Two Year Kindergarten Program Revived in California after 80 Years

The California Legislature recently passed Senate Bill 1381 instating a kindergarten transition program for all 4 year-olds who turn 5 between September and December and who would miss kindergarten entry. Children who are not eligible for kindergarten wait a year to begin school, unless they are fortunate enough to attend private preschool or a community funded program. This transitional program will help bridge the gap for poor students and English language learners, giving them a jump-start on their education. Currently many of these students enter school with thousands of words less vocabulary than their wealthier and English language speaking counterparts, as well as limited social skills, making them way behind before they even begin.

A two-year kindergarten program had existed in California from 1891 until the Great Depression with the goal of equalizing the opportunity for young children to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and social skills. Many children at that time, as is true today, could not afford preschool and could not be prepared by their uneducated parents.

As a former kindergarten teacher, I applaud this new program, which will be phased in over the next three years, for several reasons. First, low income students and those with English as a second language start school way behind others in language development, which is the foundation for everything else. Also, younger children range wildly in their developmental readiness for learning in formal educational environments, so this program will allow those 'younger' 4 and 5 year olds to comfortably transition in. Finally, with all of the rigor in our schools today, this gives them one more year to just be 'kids' - letting them learn in ways that are more natural and with less pressure. Sitting out a year is not a good alternative either for anyone.

My son attended junior kindergarten at a private school even though his birthday is in July. He was quite eligible for regular kindergarten but his preschool teachers and I agreed that he was just not ready. That decision impacted his entire elementary and high school career and enabled him to be quite successful and confident where he might have found himself always trying to pay attention and 'keep up.' As a kindergarten teacher I did hold kids back who were really not ready for the rigor of sitting in desks and paying attention to a teacher at the front with 25-30 other students. I provided those students with more advanced kindergarten work their second year and all went on to succeed with confidence in ensuing grades.

There is only one additional policy change that I would like to see implemented with the transition program: test children for their readiness is a variety areas (academic and social) and let them fluidly move - regardless of their age - into the learning groups that best match their ability. In other words, don't simply use age for determining placement, but look at the whole child. Many enlightened districts do this already with a student-centered learning approach and non-graded early childhood experiences.

Bill Gates - Education Reform Expert Strikes Again

Once again, billionaire Bill Gates, philanthropist extraordinaire, announces his simplistic solutions for education reform at the Council of Chief School Officers annual meeting (Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls). In his speech, Gates recommends re-aligning school budgets, but then he focuses on specific teacher-related budget cuts like ending tenure (I agree, but for different reasons), eliminating incentive pay for graduate work, and worst of all, creating larger class sizes and reducing the number of teachers.

This article really frustrated me. How can Gates appoint himself an expert on education when he doesn't even take the time to back up his beliefs with research? Focusing solely on teachers is just wrong-headed. Sure teachers can get better, and I am against tenure - I saw enough bad teachers protected not only by the union but by administrators who simply liked them. But teaching is the core competency of education. A lot can be done to improve medical services by improving doctors' skills, for example, but would we undermine them by not rewarding them for keeping up with the profession? 

If we want to improve teaching, let's look at the top performing countries in the recent PISA report from OECD. The top countries view teachers as professionals and spend a lot of money on training them initially and then continuing to improve their skills with professional learning communities. They look at teaching and learning as processes that can be documented, replicated, and measured. 

Let's look at the process of teaching and learn from best practices. Targeting a few specific band-aids and focusing only on outcomes will do nothing to improve teaching and will only alienate those who are doing a great job and not being recognized.

By the way, great teachers are leaving American schools on their own. Several studies have shown that 50% of teachers leave within the first 5 years. This isn't only about pay, it's more about the hostile, bureaucratic, and stifling environment these professionals are working in. 

Six Impossible Things

The other day I saw the movie Alice in Wonderland and came upon a terrific line spoken by Alice about her father, an innovative capitalist: "Why, everyday I've thought of six impossible things before breakfast!" Near the end of the movie Alice realizes that six things she thought were impossible had all happened! I'm beginning to feel the same way about our national educational landscape. Impossible, or at least, unlikely things are happening that may shape - in a positive way - the re-authorization of the ESEA, also known as the "No Child Left Behind" act as well as The Race To The Top competition. There are obvious political reasons for some of these events and controversy as well, but I think they are signs of a major disruption in the attempt of the federal government, specifically the DOE, to exert more control over local issues.

1. Governor Crist vetoes Florida's bill to tie teacher evaluation to test scores and eliminate tenure. While it is unclear whether the huge opposition to the bill by teachers, students, parents, teachers, and community leaders swayed him, it is clear that grassroots efforts are gaining momentum.
2. Kansas, Vermont, Indiana, Texas, and others have pulled out of Race to the Top for a variety of reasons, but in essence they are refusing to adhere to the Feds' control of local issues by attaching strings to the money.
3. Diane Ravitch, a staunch supporter of charter schools, standards, and accountability using standardized testing, has reversed her point of view based on data showing that these 'innovations' aren't working. Her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System is now number 17 on the NYT bestseller list after a little over a month. Her Facebook fan base is growing fast!
4. Diane is being listened to as she makes her way across the country and it is the grassroots - teachers, administrators, parents - who are coming to hear her. They finally have someone on their side.
5. Arne Duncan is doing a series of town hall meetings on CNN. He's saying all the right things and admitting that there are serious flaws in NCLB. Could it be he's floating trial balloons for big changes or is this just another politician telling us what we want to hear with no plans to "walk the talk"?
6. The DOE is funding consortia across several states to create more balanced assessments ($350 million). Hopefully they will look at more than just test scores. The largest consortia has Linda Darling Hammond as their chief advisor. That is reassuring. As Obama's chief education advisor during his campaign, she was the logical choice for Secretary of Education but was pushed out. Maybe now she can have some influence.

In some ways none of these events are impossible...but they may represent a groundswell back to sanity in education policy decision-making...letting the professionals in the field start making some headway in fixing so much of what is wrong.

Hope in NYC

Last week I attended an event at NYU called Sci-Ed Innovators, in honor of Jhumki Basu, an amazing science educator who passed away at 31 in 2008 after a long struggle with breast cancer. There is a nice write-up at justcallmefrizzle about it. I am helping the Jhumki Basu Foundation build a collaborative website to support "the democratization of science," as Jhumki called it, for kids in grades 6-12. We are focusing on underserved urban youth because traditional science is just not relevant or accessible for them. I visited several schools in NYC last week in conjunction with the event and saw amazing teachers who are doing so much under so many constraints. It's not just an issue of money - you can clearly see that there are so many policies that undermine teachers' abilities to provide student-centered learning environments. Restrictions on the amount of time teachers spend with students, the mandate to strictly follow pre-determined curriculum guides, and constant concern about prepping for standardized tests are just a few ways teachers' hands are tied. In fact, after I observed two teachers' lessons, they apologized to me for not having more creative approaches and student-directed work. Both are frustrated with the restrictions they live under. I know these experienced teachers would provide more engaging, relevant work if they could. And so we will be providing a forum on our Sci-Ed Innovators platform for policy discussions as well as ideas for new ways to make science relevant and engaging. This should make our site unique and engaging for teachers, science educators, and school leaders - and hopefully we will start a movement for real change.