Connecting ECE to Kindergarten and the Early Grades

Louisiana has taken on multiple policies in a short amount of time to try to bring consistency and quality to the birth-to-five arena. But just as important is ensuring that children continue to have access to developmentally appropriate, high-quality education in kindergarten and elementary school. Only then will they be able to sustain the gains made in the early years.

The state can take steps to ensure that not only are children ready for kindergarten, but also that kindergartens are ready for their incoming students. As New America policy analyst Aaron Loewenberg explains, the transition to kindergarten “is fraught with stress and uncertainty for many children and their parents. It is up to the educators in both elementary school and pre-K settings to ease the transition into formal education.”¹ And while kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers do not face the acute challenges of low qualifications and minimal compensation, they are often not prepared to serve young children in the best ways.

Licensure policy is one way to address this, since educator preparation programs are usually designed based on what states require for licensure. There are basic knowledge and skills teachers should attain in preparation programs before managing a classroom of young children. There are currently three overlapping licenses in Louisiana for educators of kindergarten through third grade students:

• Birth to Kindergarten
• Early Childhood PK–3
• Grades 1–5 (Elementary)

According to officials at LDE, “a clear distinction between the two licenses [Early Childhood PK–3 and Grades 1–5] is that there are different competencies that must be demonstrated. In addition, there are different principles of learning and teaching licensing exams required for these two certifications.” They explained to New America that the PK–3 license is focused on early childhood development while the Grades 1–5 license is focused on content.

This distinction between early childhood licenses and elementary licenses is common across states. As New America wrote in From Crawling to Walking: Ranking States on Birth–3rd Grade Policies that Support Strong Readers, “elementary licenses tend to focus on subject-area content and strategies more appropriate for older children, while early childhood licenses tend to focus more on how to teach new and emerging readers, how to incorporate play, child-directed activities, and exploration into learning, and how to engage families. Early childhood licenses also have a strong focus on child development.”² The Birth to Kindergarten degree and certification is new, and higher education institutions and teacher preparation programs around the state are still developing their program proposals to offer it.

One positive aspect of Louisiana’s licensing structure is that kindergarten teachers need to have either the Birth to Kindergarten or the Early Childhood PK–3 license. As of 2015, only 13 states had a similar requirement. While all pre-K through third grade teachers need early childhood competencies, this is especially important in kindergarten.³ Louisiana does offer teachers the option to earn endorsements in any of the three licenses usually through a combination of coursework and/or scores on the Praxis exam, depending on their existing license.⁴

Louisiana can take steps to ensure that not only are children ready for kindergarten, but also that kindergartens are ready for their incoming students.

The state has also started expanding the use of the CLASS tool into some kindergarten and early grade classrooms, which could translate to better instruction in these years as teachers improve the quality of interactions with their young students. Many elementary school principals that have pre-K classrooms in their building have already been receiving CLASS training.⁵ Some principals serve as their pre-K classrooms’ internal CLASS observer. Conway said that this is “transforming the way elementary school principals think about their pre-K classrooms.” Anecdotally, she says it has encouraged them to think differently about who they are hiring and how they are supporting pre-K classrooms.

With greater consistency in pre-K quality as a result of the reforms outlined in this paper, the hope is that more children will be prepared for kindergarten. Connecting the work happening in the birth-to-five space will be key to ensuring that gains are sustained in kindergarten and beyond. Officials at LDE admitted to New America that they have been focusing their attention on the Ancillary Certificate program and noted that the “K–2 grade span has the most work in progress compared to other grades.”