k year.

Head Start Reports Show State Funding, Teacher Salaries Down

New fact sheets from the Center for Law and Social Policy use data from the Head Start’s Program Information Reports to paint a portrait of Head Start participants, programs, and staff in the 2005-06 school year (the most recent for which data is available). Head Start served 1,080,627 children and 10,825 pregnant women (through Early Head Start) in 2006. 13 percent of children participatin in both Head Start and Early Head Start were diagnosed with a disability, half during their time at Head Start. About a quarter of children in both programs come from Spanish-speaking homes, and 56 percent of Head Start children come from single-parent households. The fact sheets also show that 36 percent of Head Start teachers and 23 percent of Early Head Start teachers had B.A. degrees in 2006. 72 percent of Head Start teachers and more than half of Early Head Start teachers had A.A. degrees. The average salary for a Head Start teacher was $24,737, down 2 percent from the year before.

Eloise Returns to the Plaza

Fans of the children’s book series Eloise at the Plaza shed a quiet tear in 2005 when the landmark Plaza Hotel in New York City shut its doors for renovations. Eloise’s departure could have been viewed as part of a long downward trend in Manhattan’s under-5 population, as young families moved to the suburbs. Yet as Bloomberg reports this week, the number of children in Manhattan is on the rebound, increasing at a rate of 20 percent a year. This in turn has increased competition for spots in the borough’s pre-kindergarten classrooms, both public and private. Meanwhile, the Plaza Hotel reopened to Eloise and other guests in March of this year.