Chalkbeat

This kindergarten teacher graduated during the pandemic. She was told to ‘be prepared for anything.’

2023-12-06T11:08:00+00:00

During the height of the COVID pandemic, when schools were closing and the future of education was uncertain, Sarah Budlow decided she wanted to become a teacher.

She is now in her third year teaching — her first in the School District of Philadelphia, and she said what she learned in her educator preparation program was simple: “Be prepared for anything.”

“We’ve been virtual, we’ve been in person, we’re not sure what it’s going to look like,” Budlow said was the attitude at the time she graduated in 2020. “We definitely had to have the mindset of, we don’t know what’s going to happen. So you’re just going to have to pivot and figure things out as it goes.”

Budlow is now putting her improvisational skills to work at Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, teaching kindergarten. She regularly sends parents tutorial videos of lessons and skills she’s teaching her students so that they can continue the learning process at home. Because homework is optional in the youngest grade, giving parents the tools to do some extra practice when their kids aren’t in class can be crucial, Budlow said.

Budlow recently spoke with Chalkbeat about joining the educator workforce during the pandemic, getting kids excited about learning, teacher burnout, and her favorite book for early readers.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I graduated college in 2020 with no clue what I wanted to do. I knew that I was interested in urban education and I loved working with kids. I started teaching at an outdoor summer camp with social distancing because of the pandemic.

I was really interested in learning more about urban education and being a part of what goes on in urban schools. That’s when I applied for Teach for America. I’m from Baltimore, but I wanted to go somewhere new, so I asked to be placed in Philly.

Were you daunted about going into teaching during the pandemic?

The more I learned about the impact of a kid’s school experience on their life and their future, the more I was interested in getting involved, especially during the pandemic.

It was kind of good timing because I started teaching in 2021, right when we were coming back from being all virtual. I think that it really highlights just how important it is for kids to be in school. A lot of people would tell me that everything was so different now from what it was before the pandemic, but I have nothing to compare it to. So this is just how it’s always been for me as a teacher.

For the most part, it’s been good to start teaching at a time when I think there’s a lot more appreciation for what goes on in schools.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I’m really bad at picking favorites. The first thing that came to mind is math class. The district just started with this Illustrative Math [curriculum], and I love teaching it.

We’ve been learning about counting groups up to 10. There is a lot of room for kids to have conversations with each other and as a whole group about how they counted and why they counted and they can try different ways of counting. It creates this environment in math class where there’s not just one right way to do things. I think it gives them a deeper understanding of what we’re actually doing in math.

I’ve seen kids grow a lot from where they were at the beginning of the year and also just get really excited about math. I hated math as a kid so it’s awesome to be able to not recreate the experience that I had.

My other favorite lesson is any kind of read-aloud. Just asking kids what they think and what they noticed about the characters and getting those conversations going.

One of my favorites that I’m reading with my class today when they get back from lunch is “We Are In a Book!” by Mo Willems. It’s just a lot of fun. Right now I’ll read it to them, but later in the year, they should be able to read it with each other.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom (or your school)?

Kids bring good things and hard things from the community with them. When there’s a holiday coming up, they’re gonna get excited. One of my students’ big sisters just had a baby and he’s an uncle and he was really excited to show me pictures. There are those exciting moments in the community when kids just come to class and are really eager and excited to share.

But then there’s things like gun violence, which is a very real problem in Philly. Every year that I’ve taught here, I have had kids that have had direct experiences with gun violence. A lot of times, they come to school looking for a place to process that. That’s really hard. But I also think it’s really important for us not to run away from that because that’s real. If kids are experiencing something like gun violence, then it’s important that they have a space to process that and don’t hold their emotions inside.

I will usually partner with parents, and if something comes up in school, I’ll let the parents know. But they also have the space to talk about it in school and just say how they’re feeling, and we can connect them with a counselor. Sometimes they just need to talk it out.

I think it’s a good opportunity to help kids process the world around them. Because we are in a classroom together all year.

When Sarah Budlow joined Teach for America, she asked to be placed in Philadelphia, where she currently is a kindergarten teacher at Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I never really felt like I had teachers that got me. My teachers were nice. I did well in school and I was confident in my skills to some extent, but I also never thought that I was that smart. I thought I was kind of in the middle. And I was never that excited about school. I think that there are certain things from my education that I would want to replicate, like my parents’ involvement. But then there are certain things I don’t want to replicate, like just feeling disconnected from my teachers and just feeling like school was kind of boring.

I want to see my kids in the way that I felt like my teachers didn’t really see me that well. I want to know what they like and what makes them excited and find a way for them to feel excited to be in school and also feel competent in their skills.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

I read an article for class when I was at [The University of Pennsylvania] last year that was about teacher burnout, and it was called “Burned-in, Not Burned Out.” A lot of it had to do with teachers taking care of themselves as a way of taking care of their classroom and taking care of their kids.

I used to work way too many hours. But once I read that article, it really changed my perspective because I realized that I was over-exhausting myself and overexerting myself for little things that maybe could have waited until the next day or the next week.

[Now that I’ve started to] take care of myself, I’m able to be more present for my class and just generally I feel like I can do a better job. And that was a really hard lesson. The first two years, I can’t say I did very well at that, but I’ve gotten a lot better this year.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney discusses his pre-K legacy: ‘We had all the parents’

2023-12-06T11:04:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2023 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free newsletter here.

When Mayor Jim Kenney is feeling frustrated, he said, he has a guaranteed pick-me-up: He goes to visit students in a local prekindergarten.

“When I get really down, and depressed, and disgusted, and lots of other adjectives, I go schedule a pre-K visit,” Kenney told Chalkbeat in a candid interview conducted during his final weeks in office. “It’s like my salvation.”

Along with overseeing the school district’s return to local control after 17 years under state authority, Kenney regards the establishment of PHLpreK, which allows thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds in the city to attend prekindergarten free of charge, as one of the major legacies of his two terms in office.

“I believe the only way out of poverty and into a successful life is education,” he said, by way of explaining his commitment to the issue. Providing structured programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, he said, “sets the tone for the rest of their educational experience.”

As policymakers consider how to overhaul the state’s school funding system to make it fairer for districts like Philadelphia’s, Kenney also pointed out that the city increased its contribution to the school district by $1.5 billion during his tenure.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s office. Since its inception in 2017, more than 17,000 children have passed through the program and over 500 new teachers have been hired to work in PHLpreK classrooms, the report said.

Making free, high-quality prekindergarten more accessible helped parents and caregivers of young children hold down jobs, Kenney said, which in turn reduced poverty and led to more stable families – in itself an important factor in promoting school readiness.

While there isn’t research on PHLpreK’s impact that tracks students who had access to early childhood education versus those who didn’t, Kenney said third grade reading scores went up 3 percentage points last year in district schools. Those third graders were the first class of children who had access to PHLpreK.

To be sure, that increase is modest. The district set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. But in the 2022-23 school year, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on their state exams.

Beyond the numbers, Kenney cites anecdotal evidence that PHLpreK is having an impact. He loves to tell the story of visiting a kindergarten on the first day of school. “It was a disaster,” he said, with children bawling and clinging to their mothers — except for two kids sitting placidly in their seats, hands folded in front of them.

“I said to them, ‘Did you go to pre-K?’ They did. They knew exactly what to do,” Kenney recalled. “There was no learning curve.”

To get free pre-K done, Kenney fought off the soda industry, which spent millions trying to kill the sweetened beverage tax he proposed to fund the program. (The City Council approved the 1.5 cents-per-ounce tax on those beverages in a 13-4 vote in 2016.)

“They hired every lobbyist in the universe,” he said. “But we had all the parents. And ladies with babies strapped to their chests can be a powerful force.”

Kenney said he voted against the tax twice during his time on the council in 2010 and 2011 when then-Mayor Michael Nutter brought it to the table. Nutter had emphasized the health benefits of reducing soda consumption, which didn’t resonate with the council members at the time.

What changed Kenney’s mind? If he wanted free pre-K, he would need to establish a sustainable funding source.

“Once we got sworn in. We’re sitting in my office … and I said, well, how are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Kenney said.

Having a dedicated purpose for the tax revenue was enough to convince the council members to back the tax.

But in its first few years, hampered by an ongoing lawsuit against the soda tax and diminished state revenues during the pandemic, the program was slow to roll out and expand. A city controller’s audit in 2017 found some “missteps” with the program’s implementation, including over-billing and under-enrolling.

But Kenney said he never considered giving up on the effort.

“Head down, win or lose,” Kenney said. “I don’t know what we would have done if we had lost in court. But we didn’t.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the beverage tax in a 4-2 vote in 2018. Kenney said he hopes the program will continue to expand after he leaves.

It’s unclear what the future will hold for the program when Kenney vacates his position. A spokesperson for mayor-elect Cherelle Parker declined to comment on the program..

Kenney said he hasn’t had the expansion discussion with Parker’s team yet. But he thinks it’s “politically powerful enough” that “if somebody tries to take it away, I don’t think that they would get a good reception.”

In his waning days as mayor, Kenney has been thinking about what he’ll do next. He said he intends to set off on an ocean cruise the day after Parker is inaugurated. After that, he’s not sure. But it won’t be public life.

“I’m done with it. It’s time for people to move on sometimes,” Kenney said.

He said one idea he’s mulling is starting a nonprofit that would raise money to expose city kids to more live arts and culture programs, he said.

As a high school freshman at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Kenney said he and his classmates were taken on a field trip to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and its legendary founder, Judith Jamison, perform at the Walnut Street Theater.

“I went from hating it to thinking, ‘This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I’ve never seen anything like this,’” Kenney said. “I honestly believe that kids in the city, who see nothing but chaos and hurt, [deserve] an opportunity to do that, to see that there’s beautiful things in the world.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

How families can apply to Philadelphia’s free pre-K programs

2023-12-06T11:00:00+00:00

There are several ways Philadelphians can access high-quality, free prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-olds living in the city. Families who’ve been through the program say it’s had a profound impact on their lives and is among the best the city has to offer.

But signing up for pre-K hasn’t been easy for everyone.

Some eligible families say they have struggled with the application process, found themselves stuck on waitlists, or weren’t aware that the city offers free pre-K at neighborhood schools or child care centers near them regardless of their family income.

The city and school district want that to change. Early next year, city officials intend to launch a more streamlined, easy-to-understand application process with the hope that more families will participate.

For now, there’s two main ways to apply: through the school district and through the city’s PHLpreK program. Funding for these programs comes from the city’s soda tax (a portion of which is dedicated to PHLpreK), the state’s PreK Counts program, and the federal Head Start program.

Together, the district and city offer some 16,250 seats at schools and private pre-K providers across Philadelphia, according to Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early childhood. Because it’s a two-year program, she said, some five to six thousand seats open every year as kids move from pre-K to kindergarten.

But that’s less than half (45%) of the estimated 36,022 3- and 4-year-olds who reside within the bounds of the city school district.

Families can face many barriers throughout the application process. For example, in-person application hours at school-based locations are only staffed during weekdays from 9 or 10 a.m. until noon. If seats fill up at a family’s preferred location, their child may be put on a waiting list for the entire school year. And neither the district nor the city provide transportation for pre-K children.

Leah Falk, a parent with one child who went through the program, said the application process was “opaque,” and a bit of a burden.

“This is from a family with two college-educated people who fill out forms all day,” Falk said. “There seems to be a process and a shadow process and I don’t know why that is.”

Castelbuono said the district is aware of how complicated the process can be for parents. She said they’re working towards adopting one universal application “which is the best thing for families,” but she said, “we’re not there yet.”

In the meantime, Castelbuono emphasized, families should start the application process as soon as possible. For the best chance at securing a seat in a preferred location, she said families should get started right after the winter holidays.

Whether this is your first time applying, or you’ve got another child already in the program, here is everything you need to know to apply to pre-K in Philadelphia:

What are Philadelphia’s pre-K options?

The city and School District of Philadelphia provide free, high-quality, full-day pre-K classes for all city kids ages 3 to 5. A child must be at least 3 years old to enroll, but families can begin the application process before their child turns 3. Children who are turning 5 on or before Sept. 1 have to apply to kindergarten.

You can check to see if your child is eligible using the city’s tool here.

Pre-K programs at school-based locations run from September through June and follow the school district’s calendar. According to the district’s website, program hours may vary by location, but in general the hours are: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Want to know what a typical day might look like? You can see a sample lesson plan here.

How do I apply?

Parents and guardians can apply two ways: online or in-person.

For your best chance at finding a seat, the district is encouraging families to complete both the city and school district’s applications before the end of February 2024.

The city’s PHLpreK application can be found here.

The district’s application can be found here.

How to apply online

For the 2024-2025 school year, the city and school district hope to have a simpler way to apply online. Check back here in January for updated information.

The online application process for the school district takes about 15 to 30 minutes to complete and requires a number of documents — it’s important to note that the district and city require different documents for their respective applications. The school district offers their own step-by-step guide with photos that can be helpful to have open while you’re applying.

The application will ask questions about the child’s name, birth date, housing status, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) information, and allow you to request a location of your choice — either a program in a school close to your ZIP code or one run outside of a school by a community partner..

After submitting, you’ll have to upload your documents. Per their website, the district requires:

Proof of the child’s date of birth (ideally a birth certificate, but a valid U.S. passport, medical records, or any other form of government-issued document with your child’s birthdate would also work).
Documentation of family income.
Proof of Philadelphia residency (this could be a utility bill, driver’s license, W-2 tax form, or current lease or rental agreement, among other documents).
Child’s health insurance card.
Physical (health assessment form) and immunization records.
Picture identification of parent/guardian.

If applicable, the district will also ask for:

Proof of TANF benefits, SNAP/food stamps, medical assistance.
custody order.
Med-1 form if your child needs medication that a staff member will have to administer.
a copy of your child’s Individualized Education Program.
foster letter.
homeless verification letter/shelter letter.

The city’s PHLpreK application requires:

One proof of age document (such as a birth certificate or passport).
One proof of residency document (such as a utility bill, lease, or driver’s license, etc.).
A completed PHLpreK application and PHLpreK acknowledgement form.

How to apply in-person

You can register at many of the schools and community child care locations the district and city partner with or at the district’s office at 440 North Broad St. Just make sure you bring all of your documents — the same you’d need for the online application above.

You can find a location nearest to you here or here. Be sure to check the days and times they are open.

You also have to print, fill out, and bring a paper application with you. The school district’s application can be found here in English, Spanish, and nine other languages. The city’s PHLpreK application can be found here in the same languages.

What happens next?

If your child is accepted or put on a waitlist, you will get a phone call, note in the mail, or an email within six weeks of your application submission. However, the district warns that notification may be delayed depending on the time of year your application was submitted. Castelbuono said there is “always a crush” of applications in the summer months, so by August seats are often full.

Each pre-K location has a maximum funded capacity, meaning only a certain number of children can attend at each location. If more people apply to a location than there are seats available, the district will create a waitlist. District officials say on the pre-K website that “it is possible for a child to remain on the waiting list for the entire school year.”

If a seat opens up at the location of your choice, the district says someone will call to let you know.

What else do I need to know?

Transportation services are not provided by the city or district for pre-K children, so you’ll have to arrange your own transportation or carpool with neighbors or friends.

Some locations do offer before and after care if your family needs an extended day, though there will likely be a cost associated. Check here to see if a location near you offers before or after care.

Who do I talk to if I have questions or concerns?

The district offers phone support for anyone with questions about the program or registration process: 215-400-4270. The city’s Office of Children and Families also operates a PHLpreK hotline: 844-745-7735 (844-PHL-PREK). You can also email the office at OCFCommunications@phila.gov.

You can also reach out to the Early Learning Resource Center for information or guidance throughout the application and registration process. Their phone number is 1-888-461-KIDS (5437).

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s Early Childhood Education Guide

2023-12-06T11:10:00+00:00

For thousands of Philadelphia families, access to reliable, high-quality early childhood education is a priority.

Luckily, all 3- and 4-year-olds living in the city are eligible for free pre-K through the school district and through the city’s free preschool program, PHLpreK.

This year, Chalkbeat has created a guide featuring stories that take a political and personal look at early childhood education in Philadelphia and an explainer to walk new parents through the pre-k application process.

In our guide, reporter Nora Macaluso looks at a new movement towards “playful learning” that considers how important fun and enjoyment can be for early learners. We sat down with outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney to reflect on his pre-K legacy in Philadelphia, and we also spoke with kindergarten teacher Sarah Budlow, who shared how her pandemic education inspired her to become an educator herself.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s administration. Another 11,000 students are enrolled through the school district.

Milagros Nores, co-director for research at the National Institute for Early Education Research, observed some 285 Philadelphia pre-K classrooms last spring and told Chalkbeat the quality was comparable with similar programs she’s studied in other states. But she said there was room for growth, especially when it comes to teacher and staff training.

Nores said now that the program has incorporated more professional development and embedded coaching, it will likely improve.

But those improvements will depend on political will. Kenney made PHLpreK the centerpiece of his education agenda, but it’s unclear if mayor-elect Cherelle Parker will maintain it, expand it, or change it when she takes the helm. A spokesperson for Parker declined to comment on the issue.

Amid that uncertainty, providers are warning of an impending mass exodus from the field. Some early childhood education advocates in Philadelphia and statewide say their sector is “on the brink of a breakdown.”

Carol Austin, executive director of First Up, an advocacy group that provides training and accreditation assistance to early childhood educators and organizations, told Chalkbeat the biggest challenge facing Philadelphia early childhood programs is underfunding.

That lack of funding at the top causes a ripple effect that means early childhood workers are often underpaid. As a result, caregivers are leaving the field, which creates more work and pressure for those who remain.

In Philadelphia County, the estimated full-time hourly rate for early childhood teachers was $14.37 for annual earnings of $29,884, as of the most recent earnings data from 2021.

“People are leaving the field because it’s so stressful,” Austin said. “They can make more money at Target.”

Austin said that like their peers in K-12 classrooms, early childhood staff are also seeing more students, including toddlers, grappling with challenging behaviors in the wake of the pandemic. In some cases, Austin said, those students would be better served by having more and better-trained teachers and support staff in the classroom. But that requires more funding.

“If we could pay educators and staff what they deserve, we wouldn’t be dealing with this cycle,” Austin said.

Barbara Chavous-Pennock, CEO of Somerset Academy Early Learning Center in North Philadelphia, said finding adequate space, quality teachers, enough funding, and necessary support for students from marginalized communities is getting more difficult every year.

But Chavous-Pennock said she’s hopeful the city can expand and streamline the free pre-K programs it has.

“The greatest thing that I think we falter from as a city is that we have tremendous programs, we have dollars, we even sometimes have political will,” Chavous-Pennock said, “but we talk to each other in silos. We are not sitting together, we are not working together.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school board approval of contracts worth $183 million prompts transparency debate

2023-04-21T19:31:43+00:00

Long after people had left the school district auditorium, Philadelphia’s school board voted Thursday night to approve roughly $183 million for vendor contracts, including $336,000 for a consulting group to improve the board’s communication with the public.

Those contracts covered school building repairs, IT and technology equipment, office supplies, preschool programs, and water and sewer systems.

For years, outspoken members of the public and some education advocates have demanded more transparency from the board when it comes to their appointments and deliberations. Now, with multiple schools closing due to damaged asbestos, and gun violence claiming the lives of 23 students and wounding another 84, the board’s public approach to these and other crucial issues could help determine whether Philadelphia’s next mayor reappoints some, all, or none of the board’s current members.

Not long after he took over the district last year, Superintendent Tony Watlington drew public ire when the board (at his request) hired a consulting firm for $450,000 to help with his transition and guide the creation of a long-term strategic plan for Philadelphia schools.

While the 54-item consent agenda ultimately passed with little debate, board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson raised concerns about the process behind the $336,000 communications contract with Public Consulting Group in particular.

Thompson said she “wasn’t even aware” that the board was going through a selection process for communications vendors.

“We dont keep minutes, there’s no written documentation on what occurs … there’s no accountability,” Thompson said. “That should be a public conversation, not this secret stuff.”

Salley noted that the district has often been accused of “lack of transparency.”

“Strategic communication in general is very poor for the board and the district as a whole,” Salley said.

Public Consulting Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said the contracts went through the usual request for proposal process. Several people from the board and district reviewed multiple vendor contracts, and ultimately decided to move forward with the ones that appeared on the consent agenda.

“The process is not over, we are in this final step of work, collectively making a decision,” Fix-Lopez said before the vote. “That is what happens when we vote for an action item.”

Funding for the contracts approved Thursday night came from a variety of sources including operating and capital funding from last year and next year’s budget as well as federal and state grants.

Board President Reginald Streater said the board followed the district’s procurement process “to the tee.”

Board member Leticia Egea-Hinton defended the Public Consulting Group contract and said the board needs urgent “help” connecting to the school community. “I don’t think we can wait much longer,” she said.

But those comments came too late to mollify Lisa Haver, founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools and a frequent critic of the board’s transparency efforts. Speaking at Thursday’s board meeting during the public comment period, she blasted the communications spending, which included $881,500 for “customer service” with a group called K12 Insight, as well as the $336,000 contract.

She questioned why the district was spending such money “to assist professionals and board members to do what they were hired or appointed” to do.

The full list of contracts can be found on the board’s website. Among the approved items on the consent agenda were:

$8 million for technology equipment through the state’s COSTARS cooperative purchasing program.
$11 million for replacing roofs at several schools
$32 million for “office supplies.”
$3.5 million to amend a contract with The Home Depot for “cleaning and custodial supplies.”
$9.3 million in contracts with the city water department and Vicinity Energy for water services and steam heat.
$79 million in federal and state grants for prekindergarten programs at community-based partner sites.
$6 million for boiler repairs.
$12 million to extend contracts with vendors doing HVAC repairs.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s early childhood education workers ‘on the brink of a breakdown’ advocates say

2023-03-16T18:17:30+00:00

Citing “inadequate” wages and warning of an impending mass exodus from the field, early childhood education advocates in Philadelphia and statewide say their sector is “on the brink of a breakdown.”

Those advocates are urging state lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro to add more funding for childcare and early childhood education in the state budget this year. Without more money, they say employees will leave, programs will close, and children, families, and businesses in Pennsylvania will face “devastating consequences.”

Shapiro’s proposed budget includes $66.7 million in early childhood education funding. But advocates said that’s far from enough. They are calling for $430 million for increasing wages and expanding programs across Pennsylvania.

Roughly 50% of early childhood educators surveyed across the commonwealth said they were “unsure” or “intending to not be working in their jobs in five years,” Start Strong PA, a statewide early education advocacy group, said in a new report.

(The report was funded through a grant from the William Penn Foundation. Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.)

Losing those workers would mean smaller programs with fewer teachers. That would leave more families in need of child care without an option, and keep more parents — especially women — out of the workforce, advocates say.

Sheila Moses, a former early childhood teacher, said Thursday at the Northeast Philadelphia YMCA, she had to leave her job as an educator because of the low wages.

“The tension I experienced as a single parent was overwhelming,” said Moses, who spoke at an event to promote the report hosted by the Start Strong and Children First advocacy groups. “I worked full-time and still needed welfare to support my family.”

The Start Strong report said that the child care sector in Philadelphia “is in crisis.” Its analysis found that 83% of Philadelphia-area programs have a staffing shortage, with 616 open positions across the city and 2,831 children on waitlists.

Using 2021 earnings data, the most recent available, the report also found that in all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, early childhood teachers’ earnings “failed to meet the cost-of-living” and were not sufficient to cover “basic necessities like housing, transportation and food.”

Wages varied across the state. The highest earners were in Union County, who make up to $31,320 annually, while teachers in Elk County earned as little as $15,408 per year.

In Philadelphia County, the estimated full-time hourly rate for these teachers was $14.37 for annual earnings of $29,884.

The report’s authors said early childhood workers earned less annually than housekeepers, hair stylists, landscapers, and retail workers.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, said at the event Thursday that early childhood programs are losing teachers to businesses like Amazon that can pay higher wages and offer more immediate healthcare benefits.

Milagros Battiti, an early educator at KinderAcademy in Philadelphia, said at the event she’s been “struggling to provide basic necessities for myself” on her current earnings of $30,000 a year.

When her mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2022, those struggles multiplied and she fell under the federal poverty line.

“I am not the dream I envisioned or worked hard towards,” Battiti said. “I’m just surviving day by day.”

Chalkbeat Philadelphia Senior Writer Dale Mezzacappa contributed to this story.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia officials optimistic about early literacy efforts despite disappointing test scores

2022-12-07T11:25:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2022 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free weekly newsletter here.

Mayor Jim Kenney had a question for the 30 or so four- and five-year-olds arrayed before him at the Little Einsteins child care center in Germantown just before Thanksgiving.

After reading to them from the book “Our Favorite Day of the Year,” about holidays, food was on the mayor’s mind.

“What do you like to put on top of your pie? I like vanilla ice cream,” he said.

“Pizza!” one little boy shouted.

“Pizza on top of your pie?” the mayor responded in mock disbelief. The little boy giggled.

Soon, it was a free-for-all. “French fries!” “Hot dogs!” “Nuggets!” children shouted.

“Now you’re being silly,” the mayor said, appearing to enjoy every moment as the children basked in the attention.

During November, Kenney visited several child care centers to highlight what he considers one of his biggest achievements as mayor: making affordable, high-quality early childhood education available to an additional 4,300 students through PHLPreK, an initiative that supplements state and federal programs including Pre-K Counts and Head Start.

The focus on prekindergarten is part of the city’s effort to ensure that all students can read on grade level by the end of third grade. This Read by 4th campaign began in 2015, and has brought together universities, foundations, businesses, and other institutions to emphasize literacy activities in everyday life as well as in the classroom.

As a target on the road to universal proficiency, the Philadelphia Board of Education has set a goal that 62% of third graders will be proficient readers by the 2025-26 school year. Yet while many systems have been put in place to help the city achieve its goal, the results so far have been mixed — at least as measured by standardized test scores.

Just 28.2% of Philadelphia third graders scored proficient or advanced in reading this year on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the state test scores. That is not only a decline from pre-pandemic proficiency of 32.5% in 2019, but more than 10 percentage points below the goal set by the Board of Education for the 2021-22 school year for the district to be on track for its goal of 62%. (In 2020, the state did not administer the PSSA; in 2021, a relatively small share of students took the PSSA due to the pandemic, and officials have warned against comparing those scores to results from other years.)

Overall for grades 3-8, 34.7% of students scored proficient in reading on the PSSA in 2022. That’s below the interim target of 42.5% the district set for 2021-22 in order to stay on track to reach its goal of 65% proficiency by 2026.

Recently released scores from this year’s federally administered National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth and eighth graders — known as “the nation’s report card” — revealed promising but also worrying signs for Philadelphia’s younger students when it comes to literacy.

While fourth graders’ NAEP reading scores dipped nationwide and in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia’s fourth grade reading scores did not change significantly from 2019, the last time the NAEP test was administered. At the same time, Philadelphia’s fourth graders scored significantly below the national average and the average for Pennsylvania. (NAEP is administered to a representative sample of students, not all of them.)

Despite worrying signs in the data, those working in the field also see encouraging signs.

Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, called it “amazing” that Philadelphia’s fourth grade NAEP scores in reading “didn’t tank” for 2022 after all the pandemic-related disruptions.

And others point to the foundation for future success in literacy that Philadelphia has put in place recently through a diverse set of initiatives inside and outside schools. “We feel we’re in a much better place than we were seven years ago,” said Jenny Bogoni, executive director of the Read by 4th campaign.

Early literacy efforts focus on coaches and curriculum

The initiative started in the wake of research showing that students reap lifelong benefits if they are reading proficiently when they start fourth grade. A 2012 study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, for example, found that students who do not reach this milestone are four times less likely to graduate high school on time than those who do.

Despite the added pre-K seats in Philadelphia over the last several years, inadequate availability may still be hindering efforts like those to improve early literacy.

About 12,000 children, or nearly half of those eligible for those seats based on family income, still don’t have access to affordable early childhood education, Cooper pointed out.

That could contribute to the reality that despite “tons of effort” after seven years “we’re not seeing movement” on the traditional measures of children’s literacy, she said.

Still, while the percentage of students reaching proficiency on the PSSA has not shown the progress people would like, the share of students scoring “below basic” (the lowest level) on the test did fall across various student subgroups from 2015 and 2019. For example, the percentage of Black male students scoring below basic on the English Language Arts test declined from 46.5% in 2015 to 41.5% in 2019, according to the district.

“We haven’t quite gotten to putting more in the proficient bucket, but we’re bringing up the bottom,” Bogoni said.

Starting in 2019, the district overhauled its early reading curriculum by hewing more closely to the science of reading, said Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, the district’s deputy chief of curriculum and instruction.

This shift in instruction seeks to couple comprehension skills — including vocabulary development, background knowledge, and verbal reasoning — with more explicit phonics instruction, decoding, and phonemic awareness, or the relationship between letters and sounds.

With the curricular shift, “We’re more focused on foundational skills,” said Malika Savoy-Brooks, the district’s chief academic support officer.

The district is also working with local colleges of education to make sure that teachers planning to work in the early grades get more rigorous training in reading instruction. And since 2015, early-grade teachers have received summer training in best practices for teaching reading.

Beyond that fundamental shift in core instruction, the district has also hired literacy coaches recently to work in many schools. Officials have also sought to raise awareness among parents about the importance of exposing them to books from a very early age.

Outside of school, the Read by 4th campaign has enlisted the help of “reading captains.” These are community residents who conduct literacy activities in the neighborhood at libraries, schools, parks and other settings.

Diane Castelbuono, the district’s director of early childhood education, said there is “a small army of reading captains out there engaging friends and neighbors in how to raise a reader, and how families can access the resources they need.”

Separately, the district is working with book publishers and funders to obtain more diverse books, and enhance classroom libraries to make sure most of the books and teaching materials are more culturally responsive to the children in the classroom, who are overwhelmingly Black and brown.

Francis-Thompson said the district is drawing on materials and philosophy from Dr. Gholdy Muhammed, an associate professor at Georgia State University who emphasizes the importance of cultural affirmation and appropriate reading materials to children’s development of literacy skills.

“Significant work has been done making sure there are books in children’s homes, making sure the distribution of children’s books is culturally responsive and in different languages,” Castelbuono said.

While curriculum is important, so is making sure that the teachers of early learners also focus on children’s social and emotional needs, said LaTanya Miller, executive director of the district’s office of academic supports who works on adaptive curriculum for students with disabilities.

And with respect to English language learners, who make up 12% of the district’s students, the district has also gradually shifted its approach to stress that speaking and understanding a language other than English is an asset, not a liability.

Over the past several years, the district has invested in modernizing kindergarten through third grade classrooms to include centers devoted to reading, writing, and LEGOs.

And officials are ramping up other initiatives, including playful learning, in which opportunities for reading and conversation are present in places all around the city, including parks, laundromats, and buses.

The ultimate goal of all these efforts, Francis-Thompson said, is to prepare students to be critical of the world around them and “not just a passive consumer” of information. Beyond just teaching skills, creating literate students is about “accepting them and embracing all that they are in a learning environment,” she said.

As with many other education initiatives, the pandemic has disrupted efforts to improve early literacy. Bogoni said almost two full years of remote learning has taken its toll. But she stressed that the city is now in a better position to make badly needed progress.

“We were feeling we were on the cusp of making good progress as the pandemic hit,” she said. “Now the task is to double down. The foundations are in place that should allow us to move forward in this space of urgency.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Her students were babies during lockdown. Here’s how that’s changed her approach.

2022-12-07T11:00:00+00:00

For many parents, this year has marked a return to “normal” — with COVID restrictions largely lifted and workplaces open once again.

The transition has been harder for young children. Today’s preschoolers were babies and toddlers during the pandemic lockdowns, and some missed out on early opportunities to be around educators and peers.

“For many of my students, this is their first time in a school or care setting, or even leaving their house” for extended periods of time, said Lyssa Horvath, a lead pre-K teacher at Belmont Academy Charter School in Philadelphia.

To meet students’ needs, Horvath has adjusted her approach. “In addition to the language, math, physical, social, and emotional development that I typically do in my classroom, I’m engaged in a lot more confidence boosting and encouragement than in years before,” she said.

This is Horvath’s first year at Belmont Academy, but she has taught preschool for more than a decade. She’s also a policy fellow with Teach Plus Pennsylvania, a mentor teacher, and a preschool curriculum developer. Horvath spoke recently with Chalkbeat Philadelphia about teaching preschoolers to share, common misconceptions about early learners, and how young children use behavior to communicate their needs.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to become a preschool teacher?

I didn’t choose preschool, preschool chose me. I thought I wanted to be a middle school English Language Arts teacher, and that is what my original certification is in. However, my first job was a summer position at Merritt Academy in Virginia, teaching across age levels. When September approached, I was asked if I wanted to stay on as a lead teacher in a pre-K 3 classroom, which I happily accepted. After one year, I knew early childhood education was the place for me. Guiding so much important brain, social, and emotional development is a huge responsibility, and I get to do it with curiosity, joy, and laughter every day.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I love lessons that focus on social and emotional skills, helping children manage emotions, establish relationships, set goals, and make responsible decisions. One of my favorite lessons to do around the December holidays centers on the story about sharing, “Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. After reading the book, I give each child a sheet of shiny fish stickers and ask what we should do with them. A choir of voices usually responds with “share them!” We take a few minutes to stand up and put our stickers on our friends, laughing and giggling the whole time. As you can imagine, by the end of the lesson everyone is covered in their peer’s stickers.

I conclude the lesson by discussing how it feels to share and give something to someone else and how it felt to get the stickers. Children agree it feels just as good to give as it does to receive. Then the kids brainstorm and list other small acts of kindness they can give in the classroom or at home. The goal of the lesson is to teach children that generosity, like sharing a smile, a hug, a story, or a compliment, helps to develop positive relationships with peers and family members.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom?

In many ways, the communities we serve are rebooting, and there is a lot of disruption. Students are headed back to school, parents are back at work (many of my students’ parents have more than one job), schedules are changing, and cold viruses are spreading. Adults are returning to a familiar way of life, but this is unfamiliar for kids under five who have spent the majority of their lives in a pandemic environment.

In the classroom, this translates to insecurity and introversion. They struggle with how to move in a room full of other children, sharing, taking turns, or simply playing with others. On the flip side, these children have formed strong, secure attachments with their caregivers, which is translating to strong, secure attachments with their teachers and peers.

What advice would you give someone considering a career in early childhood education?

First, see if this is the right fit for you. Visit and observe all types of schools and all ages, birth to five. Learn about Maria Montessori, Emilia Reggio, and play-based schools. Visit a Head Start, charter, or traditional public school, or one of the academically focused centers. Early childhood education is incredibly rewarding, and also incredibly hard, so find what sparks your passion the most and know that the work you are choosing is incredibly important and worthwhile. Connect with the teacher advocacy groups in your area, Teach Plus, First Up, and Children First have all been incredible sources of professional development and building my teacher network. Being involved with these organizations has allowed me to meet teachers outside of my school and strengthen my own teaching practice.

What’s a common misconception about preschool and/or early learners?

A common misconception about preschool and early learners is that their learning looks like typical elementary school learning and that small children sit and receive instruction directly from the teacher. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Early learners’ brains are still developing, mapping, and making connections. They learn by active participation, trial and error, exploration, and investigation. They learn by doing and for young children doing is playing. This is why I’m working with Teach Plus, raising my voice as an early childhood educator to advocate for what is best for young learners.

I understand that you help develop other early learning centers develop their curriculums. Tell me about that work and what makes a strong preschool curriculum.

I had the opportunity to work for a nationwide early learning center as a curriculum developer. My main project was rewriting the phonics program for 4- and 5-year-olds to reflect current research and best practices.

To me, a good preschool curriculum meets students where they are, engages them in developmentally appropriate practices, makes space for students to practice and reinforce skills, and allows multiple ways to demonstrate mastery of skills. Good preschool curriculum is child-focused, allows children to make independent choices, and allows lots of time for play. Good preschool curriculum engages teachers as room facilitators, or composers — bringing out the best in each student — as opposed to technicians rushing through scripts.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

The best advice I’ve ever received is that behavior is communication. This changed the way I manage my classroom and see my students. What I used to see as misbehavior I now know is an unmet need of a child that I need to address, whether it is feeling secure, managing emotions, or responding to internal body cues. With this orientation, I understand my students better and help them understand their needs and how to best meet them.

After COVID slowdown, Philly’s free preschool program plans modest expansion

2022-06-03T11:00:00+00:00

Philadelphia’s free preschool program doesn’t offer the 6,500 seats city leaders envisioned when it launched more than five years ago, but a modest expansion planned for the coming school year could bring the number to 4,300.

Slowed initially by litigation over the sugary beverage tax that funds the PHLpreK program, the pandemic also took a toll. Revenues from the beverage tax declined about 15% in the first two years of the pandemic, and stalled a 1,700-seat expansion. This school year, the city did not fill all 4,000 seats funded through the program.

Sean Perkins, Philadelphia’s chief of early childhood education, said city officials try to be strategic in deciding which parts of the city to put PHLpreK seats in, but supply and demand don’t always align.

“We have more families who have completed applications than there are seats … but we still have vacancies, too,” he said.

Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposed budget for the coming year includes about $3.9 million in additional PHLpreK funding, which will help pay for 300 new seats. The City Council is expected to approve that expansion when it votes on the upcoming budget later this month.

Currently, the city spends about $41 million a year on the preschool program. Increasingly, cities and states are offering tuition-free preschool as a way to prepare children for kindergarten and provide key learning experiences during a critical period of development.

PHLpreK, which began in 2017, provides 5.5 hours a day of free preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds in Philadelphia. Although PHLpreK serves children regardless of family income, about 70% come from lower-income families, Perkins said.

Ebony Baggett, who owns the Bright Minds, Bright Beginnings Early Learning Center, is hoping to add six additional PHLpreK slots for the next school year. The 26 slots she has now — some at her Cobbs Creek center and some at her Strawberry Mansion site — always fill up fast.

Compared to Pre-K Counts, the state-funded preschool program for low-income families, she said the city’s program is easier for families because there’s no income verification requirement — just a residency requirement.

“It’s easier for the parents and they’re more likely to enroll,” she said.

Adelaida Gutierrez, a mother of four who works as a home health aide, has a 5-year-old daughter who’s just finishing two years in PHLpreK at Bright Minds, and a 3-year-old daughter, who will start in the fall.

“With the pre-K being free, it is helpful,” she said. “How would I be able to afford full-time child care?”

Gutierrez’s 5-year-old daughter Skyliss has struggled at times with preschool, crying at drop-off and mostly preferring to play alone. Guiterrez suspects she may be on the autism spectrum like her older brother, and has an appointment to have Skyliss evaluated in August.

But Gutierrez has also seen signs of progress for Skyliss at Bright Minds. Skyliss has learned to write her name, doesn’t “baby talk” as much as she used to, and cries less often since she began carrying a photo of her parents to preschool.

Finding solutions for initiative’s roadblocks

City officials say PHLpreK’s biggest challenge is the chronic shortage of qualified preschool staff. Part of the problem is the industry’s low pay, but the job also entails long hours and, at times, stressful conditions.

“Philadelphians have an increased level of poverty and have experienced various traumas … and that costs a lot and it actually takes a lot of energy and training for the teachers and the support staff,” Perkins said.

Naimah Humpert, a preschool teacher at Bright Minds, Bright Beginnings, works with children on a coloring sheet.

To help address such challenges, the city last year launched the SPARK Quality Support Center, an effort that provides free training, coaching, and support to PHLpreK providers. While most PHLpreK providers already have one of the top two ratings in the state’s four-star quality rating system, SPARK staff also work with lower-rated providers to help them improve.

“All of the work that they do with providers is 100% catered to what the provider needs,” said PHLpreK Director Denise Bermudez. “It’s an amazing opportunity for them.”

Jessica Munoz works at Bright Minds and sends her 5-year-old son Damir there through PHLpreK. Damir, who enjoys dancing, playing with Transformers, and watching Paw Patrol, suffers from anxiety. But Munoz said he’s learned a lot during his two years in the program, including how to identify his name, letters, and numbers.

In the fall, he’ll head to kindergarten at a charter school in the Juniata section of lower Northeast Philadelphia. Although PHLpreK doesn’t run in the summer, Damir will get a little more time at Bright Minds if Munoz, who earns $15 an hour, is granted child care subsidies to cover summer tuition there.

Baggett wishes the city’s preschool program ran year-round so all participants would have a safe place to go in the summer.

“Ten months is a huge challenge,” she said. “Our program is in a high-need area so … a lot of times there’s violence happening outside our four walls. As a provider, it gives me anxiety.”

Baggett said a full-year schedule would also help financially and prevent reduced staff hours in the summer.

But it’s not clear if PHLpreK will ever grow to a full-year program, or when it will reach the mayor’s goal of serving 5,500 children annually — a number revised down from the original 6,500 estimate.

While revenues from Philadelphia’s sweetened beverage tax have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels — the tax brought in about $77 million this year — city officials estimate proceeds from the tax will peak at $79 million in 2024 and then fall back to about $77 million by 2027.

City officials say such a decline wouldn’t negatively affect the program.

“Overall, these fluctuations are minimal and will not hinder the administration’s plans to expand PHLpreK nor the other core programs funded by the tax,” city spokesman Mike Dunn said in an email.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Prekindergarten enrollment tumbles in Pennsylvania

2022-04-26T22:55:26+00:00

The pandemic led to a sharp decline in Pennsylvania’s prekindergarten enrollment, with more than 8,000 fewer children participating in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20 in programs for three- and four-year olds, a new report shows.

The drop from approximately 48,750 children to 40,560 amounts to a decline of nearly 17%, raising concerns that fewer children will be able to reach the goal of reading proficiently by the end of grade three – a crucial benchmark for future literacy and the likelihood of graduating from high school with the skills necessary for college and career.

“That’s a pretty big decline,” said Steven Barnett, director and founder of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), which issued the report Tuesday. Some other states, he said, were down by only 5%.

Barnett said preliminary surveys show that the numbers have rebounded some this year, “but are not back to pre-pandemic levels yet.”

This dip has happened despite efforts by the state as well as the federal government to underwrite programs so they could weather the pandemic’s impact on enrollment. For instance, last year the state funded its biggest prekindergarten program, Pre-K Counts, based on pre-pandemic numbers, and not the actual number of students enrolled.

Pennsylvania and other states “did a pretty good job of stepping up,” said Barnett.

Even so, Pennsylvania’s overall funding for pre-kindergarten programs between 2020 and 2021 declined by about $22 million to $318 million, as smaller state-supported programs, including school-based pre-K and Head Start, adjusted for the lower enrollments.

In 2020-2021, state-funded Pennsylvania pre-K programs served 8% of all three-year olds and 19% of four-year-olds, Barnett said. The national average was 5% of three-year-olds and 29% of four-year-olds.

“Pennsylvania still has a long way to go,” he said.

In his budget for fiscal 2023, Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed a $70 million increase in early childhood spending, including $60 million more for Pre-K Counts. But Barnett said in order to serve all the three- and four-year-olds eligible for Pre-K Counts – all those living under 200% of the federal poverty threshold – the state would have to spend at least $500 million more next year.

“That would cost about a billion dollars,” Barnett said. “It means the state almost needs to triple its spending.”

He said that half of Pennsylvania’s children under 5 fall below the federal poverty threshold, which is now $26,500 for a family of four. Barnett pointed out that neighboring New Jersey spends $815 million on pre-K, even though Pennsylvania is a bigger state in terms of population.

Barnett noted that all of Pennsylvania’s pre-K population could be served if President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better budget plan were enacted. Biden has proposed sending $100 billion to states over three years to help create universal pre-K across the country. Among other things, Biden’s plan would allow pre-K programs to raise standards and wages for their teachers. But for months, lawmakers have failed to reach a breakthrough in negotiations over Build Back Better.

Carol Austin, executive director of First Up, a southeast Pennsylvania lobbying group for early education, said that in the Philadelphia region, enrollment has declined and programs are still having a hard time staffing child care centers.

At the state level, “What we’re fighting for is an increase in base [pay] rates to hire better qualified teachers,” she said. In terms of supply and demand, she said, “We’re in a very challenging time right now. … Maybe in September, we’ll see [an upswing] in preschool again as COVID becomes the new normal. It’s all hard to predict.”

Right now, she said, many low-income families are keeping their children home. “There’s a lot of fear”of the virus and of vaccinations or lack of them for the youngest children, Austin said. Many families also have moved their schedules around so their need for child care is reduced, she added.

She said she is advocating for the state to do more messaging, through public service announcements and publicity campaigns, to stress the importance of preschool as part of a child’s education, and not simply child care.

Early education “is important for getting a child ready for kindergarten so they can move through a process of reading by fourth grade,” she said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in the city. She is a former president of the Education Writers Association. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Black children hurt by structure of Pa. preschool programs, study says

2022-04-19T15:34:12+00:00

Pre-pandemic, Black children in Pennsylvania had less access to high-quality preschool than white children, according to a new report.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that this disparity was due primarily to the way the state funds its two main preschool programs, Child Care Works and Pre-K Counts, and the different standards policymakers have set for them. As overall enrollment in the program grew from 2014 to 2019, Black children’s enrollment in Pre-K Counts declined slightly, before the pandemic put unprecedented stress on early childhood education.

Child Care Works is the state’s subsidized child care program, while Pre-K Counts is its largest pre-kindergarten program. Together they served over 53,000 children as of 2019, with roughly 36,700 in Child Care Works, and 17,000 in Pre-K Counts.

Child Care Works is targeted toward low-income working families, those making under 200% of the federal poverty line, which was just above $25,000 for a family of four in 2019. Pre-K Counts has higher income eligibility – 300% of poverty – and does not require a parent to be working. Child Care Works is year-round, while Pre-K Counts tracks the academic year of 180 days.

The state pays more per child for Pre-K Counts, and overall funding for that program has nearly doubled between 2014 and 2019, while Child Care Works funding dropped by about 2%. While Pre-K Counts provides a standard amount of funding per child, funding for Child Care Works varies. In addition, the state rewards higher quality providers in Child Care Works with more money as an incentive to improve, she said.

More white children proportionally are enrolled in Pre-K Counts, which has more rigorous standards for teachers and overall programs, while more Black children are in Child Care Works, where standards exist but aren’t as stringent.

In both programs, white children are more likely to be in classrooms that have earned four stars – the highest level – on the state’s rating system, the report found. Besides teacher qualifications, these ratings take into account factors including space conditions, outreach to families, financial stability, and whether a center offers professional development for staff.

While 50.2% of white Pre-K Counts participants were enrolled with a four-star provider in 2019, for example, only 38.1% of Black participants were.

On the state’s four-star rating system, Pre-K Counts must earn a rating of three or four, while Child Care Works can include one and two.

“The disparities for Black children were stunning in terms of the lack of access to the providers that were going to be getting more support from the state of Pennsylvania,” said Erica Frankenberg, a Penn State professor of education and one of the report’s authors, in an interview.

The report recommends that “any policy aimed at improving quality, such as funding for higher teacher wages, should be applied to all providers serving young children of any age, not just those who teach in designated pre-k programs.”

The study did not include 2020 and 2021 because child care was disrupted for so many different reasons – fear of the virus, no vaccine availability for children under 5, more parents working from home – due to the pandemic. The researchers have a grant to do a follow-up study on what happened during those years.

“We are looking at that, that study is to come. It’s complicated,” said Frankenberg, who is director of Penn State’s Center for Education and Civil Rights.

The two programs are regarded differently by policymakers, she said, which partly accounts for the differences in funding and quality.

Pre-K Counts “is conceived of as preschool to benefit children, academically and socially, and Child Care Works is thought of as child care,” Frankenberg said. “One of the eligibility criteria is to have a parent who is working or is in an undergraduate program. It’s more about preserving the economic contribution of the parents rather than the social and academic enrichment of the child. So there are two different constructions and funding.”

The report recommends that the state “invest in broader policies that unify child care and pre-K.”

Even though enrollment in Pre-K Counts has been steadily growing, the number and percentage of Black students has dropped in recent years.

While white enrollment in Pre-K Counts grew by 53% and Latinx enrollment by 66% between 2014 and 2019, “the number of Black children participating … actually dropped by nearly 2%,” the report said. And overall enrollment growth in Pre-K Counts over those five years was 37%, compared to a slight decline in Child Care Works enrollment.

The report recommends finding a way to provide incentives for high-quality providers to locate in underserved areas, perhaps through grants. Frankenberg also said that both programs should provide more days and hours of care.

Early childhood education in Pennsylvania is a mix of programs and funding streams – state, federal and local – with varying requirements. In addition to these two state-funded programs, there is the federal Head Start program, and in Philadelphia, PHLPre-K, all with their own requirements. This can all be confusing for parents, Frankenberg said.

While Frankenberg does not support making early childhood options in the state “one size fits all,” she said: “We need to unify these funding streams.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Education advocates celebrate fifth anniversary of Philly pre-K

2021-06-16T23:34:41+00:00

Ingrid Caitlin has been teaching young students for more than 50 years.

Now the lead pre-kindergarten teacher at Little Einsteins Early Learning Center, she joined parents, principals, and education advocates Wednesday to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the Philly pre-K program, which provides free pre-K to thousands of students across Philadelphia.

“I think pre-K helps kids to be more productive in life,” Caitlin said as she ushered a group of young students onto Einsteins’ playground.

The PHLpreK program currently funds 3,300 slots for 3- and 4-year-old students in Philadelphia. The program started in 2017 with about 1,000 students and has served 6,000 students since its launch. Donna Cooper, executive director for Public Citizens for Children and Youth, said the program hopes to enroll 4,100 students in September and up to 5,000 next school year. When the program launched, it aimed to serve up to 6,500 students.

Efforts to increase enrollment in the program have slowed, in part, due to a lack of funding. PHLpreK is funded by the city’s beverage tax, which imposes a 1.5 cents-per-ounce fee on sodas and other sugary drinks bought within city limits. Revenue from the beverage tax declined about 15% during the pandemic.

The tax was the first of its kind in a major U.S. city, and it has remained controversial since passing five years ago. The tax was slammed by beverage companies and faced a challenge in the state supreme court, but it was lauded by some elected officials, such as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House.

“Over the last five years, thousands of children have gotten ready for school and a lifetime of success, and we’re here today to mark that,” Cooper said.

Access to early childhood programs is also an issue of racial equity, Cooper said. Far more white and wealthy families have access to pre-K than low-income Black and brown families, and the city’s introduction of free pre-K programs can help level the playing field, she said.

“If we want Black and Hispanic children in this city to have a shot at the equal future of their white peers, we need pre-K,” Cooper said. “Philly pre-K is not just an investment in early childhood, but it is an investment in civil rights.”

Caitlin said one of her favorite parts of teaching pre-K over the years has been watching her former students — many of them from disadvantaged backgrounds — grow up and succeed.

“I’m just really proud to work here at Einstein,” Caitlin said.

‘Ordered chaos:’ Teachers and families adjust to pandemic pre-K in Philadelphia

2020-12-21T20:47:39+00:00

Confidently sporting a pale green dinosaur T-shirt, 4-year-old Ezra sat down at the table in his living room for “his meetings.”

Far from the boring team meetings that most adults, including his parents, have grown accustomed to in the age of COVID-19, Ezra’s “meeting” consisted of him sorting buttons by size, shape and color. Later his pre-kindergarten teacher would read a book out loud about different kids wearing clothing with various buttons, snaps and zippers.

Ezra’s classmate, Jaden, 3, also enjoys being like the rest of his family. “He sees everyone doing the same thing: I am at my laptop, his mom is at her laptop, his older sister is at her laptop, so what do little kids like to do? They want to do what everyone else is doing,” said Jaden’s father, Jermaine Millhouse.

Both Jaden and Ezra attend pre-kindergarten at Kai’s Comfy Corner, one of 136 centers that are part of the PHLpreK program. Like child care providers across Philadelphia, Kai’s Comfy Corner has made adjustments to cope with the realities of the coronavirus pandemic — it’s among just 74 who are offering some remote learning.

Jaden sits during virtual class.

The change has been an adjustment for families and teachers alike. Kai’s Comfy Corner enrollment dropped from about 70 students to 18, and the center adopted a hybrid model with three days in person and two days with a half hour of virtual learning. The remote days allow the teachers to deep clean the classroom and write lesson plans that integrate both in-school and at-home learning.

At the onset of the hybrid model, parents and teachers at Kai’s Comfy Corner were concerned about the impact on early childhood development and kindergarten preparedness. But several months in, some staff and parents say the center has made the best of a bad situation, with surprising results.

“From our end it is going really well, although I am sure it is much more work for [the staff]. Honestly, I have been surprised at how engaged Ezra has been in the virtual modules,” said Patrick Manning, Ezra’s father.

Millhouse said it took Jaden a few weeks to learn to sit still and pay attention during the 30-minute remote classes. By imposing a routine that mirrored the real classroom, it became easier. “We had to plan it. We had to set it up like they were in school,” he said.

Now, more than three months into the school year, the 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds interact enthusiastically with their teacher and classmates on Zoom. On one recent Thursday, Jaden jumped to answer a question about a book the teacher was reading.

“What does an author do?” the teacher asked,.

“The author writes the book,” Jaden said.

For perhaps the first time, parents are getting a glimpse into how much planning going into pre-K lessons. What may look chaotic, especially on Zoom, has its purpose.

Bryanah Tonkins, head teacher, initially tried to start with students muted, in order to mimic a classroom practice of “having your listening ears on” when another student is talking. But teachers found they missed valuable things that students said while muted.

“The environment of just letting them talk when something comes to mind is good. It helps them feel comfortable, it helps them engage with the class. One-at-a-time might work in person, but it is hard to get them to understand that only one person should talk when they are physically just there by themselves.” So instead, the audio is on for all students for the duration of the class. Sometimes children talk over each other, sometimes they get off topic, but in the end they are all learning, she said.

“It is ordered chaos,” said Tonkins, “but when you go into a classroom face-to-face and you hear that hum. You always want to hear that hum in a daycare center because it shows kids are engaged, talking, participating.”

For some families, the virtual sessions are the students’ only interaction with other children. Jillian Tropea signed up her 3-year-old daughter, Journey, for virtual classes out of concern about the health of the girl’s elderly grandmother.

“I really wanted her to go to pre-K. But with my mother-in-law, it is just not possible right now with COVID,” said Tropea. Instead, she stops by the center every Wednesday to pick up the props and instructions for the activities for the week, keeping her daughter as engaged as possible on her own and joining the Zoom classes

Learning material assists virtual class at Kai’s Comfy Corner.

Thursdays and Fridays.

Tropea hopes the time, although short, makes a difference and helps to combat social isolation. She worries about the toll the lack of socialization over the last nine months has had on Journey.

Ezra’s parents too, worried about the social and emotional cost of not sending him to the in-person program. That’s why they decided to do the hybrid model. “It was a constant back and forth all summer,” he said.
During the initial shutdown last spring, they started to see the effects on Ezra and his 9 year-old brother, who is attending fourth grade virtually. With all of the talk about the pandemic and quarantine, both boys were becoming afraid of going outside and seeing other people. His parents also noticed changes in Ezra’s ability to regulate his emotions.

Now Manning said Ezra is as excited about the virtual days as the in-person ones. Even if the virtual program is only 30 minutes twice a week, the continuity of seeing familiar faces five days per week has been surprisingly significant, he said.

Early childhood educators have had to adapt too. They still have to teach the children, but they also give overwhelmed parents tools and tricks to facilitate learning at home.

“The real hard part is sitting down at the planning stage each week when we have to say ‘Ok we are reading this book and we are counting so what can we do at home, what kind of supplies do we need to give to them?’” said Tonkins.

They also need to explain to parents the lessons’ objectives, how it ties in with what is going on in the classroom, and how to extend it beyond the limited screen time the students are allowed to have with their teachers.

“It is a lesson for the families as well as the children,” said Tonkins.

Most parents aren’t trained educators, and before the pandemic, some might have viewed pre-K exclusively as child care. Many parents now are seeing what it takes to get their children ready for kindergarten, she said.

“Before parents might think, ‘Ok great, my child painted me a picture’ but they might not understand what is behind all of it,” said Tonkins.

Manning said he has learned so much from watching and observing the teachers during virtual classes. Now he finds himself talking about concepts like “structured play” and trying to bring the classroom into the home. He said he hopes some aspects of the hybrid model will continue beyond the pandemic.

“Now I am not just handing him playdough to pound it out, but we will trace an ‘A’ in it or something,” he said.

Tonkins sees more progress than ever in her students, especially notable during a pandemic in which many students and families have struggled with remote learning. She attributes that progress to the children practicing at home with their parents.

“We are kind of co-teaching almost. It is really a team effort and we have to all be on the same team as we continue his learning process at the home,” said Millhouse, Jaden’s dad.

Pennsylvania preschool program lifts math, language skills, study shows

2020-12-18T01:19:39+00:00

Children who participate in Pennsylvania’s biggest early childhood program, Pre-K Counts, show advantages in math problem-solving and language skills, putting them four to five months ahead of kindergarten peers without the experience, according to a new study.

Pre-K Counts provides free half-day and full-day programs for 3- and 4-year-olds at risk of school failure from low-income families, those making up to 300% of the federal poverty level.

Pre-K Counts targets in particular English language learners and children with special needs. The program, which started in 2008, enrolls about 25,000 children who attend early childhood programs that the state has certified as high quality and meeting certain standards.

“These results suggest that early prekindergarten experiences in PA PKC may provide an important buffer, particularly for children from low-income families or who are otherwise at greater risk for school failure,” said the report, whose primary author is Ellen Peisner-Feinberg. She is a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has studied several state preschool programs, including those in Georgia and North Carolina.

The study found that the benefits were not greater for students who attended for two years instead of just one.

The study also highlighted areas for improvement. For instance, children who participated in Pre-K Counts did not show greater gains in social development, cognitive processes, and some areas of literacy; these are all areas where additional teacher training might offer students more varied experiences in their second year.

Because language and math skills most strongly predict academic achievement, the report noted, strength in those areas point to the benefits of Pre-K Counts. Children leaving preschool with a four-to-five-month advantage is “a substantial difference in terms of skills development, particularly for young children,” it said.

While Pre-K Counts is among the better state early childhood programs in the country, “it still has a lot of work to do,” said Steve Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research.

“One of the things research has shown over the years is that accomplishing goals set for early childhood programs is really difficult,” he said. He noted that the state funding for Pre-K Counts has varied over the years, which has “made it difficult to consistently build the level of quality that they want.”

Plus, the pandemic has slowed progress in expanding high-quality early childhood education, he said. Many child care and early childhood programs in the state have shut down, permanently or temporarily, as attendance has plummeted. Others have laid off teachers in whom they have invested training.

“The pandemic has hit them from all sides,” Barnett said. “This is a very tough year to address the quality issue, but it’s clear it needs to be addressed.”

Pre-K Counts is one of several state early childhood programs, including Ready to Learn, all funded through a combination of public and private dollars. Philadelphia has its own program, called PHL Pre-K, which makes quality care available to additional city families.

National research has shown that students who are proficient readers in third grade are significantly more likely to graduate from high school, and that students who enter kindergarten without a good foundation are less likely to reach that milestone.

President-elect Joe Biden has a plan to address the needs of children from birth to age 5, including universal access to pre-K, but it is unclear how much of it will be enacted and funded.

“As states struggle with the pandemic and its budget impacts, the nation must find ways to support essential investments in effective programs,” Barnett said.

The study was conducted before the pandemic, with students who were in kindergarten in 2018-19 and in Pre-K Counts in 2017-18. It included nearly 600 students from 28 school districts, including 51 schools and 178 classrooms.

The study was funded by the William Penn Foundation, which has also given a grant to Chalkbeat for coverage of early childhood education.

Drexel teams up with family ambassadors, child care providers to promote learning

2020-04-01T12:50:57+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Notebook prepared this report on early childhood education in Philadelphia for our spring print edition before the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic hit. We are posting the stories from the print edition online this week along with updates from the providers and advocates we featured. We asked them to explain what they – as well as the city, state, and federal governments – are doing to keep the industry alive so that when normal business resumes, the sector will be prepared. You can read about that here.

Since the pandemic closed schools and most child care centers, the program Action for Early Learning has continued to work with families in its West Philadelphia neighborhood. As luck would have it, on Martin Luther King Day, AFEL volunteers assembled bags of supplies that included items that are now in short supply, including disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, tissues, band aids, and paper towels. They added items for children including crayons, construction paper, glue sticks and childrens’ scissors – helpful to have on hand while children are staying home. “We have been able to respond to the needs of our families during this crisis by distributing these resource bags through our civic groups within the Promise Neighborhood.” A total of 100 bags were distributed, along with donated books. Much of this was made possible through the Vanguard Foundation and PNC Bank corporate volunteers.

The program continues to share information on free meals and activities with families, and keep providers current on state and city payments. Via Zoom, it is continuing to train its Ambassadors/Navigators and helping families with online kindergarten registration and online activities.

Most of providers in the neighborhood have closed their doors, but two sites received waivers to remain open: YSI Baring House, because it is a 24-hour crisis nursery, and Xavier’s, because they have multiple parents who work in health care.

Donna Drain works full-time as a cook at Philadelphia’s Lamberton Elementary School in the city’s Overbrook section. But her part-time job is back where she lives, in West Philadelphia’s Mantua neighborhood, where she talks to parents, grandparents and other family caregivers about the importance of high-quality childcare and early childhood education.

“By the time they are three years old, 90 percent of the brain is already active,” Drain explained as she mingled one recent evening with some 150 West Philadelphia residents who filled a dining hall at Drexel University’s Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships at 35th and Spring Garden streets.

Drain, a grandmother and African American, has lived on 37th Street in Mantua for 50 years. She is one of 40 community residents who work part-time as “family ambassadors” in an innovative Drexel project that aims to ensure all children in the surrounding neighborhoods – a federal “promise zone” – are ready for kindergarten and reading at grade level by the third grade.

The ambassadors, who typically work weekends and nights, are paid $12 an hour to spread the word about just how important early education is for a child’s success in school and later life. They take community surveys, meet with family caregivers, distribute free books and even go into homes to help parents and grandparents acquire the skills they need to promote learning at an early age.

Family ambassador Donna Drain. Photo by Huntly Collins.

The idea is that trained parents and grandparents, reaching out to other family caregivers who live in the same neighborhood, will be more effective advocates for early childhood education than professionals from outside the community.

“I show the parents how they might interact with their children,” Drain explained. “If they are making spaghetti, for instance, they might say to the child, ‘I can’t find the spaghetti. Can you help me find the spaghetti?”

Even that kind of basic association between a word and the object it represents helps put very young children on the path to reading, she said.

Called Action for Early Learning (AFEL), the Drexel project, which is supported by federal and foundation funding, has drawn the attention of both national and local child welfare advocates. The program is part of the city’s Read by 4th initiative.

“AFEL has demonstrated that parents and early childhood staff have a thirst for learning how to best support the healthy development of their children,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a Philadelphia-based advocacy organization. “What’s especially inspiring is that they’ve taken the time to train parents to learn the theory of healthy child development so they can help others in their neighborhood learn from trusted messengers.”

Cooper said the benefits will likely “last a lifetime” because knowledge about how to get young children ready for success in school will be passed on from one generation to the next.

Action for Early Learning is just one part of a broader Drexel initiative aimed at alleviating poverty in the neighborhoods around the university. The early learning project has two main components – an alliance of 26 childcare providers in West Philadelphia whose workers receive training and other assistance to boost the quality of the programs, and the cadre of family ambassadors who are trained to advocate for early childhood education among neighborhood residents.

“If we improve the quality of childcare programs and nobody comes, it’s not going to benefit the children,” said Maria Walker, AFEL’s director.

Tiffany Cleveland, a single mother of four children, has served as a family ambassador for more than two years. She said the training in early child development provided to AFEL ambassadors has not only helped her become a strong advocate for early learning but also improved her ability to parent her own children. At last month’s dinner, she cradled her month-old daughter while keeping her eye out for new families in the dining hall who might need to know about quality childcare. “Most of the families really appreciate the information,” Cleveland said.

Like a number of other ambassadors, Cleveland has parlayed her ambassador training into a full-time job in the child-care field.

Reaching for the STARS

About 1,100 children, almost all of them from low-income African American families, are enrolled at the 26 childcare sites. Some providers are home-based, others operate out of centers. A majority benefit from government subsidies for free or reduced-cost care provided by federal, state and local dollars, including the revenue raised by Philadelphia’s soda tax for PHLpreK.

More than half of the 26 providers are considered “high quality” under the Keystone STAR rating system used by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to evaluate childcare programs. AFEL regards the others as “rising STARS” and works intensely with them to boost their ratings.

The ratings, which take into account such factors as the ratio of teachers to children, range from 1, the lowest rating, to 4, the highest.

The family ambassador component of Drexel’s approach to early learning isn’t the only thing that distinguishes it from other programs in Philadelphia. Unlike most other early learning initiatives, AFEL is university-based, making use of Drexel’s enormous educational resources including its schools of education, law and medicine. Another difference is that AFEL focuses on the education of children from birth to age eight; by contrast, other programs tend to focus on only one age cohort – infants, toddlers, or pre-kindergarten children. And, unlike traditional programs, AFEL aims to reach children in a specific geographic area.

The target area, designated by the federal government, is bounded by the Schuylkill River, 38th Street, Girard Avenue and Sansom Street. It includes all or portions of eight neighborhoods – Mantua, Powelton Village, West Powelton, Belmont/West Belmont, Mill Creek, Saunders Park and East Parkside. These neighborhoods have some of the city’s highest poverty rates and some of the lowest literacy rates. In Mantua, the poorest of the neighborhoods, about half the residents live below the poverty line, almost twice the rate for the city as a whole.

Under the leadership of John Fry, named Drexel’s president in 2010, the university set out to forge public-private partnerships that would stimulate both economic development and poverty reduction in the immediate neighborhoods around the university while also pushing back against gentrification that would drive out low-income residents, some of whom have called West Philadelphia home for half a century or more.

In 2014, President Barack Obama named the neighborhoods adjacent to Drexel as one of 22 national “promise zones.” While the designation didn’t bring with it any federal funds, it gave “preference points” to public-private partners within the zone when they applied for federal grants to alleviate poverty.

By then, Drexel was already working with Morton McMichael Elementary School in Mantua to save it from threatened closure due to low enrollment and generally poor performance on state tests. With Drexel’s help, the test scores improved and the school, a fixture at the corner of 35th Street and Fairmont Avenue since 1892, was saved.

“The school then came back to us and said, ‘Our children are not starting school kindergarten- ready. What can you do to help us?’” recalled Walker.

The William Penn Foundation, along with the Lenfest Foundation, stepped forward with a planning grant to help launch Action for Early Learning. The vision was to mobilize existing resources in the neighborhood, including grassroots groups, to improve early childhood education in the catchments for McMichael and five other public schools in the area.

In 2016, the effort paid off: the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $30 million grant over five years to Drexel, the lead partner in a community revitalization effort. The funding, made possible by its “promise zone” status, was not just to go toward education, but also housing, legal assistance, medical care and other needs.

The model, based on New York City’s Harlem Children’s Zone, was audacious. What could a university best known for its engineering and technology programs do to improve the education of the youngest children in a predominantly African-American area where 65% of some 40 childcare centers were ranked as low quality under the Keystone STAR system?

A lot, it turns out.

In 2014, when AFEL began its efforts, fewer than 50% of the area’s 2,000 children under the age of five were in high-quality childcare, as measured by the Keystone STARS system. Today, the figure is 77 percent. Over the past six years, AFEL’s family ambassador program has organized a book-drop up and down Lancaster Avenue that has recycled more than 25,000 children’s books to give to area residents. Across 10 AFEL-affiliated childcare programs, average pre-literacy levels rose from the 31st percentile in 2014 to the 44th percentile in 2017.

Pre-literacy is measured by a standardized test in which children are asked to associate words with the appropriate picture.

Although AFEL started with an emphasis on literacy, it has now expanded to include the social and emotional development of the child. AFEL also has become a driver of jobs, job training and black entrepreneurship in West Philadelphia.

Twenty-three of the family ambassadors have gone on to full-time employment in the childcare field, and many of the childcare providers in the alliance have increased their STAR rating, becoming successful small-business owners.

A high-achieving home-based program

Xavier’s Family Childcare occupies the first floor of a three-story, red-brick row home in Mantua. It opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. five days a week. At 9:30 one morning in early February, nine children between the ages of 1 ½ and 5 had already had their breakfast and were engaged in an activity to promote social and emotional development.

They sat in a circle on the carpeted floor in a dining room repurposed as a classroom. Children’s books, alphabet posters and other educational materials filled every corner. One by one, the children stood and made their way around the circle, each introducing themselves by name to each of the others and asking how they wanted to be greeted. “Good morning, my name is Naleyah, would you like a handshake or a pat on the back?” After Naleyah, who is four years old, the others took a turn: Sarah, 5; Kamari, 3; Aava, 4; Nadir, 4; Kennedy, 4, and several others.

Two workers – Miss Terrie, who tends to the infants, and Miss Monica, who works with the older children – kept close watch. Through AFEL, these and other workers, most of whom live in the neighborhood, get help in earning accreditation as child development associates. Miss Terrie already has her accreditation, and Miss Monica is working on hers. The accreditation, offered through a course at Drexel’s Dornsife Center, gives childcare workers a national stamp of approval that they are qualified to work with young children in daycare and early childhood centers.

Dancing at Xavier’s Family Childcare. Photo by Huntly Collins.

When the Xavier’s children completed their round of introductions, Janelle Golden, who owns and directs the home-based program, turned to her Google Home Box. “Hey, Google, music, please!” Soon, the children were up on their feet and happily bobbing around the room as they danced to the Hokey Pokey and other songs. After that, it was time to settle down and read.

Golden, who is a youthful looking 50 years old, is the fifth generation of her family to live at 436 North Prescott, a quiet street with row homes on both sides. A graduate of West Chester University where she majored in elementary education, Golden said she had always been interested in the education of young children. In 2006, she converted the downstairs of the family home into a childcare facility. “I just keep giving the children what I can,” she said.

Through the Drexel partnership, Golden is able to give her students much more than the typical home-based program can provide. The children learn Spanish, not just English. They dance at the nearby Phil-A-Danco studio. On weekends, the children and their families get to attend educational programs at the Academy of Natural Sciences, which is affiliated with Drexel.

Not surprisingly, Xavier’s has a Keystone STAR rating of 4, the highest possible.

Officials who monitor Philadelphia’s new soda-tax-funded PHLpreK program have taken note of what’s happening at Xavier’s. “It’s fantastic what they are doing here,” said Lisette Rivera, a PHLpreK coach, who visited Xavier’s on the morning I observed.

As part of her job with the city, Rivera monitors 12 early childhood education sites, visiting each two times a month to make sure they are meeting quality standards. In order to get city funding, PHLpreK providers must have a Keystone STAR rating of 3 or 4. Rivera noted the many puzzles and LEGOs available for children at Xavier’s. “We’re going to have a lot of engineers!” she commented.

A few blocks from Xavier’s, Taylor’s Learning Academy, another AFEL-affiliated early childhood education program, enrolls 65 children from three months to 12 years old. It’s located in a modern, low-slung building at 631 Holly Mall, right next door to a Philadelphia Housing Authority complex, Mt. Olivet, that provides subsidized housing for low-income people aged 55 and older. Some of the residents of the complex have grandchildren who are enrolled at Taylor’s.

Taylor’s has a Keystone STAR rating of 3 and hopes to move to 4 through ongoing training of some 11 staff members and stepped-up parent engagement. During a recent visit, the pre-kindergarten students, all wearing dark- and light-blue school uniforms, read in small groups, with a teacher and an aide, while babies received one-on-one attention in the infant room.

Felicia Taylor, 50, and her daughter Felicity, 16 at Taylor’s Learning Academy, which is family owned. Photo by Huntly Collins.

Felicia Taylor, whose family has owned and operated Taylor’s Learning Academy for more than 15 years, is the director.A number of years ago, she wanted nothing to do with the state’s Keystone STAR rating system. She thought it involved too much paperwork and provided too little support. But AFEL convinced her to participate.

“At first I wasn’t going to join,” she said. “But once I started going to meetings, I saw how it would benefit the children.”

At 50, Taylor is now handing off day-to-day operations at the academy to her daughter, Mariah, who is 25 years old. And ready to step up when it’s time is Taylor’s 16-year-old daughter, Felicity, who is completing a high school program that will give her a certificate in early childhood development by the time she graduates. In the program, she earns high school credit by working 10 hours a week as a volunteer at her mother’s academy.

A community of partners

A team of five people, headed by Walker, administer AFEL. The project partners with other organizations that manage different elements of the program. The 26 childcare sites, for instance, are managed by First Up, formerly known as the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children. The ambassadors program is managed by the People’s Emergency Center, a West Philadelphia organization that knows the neighborhoods well because of its longtime work on homelessness and housing. The list of other partners is long.

Walker characterized the collaboration as a “systems approach” that is sustainable because it draws on resources already in place in the community. “Our vision is that everyone has something to bring to the table,” she said. “The community has something to offer. We are not just bringing something to the community.”

As it moves forward, AFEL faces some significant challenges. One is how to retain teachers. Like the best childcare programs across the city, AFEL works hard to train teachers at its 26 sites only to see them hired away after they are trained because public schools and other employers can pay them more. To address that issue, experts agree that annual salaries for childcare workers – which typically range from $16,000 for a teacher aide to $27,000 for a lead teacher – need to be dramatically increased. The only way that can happen is if federal and state governments step up with increased public funding.

As it expands its reach to kindergarten students, AFEL must also navigate a complex web of kindergarten feeder patterns. Every year, some 350 children from the West Philadelphia area enter kindergarten at about 40 different elementary schools, some of them far outside the promise zone. “That’s a challenge to make a connection,” said Jordan Wilson, AFEL’s data manager, as he displayed a map that had red lines running in every direction to show all the different elementary schools that area children attend.

Another major challenge is how to keep AFEL’s low-income families from being driven out of the neighborhood by gentrification. As part of the 2017 tax-reform legislation, Congress created “opportunity zones” in poor areas, including West Philadelphia. If real estate developers invest in these zones, they can delay capital gains taxes and avoid federal taxes altogether on the profits they earn from their new development.

Drexel officials say they are not seeking any opportunity-zone funds for development around the campus, a decision that pleases neighborhood activists who have been fighting gentrification.

For many years, Drexel has advocated for “equitable development” – development that provides new jobs for neighborhood residents while also offering support for longtime homeowners and renters.

Among other collaborative initiatives, Drexel helps local residents stay in their homes by providing assistance with critical repairs and by helping owners untangle difficult title and foreclosure issues. It also assists those who are displaced with finding affordable rental housing in the area. On the job front, the university is part of an initiative that prepares workers for the many new jobs emerging in University City. And at its Dornsife Center, the university offers adult education, high-school completion courses, career counseling, job fairs and job training to members of the community.

AFEL ambassadors like Drain, who has worked in the program for four years, are well aware of the role that early education plays in equipping West Philadelphia youth for success in school so they will qualify for the 21st century jobs emerging around the Drexel campus and elsewhere in Philadelphia. Children who don’t get an early start often fall behind in school and never catch up, Drain said.

She recalled the story of Rakeem, a third-grader who was too ashamed to admit he couldn’t read. “I just set him down and told him, ‘Don’t you be embarrassed. If you don’t tell nobody you can’t read, you won’t get no help.’” Slowly, Drain got Rakeem to open up to her. She began showing him words she had written on notecards. First two-letter words, then three-letter words.

Soon, Rakeem was on his way, a little late, but taking his first steps toward reading.

The Notebook’s coverage of early childhood education is funded by the William Penn Foundation.

City and District seek to expand pre-K and align services

2020-03-31T13:53:38+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

As we have already reported, the crisis presents an existential threat to child care and early childhood education in Philadelphia and beyond. Whether for-profit or non-profit, most child care centers operate like small businesses. They rely on government subsidies for low-income users as well tuition from private-pay clients. They need both to survive. As this article explains, the sector has always operated with low margins, and even before the pandemic was facing daunting challenges arising from its fragmented public-private nature. If nothing else, the pandemic is making everyone more aware how a robust child care sector is necessary to the continuation of commerce and the functioning of society.

The Black History Month celebration is underway at Wonderspring Early Education, and Helena Walton is beaming. She doesn’t just see children getting ready for school. She sees them getting ready for life.

“For me, and a lot of other parents that are here, this is the place,” she says. “It’s like a family learning together. They’re really teaching things.”

Walton is part of a packed house of parents and grandparents who have come to this child care center in Powelton Village to see their children celebrate African American achievement. Boys and girls of every color have dressed up as famous role models – Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, Barack and Michele Obama – to imagine themselves as doctors, artists, athletes and civic leaders. As proud families watch, the children sing, dance, giggle and applaud each other, happily acting out a future in which they star as striving heroes.

Walton glows as she watches, the timeless smile of a grown person watching children thrive. She has spent 30 years in this neighborhood, and she knows Wonderspring – until recently Montgomery Early Learning Center – well.

“It’s been a big change over the years,” Walton says when the show is over. “In the beginning you’d have children come here to just get watched over. There was not the learning experience, the social skills. Not the drive to have them do good, or be about something, or know their worth.”

As Wonderspring’s offerings have evolved, she says, the children have flourished: “Being able to speak out, being independent, being proud of what they’re becoming, being motivated.”

Quality: reading, writing, curiosity, confidence

Ask Philadelphia’s educators and public officials what distinguishes “quality” pre-K from day care, and they’ll talk about structure and rigor. Effective early education, they say, carefully and steadily builds specific learning skills. It relies on a well-planned curriculum, qualified professionals, and age-appropriate classroom settings. The “Keystone Stars” system Pennsylvania uses to rate quality measures everything from staff training and curriculum to hygiene and signage, and few would challenge the value of those metrics.

But ask parents and grandparents what makes a “quality” preschool, and talk will quickly turn from the academic to the social and emotional.

Wonderspring students at their Black History Month performance. Photo by Bill Hangley.

Lynn Dyches, another Wonderspring client, is one such grandparent. Like Walton, she was delighted by the confident and creative Black History Month performances. Her grandson and his classmates are “learning to encourage themselves,” she said, “to be wonderful people as they grow.”

That’s invaluable in a city like Philadelphia, Dyches said, where dangerous streets and overworked families can leave many young children cripplingly isolated.

“It shuts a lot of people down when they have to engage with others. And in this setting, they’re learning so early to engage,” Dyches said. “It gives them their voice. They won’t be so shy and closed in. It’ll help them deal with pressure, because they’re not so bottled up in their own heads.”

Wonderspring Director Elissha Mattheis said classroom teachers value pre-K’s social and emotional aspects as much as parents do.

“All the kindergarten teachers ask us is, ‘Can they sit in a chair? Can they regulate their emotions?’” Mattheis said. “They don’t care about the ABCs. They want that child to be able to regulate themselves, as a person.”

Educators and officials agree: the need for pre-K is most acute in Philadelphia’s lowest-income neighborhoods. But they also agree that children of every walk of life need support during the 0-6 years. High-quality preschool should be universal, they say, even if Philadelphia’s growing pre-K system still isn’t.

“There’s this concept of universal pre-K, but … we’re not really at a universal pre-K model,” said Diane Castelbuono, the Philadelphia School District’s deputy chief of early education.

In Philadelphia, pre-K services are funded and provided through a variety of state, local and federal sources, each with its own eligibility requirements and subsidies. City-funded pre-K is free for anyone. State-funded pre-K has income requirements. No single point of contact can tell parents everything that’s available. A parent walking into a place like Wonderspring might find a free slot, a low-cost slot, a full-price slot, or no slots at all.

“We have different providers, who aren’t on the same platform, who can’t share information with each other, and who are somewhat in competition with each other,” Castelbuono said.

City and District officials are working “really closely” to make it easier for families to easily access all their options, she said, but the job has just begun.

“We’re making some good headway,” Castelbuono said. “But it’s not easy to do.”

Parent needs: convenience, affordability, & reliability first

The value of pre-K is by no means universally understood. Researchers are continually discovering new facets of early development, revealing more and more about the importance of the earliest learning years.

“We’re learning so much more about the brain,” said Castelbuono. Much has been studied about what’s happening for three- and four-year-olds, she said, but “we’re learning now that 0-3 is maybe even a little more important.”

But if the science is moving fast, parents of all walks of life can still fail to understand the importance of early learning – including Castelbuono herself, who said she had to be taught not to treat pre-K like a babysitting service.

“I was always pulling my kid out of pre-K, and here I am an educator!” Castelbuono laughed. “And they were like, ‘No.’ That was really good for me.”

Pre-K providers say that parents like Castelbuono are common. Among providers’ basic challenges is to get the message across that pre-K isn’t just day care, and that parents have a responsibility to treat it like school.

“It all starts with that first phone call,” said Mattheis. “We emphasize that we need them to be involved, that you need to read to your child every day, that you need to work with your child at home … if we say that we have a concern, we need them to follow up.”

Getting parents on board with the concept can take some effort, providers say.

A basic obstacle: parents don’t always know when their child is lagging developmentally. A child that plays happily at home may act out in ways that the parent has never seen when challenged by the unfamiliar world of a pre-K classroom.

“Parents love their children more than anyone in the world, and they will overlook what we see as obvious. The famous line from a parent is, ‘He doesn’t do that at home,’” said Lisa Smith, director of the Amazing Kidz Academy in North Philadelphia. “And if the parents don’t know, they don’t know how to correct it.”

But the flip side, providers say, is that parents will quickly see the results of a quality pre-K program. After a day at Wonderspring, Walton said, her grandchildren “come home and ask questions, tell me things they learned during the day – a different culture, or some type of music, or science. They love science.”

“It’s regular schooling – it’s a school environment,” she said.

But officials know that for families, the top priority for child care is not usually its academic rigor. Whether it’s day care, pre-K, or something in between, what parents value most are safety, affordability, convenience and reliability.

Anything less is a deal breaker, officials say.

“They want quality. But they also want convenience. They need convenience,” said Castelbuono. “No one wants to be driving or riding a bus for a long time with a three year old. It’s a bigger challenge the younger the child is.”

Cynthia Figueroa, just installed as the newly-hired leader of Mayor Jim Kenney’s newly created Office of Children and Families, echoes the point.

“Unfortunately, in underserved communities, the academic offerings or the [Keystone] quality rating isn’t the first thing that ‘s being asked,” she said. “It’s, ‘Is my kid safe to walk there? When I walk in does it feel physically safe?’”

In addition, families need child care that fits their work schedules and other life demands. Figueroa spent many years running the North Philadelphia nonprofit Congreso, where she said she learned that accessible, affordable care is “critical” to family stability.

Without it, parents can stay stuck in a bad job or worse, she said. “Women couldn’t actually flee abusive relationships if they didn’t trust that there was [child care] access and stability for their kids,” Figueroa said.

So the stakes around child care are very high, she said, with accessibility, affordability and safety trumping developmental rigor. But Figueroa said that her time in North Philadelphia also showed her how badly such communities need high quality preschool. The area is full of day-care options, she said, many of them affordable and nurturing, but lacking in academic focus. That leaves too many children, particularly Spanish speakers, starting school ill-prepared.

Amazing Kidz Academy Director Lisa Smith shows signs of a quality classroom: clean floors, visible lesson plans, and welcoming, organized spaces for play and learning. Photo by Bill Hangley.

Amazing Kidz’ Lisa Smith sees those kinds of children come through her doors all the time.

“They don’t know how to line up. They don’t have patience. They don’t know how to wait their turn. They lack the social skills,” she said. “Maybe they don’t know how to write their first name or hold a pencil.”

But Smith has also seen how the pre-K curriculum helps most children close such deficits in a matter of months. In just a semester, she said, children who initially act out when frustrated can learn to work patiently on projects, play in groups, be creative or follow instructions as needed.

“They start to act like the other children – they learn,” said Smith. Out of a hundred or so children who attend Amazing Kidz in a given year, she said, only four or five have to be referred elsewhere because of behavioral problems.

The others usually thrive, she said – and families notice. Once parents see children making progress, Smith said, their expectations rise quickly. Getting parents to visit and volunteer is one of her main strategies for building demand, she said.

“When they come in and see how attentive the children are, they like that,” she said. “They get to go back to the dinner table and say, ‘at Amazing Kidz they do this and that’ … They observe everything. They talk to each other. Word of mouth is the best advertising in this community.”

City, District: expanding offerings, aligning services

To get more quality service to more young children, the challenge for City and District officials is twofold: first, to increase the availability of high-quality options, and second, to boost awareness and demand for the service.

It’s a steep task that involves aligning several major programs that operate with different funding sources, eligibility restrictions, and reporting requirements. “In government, we’re very good at confusing people sometimes,” said Figueroa. “What we’re trying to do is create some efficiency … We are at multiple tables, planning around various different [funding] streams.”

The City and District each run separate pre-K networks, and officials say that each is following separate strategies to build out their pre-K capacity.

The city’s PHLpreK program is expanding its soda tax-funded offerings. The city programs aim to serve about 3,300 children a year, currently using 138 providers. Among the Kenney administration’s pre-K priorities is to help improve low-rated centers in poor communities. Officials say they’ve helped 39 providers in “priority” communities improve from one or two Keystone Stars to the three- or four-star level.

Eligibility for the city’s programs is simple: any Philadelphia resident qualifies for free pre-K, regardless of income. A good sign for the city is that the 2019-20 cohort filled 96% of its funded slots, and served a demographically representative group: 61% African American, 12% white, 5% Asian, and 20% multi-racial or “other.”

“We feel very good about the race and ethnicity breakdown. It mirrors the census tracts,” said Figueroa.

Meanwhile, the District’s pre-K is funded by a mix of state and federal dollars, including Head Start funding. The District serves more children than the city, but has more eligibility restrictions, and less capacity to boost provider quality. About 11,000 three- and four-year-olds get served in about 160 District-run sites, said Castlebuono, and 67 of those sites are in one of the city’s 150 elementary schools. The others are in “partner sites” that include nonprofits and private providers.

In-school programs are currently staffed by District teachers, but Castelbuono said private providers could soon be working in District buildings.

“What I’m pushing for is [to] boost the number of pre-K kids in the school buildings without it actually being school operated,” she said. “You could take a provider and say, here’s your four classrooms, with your staff.”

City and District efforts are hard to coordinate, officials say, because reporting and eligibility requirements are so different. But Figueroa and Castelbuono say the two sides are working together to help “align” their efforts.

Figueroa, who was just hired this winter, said this collaboration between the city and District is just getting started. Her office will be the point of contact between the Kenney administration and Superintendent William Hite’s team, she said, and she’s begun to schedule key meetings. But city officials don’t want to ask too much too quickly, she said.

“We’re very sensitive about how best to support them, because there’s so many different moving parts for them,” Figueroa said.

One form of collaboration is already underway: the city’s health records turn out to be the best way for District officials to find children under six. For the past two years, District officials have used the city’s immunization database to send 30,000 letters annually to households with three-year-olds, informing them about pre-K and kindergarten registration.

That collaboration solved a very basic problem for the District, Castelbuono said. “We don’t know who’s out there! How would we know?” she said. “Everybody thinks it’s an easy problem to solve, but it’s not.”

And just as it’s hard for the District to know where the young children are, it’s hard for parents to find out exactly what the city and District can offer.

Currently, parents can visit the city PHLpreK website to find out what’s available for free. They can go to the District to find out what’s available with a subsidy through the state-run “PreK Counts” program. But no single place tells them everything. Castelbuono said that a priority is to develop a one-stop “portal” that connects parents to everything available, no matter who funds it.

“In this day and age we should be able to get there – we have the technology,” she said. “It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be quick.”

In the meantime, providers end up being the first point of contact for parents. It’s there that families often find out what’s available and how much – if anything – it will cost.

“That’s our job,” said Sheila Bonner, a supervisor at Wonderspring.

Among the challenging dynamics Bonner deals with: families on public assistance often have caseworkers or other connections that help them navigate the system. Working families who aren’t tied into public systems often have little idea of what’s available – and little time to figure it out.

“Hard-working people – they come in, and they don’t know,” said Bonner.

At Wonderspring, learning to learn

Bonner is an education veteran who has seen the change in early learning practices firsthand.

A former District employee, Bonner has spent 13 years at Wonderspring, watching the whole operation shift from a day care to pre-K mentality. It’s the right move, she said; she only wishes things moved faster.

“PhLpreK is wonderful for working parents,” said Bonner. “It’s just sad we only have 10 slots.”

The trend towards preschool goes back years, Bonner said – well before Mayor Kenney made it a priority. Interest among parents began rising as far back as the 1990s, she said, when work requirements first started kicking in for public assistance recipients. That got a lot of mothers out looking for quality child care, and started Wonderspring on its pre-K path, Bonner said.

But many parents still don’t know what real quality is, she said.

“A lot of day care has changed so much – we’re a learning center,” said Bonner. “We have to make parents know that we’re more than babysitters. We have to go to school and get degrees to do what we do. Some parents think they can just drop the children off, and they come in the next day and say, ‘She used this big word that I’ve never spoken before!’ And then they realize that we’re more than they think we are.”

Wonderspring staffer Sheila Bonner (left) with parent Rachel Hayes. Photo by Bill Hangley.

As she speaks, Bonner is sitting in the sunny office at Wonderspring, munching a muffin as the last of the Black History Month guests trickle out. With her is Rachel Hayes, a mother whose twin boys are in pre-K here.

Finding Wonderspring was a big relief, said Hayes. “Some day cares I’ve been to – pheee-ew! It wasn’t good.” The signs of low quality are easy to spot, she said: runny noses, dirty diapers, grumpy staff. “They were lazy. The quality wasn’t there,” she said.

Even costly care can be shoddy, Hayes said. “Some of these horrible day cares are still $200 a week,” she said. “And they’re licensed!”

But since she found Wonderspring, Hayes said, her boys have been thriving. They have fun at pre-K. They learn, they make friends, they come home happy. One son “used to cry all the time when we dropped him off. I came to visit him the other day, and he just ignored me and kept playing,” she said.

And slowly but surely, she said, the boys are becoming students.

“They’re counting to 20 already. All their colors, animals, basic shapes,” Hayes said proudly. “My grandmother will compare them to the little girl next door and say, ‘She doesn’t do all that!’”

The Notebook’s coverage of early childhood education is funded by the William Penn Foundation.

Complex early childhood education system is costly, challenging for families and providers

2020-03-30T00:33:29+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

If nothing else, the pandemic is making everyone more aware how a robust child care sector is necessary to the continuation of commerce and the functioning of society. The effort to keep it from collapse is a harrowing story.

Many thanks to the William Penn Foundation for supporting our coverage of this vital topic.

Early childhood education in Philadelphia — and throughout the state and country — is a hodgepodge of public and private options that is very difficult for families to navigate.

It is marked by a confusing patchwork of funding and a regulatory system that emphasizes compliance rather than quality — not to mention that expenses for families are dizzyingly high even though most workers in the field, virtually all women, barely make enough to live on.

While the issue of affordable child care is getting some mention in the presidential race, starting with Elizabeth Warren, it hasn’t received front-line attention despite its impact on nearly every American family.

In terms of understanding the importance of early learning and the ultimate benefits of high-quality child care on the economy, the U.S. is not only at the bottom of developed countries, “but worse than some developing countries,” said Ann O’Brien, director of Wonderspring, a major early childhood provider in Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Wonderspring, formerly Montgomery Early Learning Center (MELC), has 10 sites that serve 700 to 800 children every day, including centers in West and Southwest Philadelphia.

Some of the sites serve infants through school age from “a wide range of socioeconomic families,” said O’Brien. By contrast, many centers are largely segregated by race and income, because they are drawing from the neighborhoods in which they are located. Like all providers, Wonderspring must negotiate a array of funding streams and subsidy programs in order to make ends meet.

There are federal grants through Head Start and Early Head Start, the state PreK Counts program, PHLPreK in the city, as well as state child care subsidies. Eligibility criteria for families also vary depending on the program; Head Start families must be at or below 100% of the federal poverty level, while PreK Counts goes up to three times that amount. PHLPreK has no income limit, but it contracts with providers mostly in underserved and low-income neighborhoods.

“The streams of revenue are so fractured, they are very difficult to manage,” O’Brien said. And the total amount of government support is not enough. Plus, it is funneled through an intermediary, most commonly the local school district.

Having private paying families as well as low-income ones is what keeps Wonderspring fiscally solvent, O’Brien said, but other centers aren’t in that position.

Programs also have different requirements for caregivers. In PreK Counts, teachers must be certified, but not in PHLPreK, where only an associate’s degree is necessary. Centers taking PreK Counts money must have 3 or 4 stars under the state’s Keystone STARS rating system, while for PHLPreK 2 stars is acceptable as long as the center is working toward attaining star 3 within a certain period of time.

The paradox of child care is that while it is expensive, and can be prohibitive for families who don’t qualify for any subsidy, caregivers barely make a living wage.

O’Brien said Wonderspring has a teacher with a master’s degree and 47 years of experience who makes $39,000 annually.

Hard to make ends meet

“All of us balance our budgets on the backs of teachers,” O’Brien said. “Revenue is insufficient from every source. We can’t charge what it really costs.”

Government subsidies for low-income families are not sufficient, but even charging private pay families $17,000 a year doesn’t fully cover costs, she said.

Ideally, there would be an integrated pre-K through 12th grade education system that aligned curriculum, she said. Right now, this isn’t happening in Pennsylvania. Even better would be a system that considered the crucial infant care component, since so much of brain development occurs in those years — not to mention the importance of quality care to families with infants and toddlers.

“The younger the child, the more important it is to offer expertise and services with robust oversight,” said Christie Balka, who helped with the launch and development of PHLPreK. Such an ideal system would be “holistic” and attend to the health, social-emotional development, and cognitive needs of children. “It’s a public responsibility,” she said.

At the same time, putting such care under the aegis of the local school district is not necessarily the best approach. This happened in New York City, resulting in the monitoring of centers by people who knew little or nothing about infant and toddler care.

The Philadelphia School District’s Office of Early Childhood Education is led by Deputy Chief Diane Castelbuono, a veteran of the field. She pointed out that Pennsylvania has long had an infrastructure based on private providers. Other states like Oklahoma that moved in the direction of universal pre-K, integrated it into the school system, but this is not an option for Pennsylvania, she said.

“We would have put local providers out of business. That was one of the challenges,” she said, at the same time acknowledging that what exists now is complex, confusing, and overly bureaucratic.

When Mayor Kenney made PHLPreK a centerpiece of his administration, he couldn’t put it in schools only or put it solely under School District jurisdiction. “We had a robust and quality private system with a good quality rating system,” she said. “It’s a real economic and business development area for local folks. We don’t want to put them out of business. It has to be a diverse-provider system.”

At the same time, there are ways to improve what exists now to use the varying funding streams more efficiently and more easily increase the quality of all centers. A good first step would be to increase government subsidies to stabilize the workforce by increasing salaries, she said. As it stands now, teachers certified in early childhood education leave the private centers for jobs in the District, where they can teach through fourth grade and make more money with good benefits. The District directly runs some of the Head Start centers, and contracts out others.

All this is a function of how far behind the U.S. is in treating early childhood and infant care as a public responsibility.

“Other countries believe in paying taxes and allocating money for the right things,” Balka said. “They believe families should be supported to raise children well, and that there is a social and economic benefit to investing in children and families at the beginning of the life cycle. These investments are minimal compared to what is spent later on behavioral health, preventable chronic illness, special education, and all the consequences that follow.”

And the scarcity and turnover of teachers is only likely to get worse in this economy. “Nobody is going to take on debt to become an early childhood teacher,” said O’Brien. She noted that child care workers at or near minimum wage can — and do — quit jobs in early childhood centers for jobs at Target that pay more and come with less stress and fewer responsibilities.

Plus, education schools haven’t caught up to the need for training people in best practices for infants and toddlers, reluctant to invest in preparing people for such a low-paying career.

An issue in the presidential race

The issue is getting more national attention in this election year.

More than a year ago, Elizabeth Warren became the first candidate to address the issue, proposing a plan that would, essentially, expand and build on the current system. To address affordability, quality and low wages for workers, she would create a new federal subsidy — underwritten by a wealth tax — that would be available to state and local governments as well as nonprofits, schools and other partners to create a “network” of options available to all families.

With the federal subsidy, families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty cap would pay nothing for care, and those above would pay no more than 7% of their income.

Last summer, Warren also introduced legislation in the Senate that would implement this plan, allocating $70 billion in federal money for child care and capping expenses for any one family at 7% of the average annual income rate.

Just after the Nevada caucuses in anticipation of the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders released a plan that would not be means-tested, providing a “guarantee” of free child care and pre-K to every family “regardless of income.”

He said that the plan would be paid for by reversing the Trump tax cut that mostly benefited corporations and wealthy individuals.

His plan would also guarantee full-day kindergarten to all students, something that is not now universally available, including in Pennsylvania where many districts offer only half-day options. (Gov. Wolf has proposed making full-day kindergarten mandatory.)

Sanders, demanding that the wealthy and corporations “pay their fair share of taxes,” said a tax on the “extreme wealth” of the top 0.1 percent would raise $1.5 trillion over the next decade to invest in free, universal, quality child care and early education for all. Like Warren, he emphasized that this investment has a later economic return. In addition to helping parents, especially mothers, maintain stable employment, it has a role in launching students on a path to academic success that leads to them needing fewer social services growing up and paying more taxes as adults.

Former vice president Joe Biden has proposed universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, as part of his education plan. He has not released a comprehensive child care policy, but has spoken in favor of child care tax credits and 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Under the Trump administration, federal child care subsidies increased by $2.4 billion in the 2019 budget. Due to the increase, Pennsylvania got $70 million more in federal child care funds — but the Republican-dominated legislature responded by cutting state subsidies by $36 million, according to Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth.

“Instead of seeing this as a political opportunity, they cut the state spending to meet an arbitrary budget mark instead of matching it,” Cooper said. “We think the state should match [federal] increases dollar for dollar.”

For the 2020 budget, the federal increase for child care was $550 million, with Pennsylvania’s share of that amount being $15 million.

Trump’s budget for 2021, unveiled in February, is proposing a $1 billion one-time investment in childcare infrastructure to increase the number of child care centers, including those run by corporations and faith-based organizations. States would apply for a share of the funds, but would have to agree to a regulatory rollback that many proponents of the issue said could compromise safety.

That budget does not address the level of subsidies for providers or families. And some advocacy organizations have labeled Trump’s proposal as a “hoax” because it doesn’t address the issue of subsidies for families or payments to providers.

Cooper said that Trump’s interest in child care is driven in part by daughter Ivanka and by the knowledge that it is an issue for the suburban female voters that he is seeking, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania.

“Trump and Ivanka came to Delaware County and did an entire press conference about child care,” Cooper said. “They know what they’re doing,” adding that in her opinion, “they don’t care about any of this, it’s all orchestrated for reelection.”

She also noted, though, that political alliances on the issue are shifting. Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce are also starting to speak out in favor of improving child care services as a way to alleviate a shortage of workers.

Women bear the burden of the country’s inability to grapple successfully with this issue, since mothers are the most likely to limit their employment options and earning potential to take care of young children. In addition, the low-paid child care workers are almost exclusively women.

Another public policy that could favorably impact the quality of early childcare is more widespread family leave. But in the U.S. that is also limited and sporadic, depends on the employer, and is not encouraged or supported by the federal government.

Politically, “We pay lip service to children and families,” said O’Brien of Wonderspring, “but one could say that we care less about the fetus once born.”

Video: PHLpreK improves job, financial prospects for parents

2019-03-11T20:33:04+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For Jasmine Washington, mother of Jayden, 5, and Zoey Lee, 3, searching for a job was frustrating.

After Zoey was born, Washington was looking for work in salons, armed with a degree in cosmetology, but her primary issue was logistics. She couldn’t take just any job, even if it would be good professionally, because she always had to figure in the cost of childcare, which can be as high as $10,000 a year.

And even as she set up interviews, attended job fairs, and tried to return to the workforce, she was forced to pay the cost of childcare–before she had a job to support such an expense.

But one day, she heard something on the radio that changed everything for her. The segment was about PHLpreK, Mayor Kenney’s publicly-funded initiative to provide early education for 3- and 4-year-olds. All in the city were eligible, but the emphasis was on low-income neighborhoods and families.

Heartened, Washington got on her phone and checked it out.

One of Mayor Jim Kenney’s most central policy initiatives, PHLpreK recently turned two.

Its own formative early years have been marked by fits and starts, and controversy as the soda industry mounted a long legal challenge to the sweetened beverage tax that pays for it. But in July 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the law, and now PHLpreK is ramping up its expansion, although the battle isn’t over. The beverage industry continues lobbying City Council to repeal the tax.

Whether or not PHLpreK is living up to promises made in Mayor Kenney’s 2015 campaign and during his first year in office will likely be a major issue in this year’s mayoral race.

After more than two years of implementation, the program has grown and without a doubt has changed lives like Jasmine Washington’s. But progress has been slow.

Because of the drawn-out litigation, only 250 spots opened up this academic year. The plan now is to add 1,050 spots next academic year, bringing the total number of children served by the program to 3,300, more than half of the 2023 target of 5,500.

For parents like Washington, the ability to have her children in full-day pre-K for free has not only saved her money, it has opened up job possibilities.

Before she became aware of PHLpreK, even when she found jobs, she often felt like she could not take them if they didn’t offer enough money. “I felt as though I couldn’t work just anywhere,” she said. “I had to make a certain amount so that I could be able to make the amount for daycare, and also make the amount to pay my bills, rent, utilities, the food, everything like that.”

After hearing the radio ad, she went on the website and discovered that Exceptional Learning Academy, one of the participating providers, was located close by.

“We used to walk past here all the time and I never noticed it,” she said, adding that the process of finding and applying was surprisingly simple. When she came to visit, she was drawn to the friendly nature of the staff and Director Pamela Alexander. “We didn’t feel like strangers as soon as we met, you know, it was more warm and welcoming. We liked that she gave us a whole tour around the school,” Washington said.

Pre-K boosts parents’ jobs, education

According to a parent and guardian survey conducted by the Mayor’s Office of Education this year, more than four in five–81 percent–said that PHLpreK improved their circumstances. Par-ticipating in the program allowed them to return to work (22 percent), return to school (3 percent), work longer hours (11 percent), or some combination of these (44 percent). Only 19 percent of parents or caregivers reported no change to their work or education as a result of their child’s enrollment in the program.

But even families whose personal circumstances aren’t so directly impacted see benefits.

Adam Weaver’s two youngest children have also attended Exceptional Learning Academy. His youngest daughter, who is 4 years old, is currently in pre-K at the center and his youngest son went there before starting kindergarten this year at nearby Lea Elementary. For Weaver, a stay-at-home dad, PHLpreK has allowed his family to pay their expenses without debt and do home repairs. He has also become more involved in the Home and School Association at Lea.

“I probably spend twenty hours a week working at the Home and School Association depending on the week,” Weaver said. Without free childcare, he could never be that involved. “It also benefits my older kids even though they are not in preschool anymore. So I think it has an effect that’s longer than just the year or two that the kid is in preschool.”

Primarily, however, Weaver was interested in the potential benefits for his children’s education when he visited Exceptional Learning Academy.

Pre-K kids are ready for kindergarten

Research shows that high quality pre-K significantly improves kindergarten readiness, and many studies suggest that those early gains persist well into a child’s elementary school years.

“By having more pre-K seats filled, we have seen higher levels of kindergarten readiness,” said Diane Castelbuono, the School District’s deputy chief for early learning.

Photo by Melanie Bavaria

In Weaver’s case, the impact of pre-K on kindergarten readiness was clear. His son, now in kindergarten, “transitioned beautifully,” he said. “We don’t even have to really wait for him when we drop him off at school anymore, he just, he loves being [at school].”

Washington also says she can absolutely see the progress her children have made since being at Exceptional Learning Academy, particularly the academic gains. After school, her children often write on a chalkboard easel at home. Their handwriting has improved, a sign of increased motor skills, and they enjoy going through the colors with their grandmother.

Weaver also sees academic gains, although he regards the social and emotional learning that happens in pre-K as greatest value of early childhood education. His older son, now in the 4th grade, went to pre-K only two days a week, because at the time it was all his family could afford. The impact of full day pre-K has better prepared his younger son for the academic part of kindergarten, he said.

Without the city program, he notes, “we would not have been able to send him full time.”

Exceptional Learning Academy Director Pamela Alexander said, “The funding actually helped me to provide service for a broader range of people… It’s free and it’s funded, and it was affordable.”

“Some people cannot afford childcare,” she said. “But having the funding, they can come, and it helps them to go ahead and go to work without worrying about the high expense of childcare.”

Closing gaps in the education system

The impacts of pre-K are felt by all types of children, but research shows that the biggest gains are for low-income children or those who are English language learners, and are considered a linchpin in the perennial effort to close the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap that persists in our education system. This gap is already apparent by the time children reach kindergarten. Still, across the country where pre-K is not mandated nor adequately funded, those who need high quality pre-K the most are least likely to have access to it.

The PHLpreK program was designed to address this specifically, especially given Philadelphia’s status as the poorest big city in America.

In May 2015, on the day of the mayoral primary, 80 percent of the voters endorsed a referendum to establish the Philadelphia Commission on Universal Pre-kindergarten. Its members debated how to make sure high-risk students would be reached. Should the program have an income cap, like the statewide Pre-K Counts program or federally funded Head Start? There were (and still are) plenty of children in Philadelphia whose families make less than the income requirements for these programs. The Commission report estimated that these existing programs were reaching just under half of the 32,481 income eligible children at the time. Should a city-funded program look to fill that gap by restricting access to those families who make 300 percent or less of the federal poverty standard?

Making Pre-K universal

Philadelphia was not the first to have this debate. The same questions plagued the universal pre-K program in New York where Mayor Bill de Blasio implemented a massive expansion of publicly funded universal pre-K in the last few years, going from about 20,000 spots to almost 70,000 in just a few years. Many continue to criticize the program for not targeting low- and middle income students and concentrating the money on those who need it most.

Yet, like his counterpart in New York, the new mayor chose to make PHLpreK open to any child who meets the age requirement, regardless of family income level. The reasons were both educational and political. Studies have shown that students from all backgrounds benefit from socioeconomic diversity in the classroom, although opening up the program to all age-appropriate children hardly guarantees that outcome.

But additionally, the continued political viability of any program is much stronger if it is universal. When political tides shift or economic times get tough, means-tested social services can often be the first on the chopping block. Policies that impact the entire constituent base are far safer when making political calculations.

Still, unlike New York City or other notable examples of expanded pre-K programs like those in Oklahoma or Georgia, Philadelphia’s is far from being universal. The Commission Report estimated that of almost 43,000 3- and 4-year-olds in Philadelphia, only about 15,000 participated in quality, publicly funded pre-K. By the Commission Report’s calculation, even if PHLpreK hits its updated goal of 5,500 spots by 2023, almost 22,000 eligible children will still be unable to participate.

Yet PHLpreK has found a creative way to maximize the impact of those 5,500 spots. By design, the program remains open to any age-eligible
child in the city, but providers who serve high-poverty neighborhoods were given priority for participation in the new program. Even going into its third year, most of the pre-K providers funded by PHLpreK are in high-poverty neighborhoods, with the goal of having the greatest impact on children from low-income families, while also remaining inclusive as the system grows.

Most recent data from the Mayor’s Office of Education shows that 41 percent of participating families make 100 percent of the federal poverty level or less. Seventy-five percent of participating families make 200 percent of the federal poverty level or less. For an average family of four (the average household size for PHLpreK families is 3.9 people), that is $25,100 and $50,200 household income respectively.

For the families participating in the program, it might be small but it is mighty. The ability to send their child to pre-K has a huge impact on how they budget, advance their careers, or handle other responsibilities, all while knowing that their children are learning and will enter kindergarten a step ahead.

Washington, who is originally from Delaware County, said that access to free pre-K is one of the reasons why she has remained in Philadelphia with her children. “A lot of my friends who have kids my children’s’ ages are struggling,” she said. “I told them they should come here and try here because it’s working.”

The Notebook is one of 19 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. Read more at https://brokeinphilly.org and follow us on twitter @BrokeInPhilly

Building a workforce for PHLpreK: not an easy proposition

2019-03-11T20:32:20+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The decision by Mayor Jim Kenney to focus on expanding public pre-K options with a locally funded program certainly had its controversies. Most obviously the decision to fund it with a sugary-drinks tax has come under relentless legal challenges from the soda industry. But everyone involved in the early childhood education community, from the Mayor’s office and the School District of Philadelphia to the smaller participating community providers, seems to agree that the program, known as PHLPreK, has already improved quality and availability around the city, particularly for low-income parents.

Yet they also seem to agree on the program’s most fundamental problem: staffing.

“Oddly enough, of all the work and all the challenges we face, the hardest thing we do is finding highly qualified, dedicated staff,” said Leslie Spina, director of Kinder Academy, a pre-K provider that includes five locations in Northeast Philadelphia serving 500 students, including a handful of PHLpreK classrooms

In West Philadelphia, Pamela Alexander said the same thing. Alexander is the owner and director of Exceptional Learning Academy, a PHLpreK center that enrolls just under 30 students at its single Philadelphia location. “I have had a tough time with staffing, I’m not going to kid you,” said Alexander, citing high turnover as her main challenge.

With PHLpreK looking to ramp up expansion after a more modest launch due to the prolonged soda-tax litigation, the problem remains that there are simply not enough credentialed teachers to fill the classrooms.

As a result, workforce development has become a primary concern. But for some, it is also viewed as an opportunity.

Harnessing the existing network

Long before PHLpreK, there existed a variety of publicly-funded childcare options in the city, most of it provided by the School District as a contractor for federal (Head Start) and state (Pre-K Counts) programs. Others were and still are privately run and funded, some in community centers and rented spaces, others in people’s homes.

Historically, providers who did not receive public funds were less stringently regulated, although they could opt in to the Keystone Stars quality metrics established by the state. If a center was strictly private and didn’t receive funding from one of the public programs, it wasn’t required to have fully credentialed teachers — those with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree or an early childhood certificate.Even so, many of these centers provided highly-valued services in their communities and those who had worked in them had been teaching for decades.

In creating the PHLpreK program, universal pre-K advocates wanted to find a way to harness this existing network, but also ensure the kind of quality necessary for the long-term impacts of pre-K to take hold.

“There was no reason to put [the private centers] out of business,” said Diane Castelbuono, the deputy chief of Early Learning for the School District. The Philadelphia Commission on Universal Pre-Kindergarten, which published a report of recommendations that guided policy as the Mayor’s Office of Education launched PHLpreK, stressed the need to incorporate the existing workforce and robust pre-K landscape into the long-term plan.

Even before PHLpreK, the city educators were convinced by the data showing that expanded high-quality publicly funded pre-K programs increase kindergarten readiness.

But this only happens when the system of centers is armed with skilled, well-trained staff, something that is not at all simple. While providers that operate only with private dollars have had fewer regulatory requirements, even publicly-funded centers have faced varied credential requirements depending on funding source. One of the goals of PHLpreK is to bring up the overall quality of Pre-K in Philadelphia, not just the quality of their funded spots.

For instance, lead teachers in a PHLpreK-funded classroom must have an associate’s degree and an Early Childhood Education certification. But a lead teachers in a Pre-K Counts-funded classroom must have a bachelor’s degree.

“As opposed to thinking about our office’s role as just PHLpreK and that’s it, what we’re also striving to do is shift the landscape, and build a pipeline of quality,” said Sarah Peterson, the spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Education. “We see ourselves as affecting the early childhood education sector on the whole.”

Yet the average salaries earned by pre-K teachers, estimated by the Philadelphia Commission on Universal pre-K Recommendations Report published just before the launch of PHLpreK, was $16,000 for an aide, $20,000 for an assistant teacher and $27,000 for a lead teacher with a teaching certification. This makes it incredibly difficult for pre-K teachers to invest in further educational development, even if it means better compensation both for the teacher and for the pre-K center, depending on which program is funding that particular classroom.

So the issue is twofold: how to transition an existing workforce that is experienced but not credentialed, and how to build a pipeline to create more pre-K teachers?

Building a new pipeline

An apprenticeship program launched through the 1199C Training and Upgrading fund aims to tackle the issue of early childhood workforce development from both sides. Started around the same time as PHLpreK, this initiative updates an older model of manufacturing apprenticeship programs.

The partnership among 1199C and the community colleges in Philadelphia and Montgomery County designates teachers already employed in pre-K classrooms as apprentices and pairs them with mentors and classes to earn their associate’s degrees. The program mandates that the apprentice attend classes at the college in current best practices while counting students’ current employment as on-the-job training. And the apprentices are given credits for prior learning such as the earning of a Child Development Associate Credential or CDA.

The ability to both train an existing workforce and recognize existing qualifications is a “game changer,” according to Cheryl Feldman, the director of the District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund. A coach or mentor meets with the apprentice weekly and connects the classroom instruction with their on-the-job experience teaching pre-k, assessing the attainment of the relevant competencies.

“This makes for a more impactful learning experience, but also an accelerated path to a degree,” explained Feldman. Apprentices must work while they gain their credentials and pay 5 percent of the tuition. They get tuition support for 90 percent of the total price from the TEACH scholarship, given out by the state, and an additional 5 percent from the apprentice’s employer. The ability to work as well as get tuition support allows teachers interested in gaining their credentials to do so. Without it, the cost would be untenable given the average salary for pre-K teachers. Mentors are also compensated by 1199C.

The first class of 36 apprentices started in 2017 and the next class of the same size will start later this year. Five students from the first class have already graduated, with three choosing to continue on to get a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate through a partnership between the Community College of Philadelphia and Arcadia University.

Additionally, 1199C is looking to work with an existing Early Childhood education CTE program at Parkway West High School that allows students to earn their CDA while still in high school, hoping to create a direct pathway from there to the apprenticeship. This lays out a clear path from high school through higher education to a sustainable job without the prohibitive costs and provides the ability to earn a living along the way. This type of model, Feldman hopes, would combat the early childhood education teacher shortage in way that is sustainable for both teachers and the city.

If expanded (and 1199C has already received funds to spread the program statewide), this model could address both issues with the development of a sustainable early childhood education workforce — building the pipeline and making it financially feasible for experienced workers to earn the right credentials.

However, there is a fundamental problem not addressed by the workforce development model created by 1199C. Even those who do invest in their own professional development — whether through the apprenticeship program or through other means — and earn a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate are not incentivized to stay in the pre-K classroom. According to the Office of Talent Support Services at the Philadelphia School District, the starting salary for the upcoming school year for a Step 1 teacher with a bachelor’s degree is over $46,000, almost $20,000 more than the average for a pre-K teacher with the same credentials. District teachers also have the advantages of joining the union and receiving more generous benefits.

Spina, the director of Kinder Academy, believes in developing the early childhood workforce, and even thinks that the credential requirements should be more stringent, but acknowledges that the math doesn’t work in her favor. She encourages her staff to continue their education while working at Kinder, as she believes that having more teachers with bachelor’s degrees is better not only for the quality of instruction in her classrooms, but also for the compensation models from state and federal programs. But still, once those credentials are achieved, many of her staff go to the School District rather than staying with Kinder.

“I am not here to beat up on the School District, and they have the same shortage that we have, and I understand that, but also we are not in a position that we can offer the same kind of package that the School District offers,” she said. “I can’t begrudge someone leaving me to earn a living wage. I cannot begrudge someone leaving me to have these benefits that we cannot provide.”

Even though employees at Kinder have a full benefits package, it cannot compete with a package offered by the School District through collective bargaining with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

In places like Oklahoma, which has a nationally recognized high-quality state-funded pre-K program, all teachers are required to have a bachelor’s degree, but because the program is run by the local school districts (not through a mixed-delivery model like Philadelphia), pre-K teachers are part of the teachers union and are paid the same amount as any K-12 teacher.

That model would not have worked in Philadelphia due to the pre-existing childcare landscape in the city, the shortage of teachers, and the lack of adequate facilities, but it means that here pre-K teacher salaries are driven by the market to be lower than those in K-12. The only floor is a minimum wage requirement for anyone who contracts with the city.

“We have high turnover in [early childhood] because the pay is too low and it has not been valued. We might value these teachers, but society hasn’t valued them, because society hasn’t funded it,” said Feldman.

Additionally, the profession has a perception problem. For most cities jumping on the bandwagon of universal pre-K due to the mounting evidence of its positive social impact, there may be a push to expand pre-K, but there is no such push to recognize pre-K teachers as more than simply babysitters.

When teachers moved to the school district from child care or preschool, “there is a perceived notion that people are getting a ‘real job,’” said Spina, the Kinder Academy director. “And so there is a cultural perspective that we need to work on to change that. This profession is a profession. The people who are here are trained to this work, just as kindergarten, fourth and 10th grade teachers are. So that will be a heavy lift that will take a very long time.”

Still, it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Spina believes that increasing standards and the required credentials will be tricky for pre-K providers in the short-term, but better for the long-term development of the profession. She wishes the PHLpreK requirements were for a bachelor’s degree rather than an associate’s degree, because the requirement would not only potentially raise the quality of classroom teaching, but also help to lift people going into this profession out of poverty by forcing the market and the city to come up with ways to fund further education in innovative ways (like, for example, the 1199C apprenticeship model). Ultimately, she hopes that by keeping the credential requirements high and consistent, the profession will eventually get the respect and market value it deserves.

“I would like to see the requirement for a high-quality program to be increased and expanded, and the requirements for staff to be raised,” Spina said. “Oddly enough, even though it is very difficult for us to get these teachers, with these certifications, I feel pretty strongly that credentialing is important. The research says that teachers with an associate’s degree can be as effective as teachers with a bachelor’s degree, and perhaps that’s true, but I just feel strongly that as we encourage education, we encourage professionalism in the field, and it raises the individual organizations and the profession as a whole.”

Feldman, on the other hand, believes that while incentivizing higher education is positive, requiring higher credentialing would be an unbearable burden. “Workforce education requires training dollars…and there are simply not enough,” said Feldman, or at least until the public decides it is something worth advocating for as voters and taxpayers. “There is this push for every classroom to have bachelor’s degrees. Where is the field going to find the money to fund that shift?” she asked.

Spina too acknowledges that her own position is akin to having her cake and eating it, too. The way that PHLpreK compensates centers for staff is $8,500 per student, while allowing for the layering of funding with the Pennsylvania Child Care Subsidy (CCIS) in order to hit the cost of quality, which is between $14,000 and $15,000 per child, according to the Commission report published in 2015.

In order to qualify for CCIS funding, a family must make below 200 percent of the federal poverty income level and the amount awarded to providers is dependent on the quality level of the pre-K center as determined by the PA Keystone stars program (which gives child care centers one to four stars based on a list of quality factors) as well as the student’s attendance. The education and credentialing of staff is factored into this calculation of quality and helps to determine how much the provider gets from the CCIS.

Families making above 200 percent of the federal poverty limit can still qualify for PHLpreK spots because there is no official income requirement. But since these families are ineligible for CCIS, providers must find another way to make up the difference between the $8,500 provided by PHLpreK and the cost of implementing quality programs. Complicated calculations like these — which can differ for every family enrolled in terms of what they can qualify for and what additional funding sources pre-K providers may be able to tap — make determining the salaries of pre-K teachers precarious.

Despite these complications, all seem to agree that PHLpreK has successfully put publicly funded pre-K on the agenda. Various groups across the city are working to make this work: 1199C’s apprenticeship program, efforts of the Mayor’s office to streamline resource-sharing, the expansion of PHLpreK spots, pre-K providers like Spina and Alexander looking to grow their programs into more classrooms and applying for renovation funds, or parents looking to get their children kindergarten-ready or go to work full time without being bankrupted by childcare costs [LINK TO OTHER NOTEBOOK STORY].

The whole landscape of public pre-K in Philadelphia is engaged in an effort to make the eventual goal of universal pre-K a reality, not only for working parents and their children, but for an existing and potential industry of early childhood professionals. The development of this workforce could not only help get a generation of Philadelphia’s children on the educational path out of poverty, but also provide job opportunities that, in the long term, could do the same for their teachers.

“I am optimistic. I think PHLpreK has changed the discussion in a really important way,” said Feldman. “PHLpreK has tried to change standards to move the quality to where it should be. I am very supportive, very supportive of growing the front line workforce and am supportive in the way PHLpreK is doing that. Most importantly I am really hoping that this will impact the children in Philadelphia who need this more than anything.”

She added that it is not just some pre-K centers or spots that are being impacted, “it is implementing a whole new way of thinking about early childhood in Philadelphia.”

Castelbuono agreed, saying “PHLpreK is really thinking about systems, working to align systems” rather than making their own. “He didn’t need to, but the fact that the mayor stepped into this signaled that this was a policy priority.”

She also noted that Gov. Wolf has expanded the PreK Counts funding in his budget each year, responding to research that shows that early childhood is the most important time in a child’s intellectual development. “Science,” she said of these various recent initiatives at the state and local level, “is driving this interest and increased investment.”

City celebrates two years of PHLpreK

2019-01-04T21:45:26+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

On the second anniversary of the launch of PHLpreK, the soda-tax funded initiative to provide free early education to children around the city, Mayor Kenney hailed the program as an investment “that will continue to pay off for years to come.”

“For the last two years, 4,000 children have received high-quality pre-K at no cost to them,” Kenney said, speaking at a center in Southwest Philadelphia where 42 children are enrolled under the initiative. The remaining 46 children at the center are in the District’s Head Start program.

City Council member Kenyatta Johnson called the program “a bold investment in the young people” of the city.

“We talk about the school-to-prison pipeline, we talk about the school-to-college pipeline,” he said. Programs like this are “a pathway out of poverty” because they lay the foundation for a successful education.

In Philadelphia, the poorest of the nation’s big cities, children often fall behind before they enter kindergarten and find it hard to catch up. Studies show that students who aren’t reading proficiently by 4th grade are much more likely to drop out of high school.

The Mayor’s Office of Education released a checklist showing that, currently, there are 2,250 city-funded seats in 85 locations; the goal is to reach 5,100 seats by September 2022.

At Your Child’s World in Elmwood, which is housed in a former roller-skating rink, Kenney visited several classrooms in the sprawling center. He scrunched down into tiny chairs at little tables, ate pretend food, discussed his ice cream preferences, and debated Donald Trump with 3- and 4-year-olds.

Mayor Kenney eats pretend food with students at Your Child’s World. (Photo: Dale Mezzacappa)

“Are you a grandpa?” one child asked.

“Not yet,” the mayor replied.

“How old are you?”

“Sixty,” Kenney said. “That’s 6 with a zero.”

Among the children at Your Child’s World is Trent Felder, 3, the son of Margaret Cobb, a SEPTA trolley operator. She said that the program has saved her close to $800 a month while providing a better experience for her energetic son than his old day-care center had.

“There was more playing over there, and more learning over here,” said Cobb, who wore her SEPTA jacket as she talked to reporters. “He likes it here.”

She said that before PHLpreK, her son was in a center that cost $185 a week. She had been getting a child-care credit through the state, but when she got the SEPTA job, she was caught in a conundrum: She was earning too much to continue to qualify for the subsidy, but not enough to afford the child care.

Then her son’s aunt told her about PHLpreK, and when she went online to investigate, she found Your Child’s World. It is located just three blocks from her home and has been a godsend for her, she said.

Although there is no income test to participate, the city’s report said that 75 percent of the enrolled families earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($50,200 for a family of four), and 41 percent earn less than 100 percent, or $25,100. And five neighborhoods are no longer “child care deserts,” which are neighborhoods where the supply of affordable, quality pre-K does not meet the demand.

“Even without the income restriction, the program is serving those who can benefit the most,” said Julie Beamon, who directs the program for the city.

Children in PHLpreK are enrolled only in high-quality centers, with three or four stars under the state’s Keystone Stars rating system. Your Child’s World is one of 35 centers that increased their Keystone Stars rating in order to participate in the program.

A PHLPre-K student at Your Child’s World in Southwest Philadelphia. (Photo: Dale Mezzacappa)

A 2015 report found that there were 17,000 3- and 4-year-olds in the city who needed quality early education but weren’t getting it, Beamon said. The aim is to continue increasing access by expanding seats, improving the quality of existing centers, and making sure parents know about the options.

The city report also said that PHLpreK has created 278 additional jobs and that parent surveys show high satisfaction with the program.

“Children who started with us two years ago are now in kindergarten and 1st grade,” Kenney said. “We’re proud of our students and proud of our students’ accomplishments.”

Kenney told one of his favorite stories about attending a first day of kindergarten, which can be chaotic with children hanging onto their parents as they try to leave. At this school, he said, there were five students sitting quietly at their desks. Later, he asked the children which of them had been to pre-K, and those five raised their hands.

“I knew right then and there, they were ready to learn.”

Lessons in inclusive, universal pre-K from Tulsa

2018-12-12T20:36:51+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

This story was written for Nextcity.org as part of a reporting collaboration funded by Resolve Philadelphia. The Notebook will be publishing additional stories looking at our pre-k program early in 2019.

To outsiders, Oklahoma may seem like an odd place to look for a shining example of public education policy. This deep-red state has seen numerous cuts to public education funding over the last 30 years, stagnant teacher salaries over the last decade, and most recently, a heated election cycle dominated by the aftermath of a statewide teacher strike.

But Oklahoma also happens to lead the country in one particular public-education initiative: state-funded universal pre-kindergarten.

Since the program was established in 1998, education researchers have been intrigued. And as one of the earliest and most comprehensive sites for longitudinal data on the effects of pre-K, policymakers across the country have taken notice of Oklahoma’s model.

Blue, or more liberal, cities and states, where there is a fundamental belief in the value of state-funded services, have seen a surge in support for public money going toward expanded pre-K programs.

Washington, D.C., leads in per-pupil funding and enrollment rates, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious program, backed by a $300 million investment from the state, has made the biggest splash. But other cities, such as Chicago and Boston, struggle to ramp up and secure consistent funding.

For Philadelphia, America’s most economically disadvantaged big city, the long-term effects of expanded pre-K are too clear to ignore. Without any significant state support, the city’s plan for 3- and 4-year-olds has been bankrolled by Mayor Kenney’s soda and sugary-beverage tax. As Philly refines its approach and ramps up its capacity, how can more established models illuminate the way forward?

In Tulsa, ‘setting our kids up for success’

Oklahoma, which has one of the most prominent models of successful public pre-K expansion, is also one of the nation’s most tax-allergic political landscapes. Voters there passed a referendum in 1992 barring the government from raising any taxes without the support of both the governor and 75 percent of the state legislature, making it nearly impossible. With no new taxes and existing sources of revenue cut back over subsequent decades, the allocation of part of the state’s education budget to establishing and expanding a publicly funded universal pre-K program seems like a miracle.

In fact, it all started when a state senator slipped pre-K funding into a bill that addressed a different issue. Decades later, as the rest of the country debates the merits of public pre-K, advocates often quote studies based on the Tulsa Public School District, where 68 percent of 4-year-olds are enrolled in one of the city’s high-quality pre-K classrooms, free of charge.

And the results are compelling.

Children who attended pre-K showed significant increases in kindergarten readiness. The gains were most significant for economically disadvantaged children or those from marginalized communities. Evidence suggests that pre-K is a promising solution to the growing achievement gap between affluent and economically disadvantaged students — a gap that alarms experts and policymakers alike.

The origins of this persistent gap are felt as early as kindergarten. According to one study, less than 50 percent of children experiencing economic hardship (defined as coming from households with incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level) enter kindergarten with adequate “kindergarten readiness.” At least 75 percent of children from more affluent households (185 percent of the poverty level or more) are kindergarten-ready.

Without state-funded pre-K, most existing programs are inaccessible to low-income parents. Advocates have pointed to universally accessible, high-quality pre-K as a proven way to stop or delay the achievement gap from the outset.

What kindergarten readiness looks like

For Ronda Kesler, it is not just academic research that proves the value of pre-K. She sees the effects every day. Kesler is the principal of Kendall-Whittier Elementary School in Tulsa, one of the public elementary schools in the city with multiple pre-K classrooms, expanding the more traditional “K through 6” school to “pre-K through 6.”

Kesler describes the difference in readiness levels between children who had attended pre-K and those who hadn’t as “tremendous.” Particularly for the low-income population her school serves — 90-95 percent of students at Kendall-Whittier qualify for Title I funding every year — pre-K makes an enormous difference in setting up students for future success.

“For kiddos who do not go to pre-K, if they don’t have the opportunity to have a home environment where the parents have the ability or the time to sit down and read, to work on numbers and letters, or if they’re an only child and they are not used to coming and being with 20 other kids, then kindergarten is their first entry point and they have many more barriers to overcome,” says Kesler. “If they’ve gone to pre-K, they’ve been exposed to what it is to do school and everything that goes with that. Those kids transition so much more easily and come in at higher levels.”

Kesler isn’t the only educator who sees this marked difference.

Kelly Kane, the executive director of early childhood education at Tulsa Public Schools, says that in recent focus groups with pre-K and kindergarten teachers throughout the district, she received overwhelming feedback that children who had attended pre-K were much better prepared for kindergarten. Teachers say that one of the most profound differences was the children’s social-emotional development, or “the social skills around how to be in school, how to follow directions, how to share with friends, things like that,” says Kane. Teaching these skills often takes up much of the first few months of kindergarten.

These skills, Kesler agrees, are in some ways even “more important in our pre-K space even than academics in setting our kids up for success.” With that out of the way when most of the kids have already been to pre-K, kindergarten teachers can more effectively and efficiently get to the academic pieces of kindergarten like writing, counting, or practicing more precise motor skills.

Pre-K in elementary schools

Tulsa’s universal pre-K program is implemented within the existing public school district system (in addition to within charter schools and Head Start centers), rather than using a “mixed-delivery model” that cities such as Philadelphia and New York choose to follow, in which a variety of programs, providers and facilities are paid for with a mix of public and private funds. Although certain constraints come with a public school model — for example, the challenge of expanding into more classrooms within existing school buildings — one of the upsides is environmental continuity for both children and parents from pre-K through the rest of elementary school.

Jessica Stewart, a pre-K teacher at Kendall-Whittier, says that initially she was surprised how some students who had been to a pre-K program elsewhere before coming to the school for kindergarten ended up experiencing some similar social and attachment issues as children who had never been to pre-K. But she eventually came to realize that after a year or more in the same environment, “to those kids, those teachers, that building, that is school. That’s what they mean by ‘I am going to school.’ But then they get taken to a new building with new kids and new teachers. Their entire understanding of what is school has been changed.”

Stewart noted that various pre-K programs have strong partnerships that try to minimize this transition for students, “but it is still hard for them at the beginning.”

Another benefit of housing pre-K within a larger elementary school is that staff can observe and structure long-term education plans. Kesler says she and her teaching staff see the effects of pre-K on students at least through 3rd grade.

Here is where some research varies. Although the immediate impact of pre-K on kindergarten readiness is widely accepted, how long those gains are sustained has been the source of some debate. Most of the research points to long-term gains: some have focused on the original Tulsa pre-K cohorts through middle school, while other studies that are longer-term, but also track a small group of students, have shown that those who attend pre-K programs have lower incarceration rates and end up earning higher wages than their peers who did not attend pre-K.

A few more recent studies have countered those findings, indicating that the gains from pre-K in certain states did not persist into the middle-school years, leading many to question how the quality of a pre-K program could affect the longevity of achievement gains.

Although Kesler and her staff can confidently say that they see the effects of pre-K on older students, she notes that pre-K is not a silver bullet for the country’s education system. As a child gets older, Kesler says, other factors play an increasing role in their success.

“If there is high absenteeism, it’s usually a family issue. If there is trauma in the home, divorce happens, or loss of job, or a loss of a family member or whatever, those things happen and cause trauma and can cause tremendous changes. Those all affect a child in their development. There are just a lot of factors,” says Kesler. “It’s hard to rule out and say, oh, well, pre-K doesn’t count as much anymore, so is it really valid? Yes, it is incredibly valid. There are just other life factors that play in as they get older.”

Find the right model, then customize

To ensure that the gains persist later in a child’s educational experience, Kane’s team is working on improving what she calls “a seamless continuum from pre-K through 3rd grade.” This envisions what learning could look like planned across a longer span of time so that gains in early childhood education can be more effectively sustained for all students, hopefully further narrowing the achievement gap and minimizing costlier and more time-intensive interventions down the line that would be needed if students fall farther behind as they age.

But thinking about how to better streamline continuity of instruction for students from pre-K through elementary school is a level of improvement that can only happen after 20 years of tweaking implementation. Cities and states who are new to the public pre-K idea, but convinced of its merits, are trying to answer much more fundamental questions, such as: how do we get expanded pre-K programs off the ground, expand capacity, and ensure quality, all within an environment where public education funding is scarce?

Looking at Tulsa’s experience can convince an observer of the value of publicly funded pre-K. But for cities looking for replicable models to inform their own pre-K funding and expansion, it perhaps proves less useful.

For Philadelphia, the answer had to be local. Kenney ran in 2015 on a proposal to expand publicly funded pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds and won the election. Then came a months-long budget impasse between Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor and its Republican legislature, one of many over the next few years, as well as a recurring debate over adequate education funding from Harrisburg. Philadelphia could not depend on the type of financial support from its state capital that Tulsa has benefited from since 1998. If it wasn’t going to come from the state, it had to come from the city.

Additionally, a system run directly by the Philadelphia School District wasn’t going to work. The District did not have the capacity necessary to accommodate an influx of potentially more than 42,000 students. There is also the matter of scale: The Philadelphia School District is roughly five times the size of Tulsa’s. In fact, there are more 3- and 4-year-olds living in Philadelphia than the total number of students enrolled in Tulsa’s public schools.

In New York City, a state-funded windfall brings rapid expansion

For a city-driven model that used a wide range of early childhood education centers — public school, community, and family providers — Philadelphia only needs to look about 100 miles to the north.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on universal pre-K about two years earlier than Kenney. By far the most progressive major candidate in the race, de Blasio proposed a tax increase on all New York residents making over $500,000 per year to pay for universal pre-K expansion throughout the five boroughs. It was a popular pillar of his campaign.

After strong and immediate pressure from de Blasio, political calculations in Albany led to a surprising turn of events: Cuomo found $340 million in the budget to give to the mayor to run the program for five years. (The following fall would be an election year for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and he shied away from a fight over an income-tax increase.)

At the time, New York City had about 20,000 publicly funded pre-K spots. In order to be eligible for one, families had to meet certain income requirements, ensuring that the seats were reserved for children of low-income parents. Not only did de Blasio firmly believe that high-quality pre-K should be free for working New Yorkers, he also took the more controversial position that pre-K should be open to every student who was 4 years old by Sept. 1, regardless of their family’s income level.

That meant that parents who already sent their children to private pre-K programs would also benefit on the taxpayers’ dime. De Blasio argued that making the program universal would help it gather significant and widespread voter support, making it more sustainable. Also, children benefit from learning in classrooms that have cultural, racial, and socioeconomic diversity. Committed to a truly universal pre-K and aptly titled “Pre-K for All,” New York City launched the program in a matter of months.

The growth was extraordinary. Within three years, the number of fully funded pre-K spots swelled from 20,000 to 70,000. Although improvements are still necessary — some programs have waiting lists and some families are matched with programs that are too far away — Pre-K for All is viewed, by almost all measures, as de Blasio’s most impressive policy success. He recently announced an expansion of the program to include all of New York City’s 3-year-olds.

Philadelphia flies solo, buoyed by a sugary tax

Philadelphia’s own program began a few years after New York’s, but from the outset, it had conceived of including both 3- and 4-year-olds. The tricky part was that Kenney would have to find a way to pay for it.

Each city governs under a different set of constraints, represents a different constituency, and has to navigate unique local politics. At the end of 2015, the city put together the Philadelphia Commission on Universal Pre-Kindergarten. The group’s mission was to look at all the models and options that had been tried, examine the child-care landscape in the city, assess the needs of Philadelphia families and communities, and eventually issue recommendations for what Philly’s program should look like.

Meanwhile, people inside the new Kenney administration explored how to pay for it. Instead of an income tax, as de Blasio had initially proposed, Kenney chose another tactic: He proposed the Philadelphia Beverage Tax, a tax on soda and other sweetened beverages explicitly with the purpose of funding universal pre-K.

After heated debate, fierce negotiating and lobbying City Council, Philadelphia passed the tax about six months after Kenney took office. It was projected to bring in $91 million, most of which would go toward education — expanded pre-K as well as community schools and other smaller initiatives. Immediately, soda companies sued, beginning a litigation process that would take two years before finally being decided by the state Supreme Court.

But in the middle of 2016, things looked promising. City Council had passed the soda tax and the Philadelphia Commission on Universal Pre-Kindergarten had published its final recommendations report. The commission looked at numerous examples across the country, cherry-picking strategies that might work in Philadelphia. Throughout the report, you can see fingerprints of lessons learned from other cities.

Statistics from the studies done in Oklahoma (and others) that show the efficacy of pre-K in closing the achievement gap and potential impact on high-risk students serve as some of the report’s most convincing justifications. The choice to recommend a “mixed-delivery model” — that is, using, improving, and expanding the existing network of providers — bears resemblance to New York’s model. And the idea to allow providers to layer funding streams (such as the state child-care subsidy and Philadelphia Pre-K funding) for children who qualify came from Washington, D.C.’s 10-year old universal pre-K system, which is not a mixed-delivery model, but which has one of the country’s highest participation rates.

All three of these models are open to all families, regardless of income level, as is Philadelphia’s. But, as with many things in the report, Philadelphia made it their own. Any child who is 3 or 4 years old by Sept. 1 and lives in Philadelphia is eligible for PHL Pre-K. But the first few rounds of providers were approved based on their location and communities that they served, with priority given to facilities in disadvantaged neighborhoods or in “pre-K deserts.”

The result is that 75 percent of families now occupying Philadelphia Pre-K spots earn 200 percent or less of the federal poverty limit (about $50,000 for a family of four). As the program expands and more seats become available, the hope is to eventually serve all of Philadelphia’s 3- and 4-year-olds. But the way the expansion is being implemented, students with the highest risk and who would benefit the most are being served, even as the program remains inclusionary.

The commission report reflected not only policy research, but also conversations with providers who already operated child-care centers as well as parents and other community stakeholders. Although the primary benefit of pre-K is the education of children, universal pre-K provides other secondary social benefits. Most obviously, it allows parents to work without worrying about how they will pay for child care. But an increase in child-care centers also leads to the expansion of a skilled and accredited workforce. And in places where mixed-delivery models support early childhood education, the effort also supports small business owners within a framework of quality control.

The diverse benefits that come with pre-K expansion were reflected in the commission’s report, and most of the recommendations have been adopted, at least in part. However, every choice has its drawbacks. With Philadelphia, the rollout has been slower than many would like, specifically because of the way the system was designed.

Although the commission’s report recommended a variety of revenue streams that could go to fund the program, the administration chose to rally behind the soda tax as the chief source of revenue. The litigation that followed — predictable for anyone who remembers Big Soda’s takedown of Michael Bloomberg’s failed and equally drawn-out attempt at a soda tax when he served as New York’s mayor — delayed Kenney’s relatively modest expansion plans.

Additionally, linking public-service funding to a constituent behavior (particularly when a benefit of the tax is to disincentivize that behavior), runs the risk of your funding waxing and waning with unpredictable consumer habits. In Philadelphia, the first year of the tax saw $78.8 million in new revenue, $13 million below expected numbers. Subsequent projected revenues have been lowered by about 15 percent. While the city had originally planned to open 6,500 new pre-K seats by fiscal year 2023, that projection was decreased by 1,000.

Nevertheless, 5,500 new publicly funded pre-K spots means 5,500 more children who are kindergarten-ready and 5,500 parents who can work instead of having to stay home or find alternative child-care because they can’t afford pre-K.

Like New York and Tulsa, Philadelphia will make adjustments and consider improvements for years to come. Yet collectively, U.S. cities and states are increasingly rallying behind universal pre-K, learning from each other while customizing their programs to fit their unique needs.

In some ways, communities across the country — red and blue, urban and rural — are following a lesson straight out of a pre-K classroom: Be true to yourself, but be sure you help others as well. Together, you’ll grow.

The Notebook is one of 22 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. Read more at BrokeInPhilly.org and follow us on Twitter @BrokeInPhilly.

Mayor joins kids in celebrating the first full year of free pre-K in Philadelphia

2018-06-01T21:24:06+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The sky outside was gray and the weather dreary, but it was colorful on Friday morning inside the Please Touch Museum. Nearly 1,000 kids ranging from 3 to 5 years old and wearing an assortment of school uniforms buzzed around, celebrating the completion of Philadelphia’s first year of free pre-kindergarten.

The new program offered preschool to all residents, regardless of income level, on a first-come, first-served basis, but targeted areas with high-risk children. Funded by the city’s new sweetened beverage tax, the program faced several challenges during its first year.

The most significant one was from the soda companies and their supporters, who have sued the city over the tax.

In the museum, children were oblivious to the challenges. They raced around, serving plastic ice cream, watching model cars drive through a car wash, and shooting rockets through the air.

A few kids stood still long enough to discuss their favorite parts of the new pre-K program. Most said they like the time allotted to “playing,” while one child insisted it was the teachers.

Amid all the activity, those teachers and child-care professionals somehow managed to keep track of their respective students. While keeping an eye on about 10 children climbing on a model gas station, Daisy, a teacher from Children’s Place Preschool, elaborated on the changes the program spurred there.

Attendance had changed, she said, and new students are coming that previously couldn’t afford it. Daisy also mentioned that the new lesson plans that came with the curriculum made it easier to teach and allowed teachers to better address differences in learning.

Some parents accompanied their children to the museum, eager to participate in honoring the program. Lil Carrol, the mother of 5-year-old Chastity, explained that she enrolled her daughter when she heard about the program, moving her from a private preschool.

Although she initially had reservations, she said, she was quickly won over by the curriculum, support system, and the emphasis the program put on feedback from the parents.

“It’s great they [are] giving parents voices,” Carrol said.

Mayor Kenney’s visit to the event lasted about a half-hour. In that time, he traveled through the museum taking photos with dozens of children and shaking many hands, his excitement from the successful first year of Philadelphia’s new pre-K program clearly showing.

When he spoke, however, he voiced frustration about the effects of the soda companies’ lawsuit on the revenue for the schools. “The fact that we can’t roll our program out fully because of the selfishness of these soda company owners, it’s just sad,” he said.

Kenney also mentioned the resistance he’s gotten from politicians outside Philadelphia, mentioning “there’s actually a state representative from Pittsburgh that has introduced a bill to preempt the beverage tax in Philadelphia … I don’t understand why a guy from Pittsburgh has any interest in … us help[ing] ourselves educate our children.”

PHLpreK Director Julie Beamon echoed the mayor’s frustration with the outside forces affecting the program’s expansion. but expressed pride in how the program assists at-risk children.

“What’s nice about the program, because we don’t have an income requirement, a lot of our families just reach the cut-off for eligibility for CCIS, which is subsidized child care. That’s really a population that we’ve been able to serve with this program. Where parents can’t afford to pay the full cost of pre-K, but they don’t qualify for subsidized child care, we’ve been able to meet that need.”

Beamon said she is “really looking forward to expanding and making sure [the program is] serving children that are in high-need areas and children that are most vulnerable and would most benefit from pre-K.”

Hannah Melville is a junior English major at Haverford College and a summer intern at the Notebook.

Pre-K registration sessions being held through June 7

2018-06-01T19:13:25+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The School District of Philadelphia will hold five more pre-kindergarten registration sessions from June 1 to June 7.

Registration will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 1 at Catharine Elementary School and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 4 at Universal Charter School at Vare. Sessions will also be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 5 at Pratt Center, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 6 at South Philadelphia High School, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 7 at McKinley Elementary School.

Applications are also accepted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the District building located at 440 N. Broad St.

The registration sessions are for full-day, school-based Head Start and Bright Futures pre-kindergarten programs that are free for eligible families.

Applications can be accessed here.

Alyssa Biederman is a political science and journalism double major at Temple University. She is a Notebook summer intern.

Pre-K effort performing well despite ‘missteps,’ according to audit

2017-12-20T18:17:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Updated at 4 p.m. Dec. 21, 2017 with comments from the Mayor’s Office of Education.

The city controller’s audit of the mayor’s new preschool programs – released Wednesday – found the program to be generally successful, although it has not fully expanded and lacks enforcement of the state’s quality standards.

The universal pre-K effort provides free preschool to students, 81 percent of which come from low-income families according to the Mayor’s office. It’s funded by part of the soda tax, which has raised less revenue than anticipated. Previously, the city has suggested that the shortfall may be due to retailers stocking up before the tax went into effect.

"Actually, revenue collections are doing quite well – about 15 percent short of original estimates," said Mike Dunn, a spokesman for the city, in an email. "Economists have reported that’s well within the normal range for a brand new tax. Additionally, $66 million dollars in the first 10 months of collections still represents a significant sum in a city where more than a quarter of residents live below the poverty line. And, most importantly, it’s still going to allow us to support three programs – pre-K, Community Schools and Rebuild for parks, rec centers and libraries – that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to fund."

The audit found that the program has only enrolled about 2,000 children out of the 6,500 pre-K seats it initially sought to create. It was scaled back until a pending lawsuit against the soda tax, brought by the beverage industry, is resolved.

The audit applauded the programs for their administration and performance, providing bilingual teachers who speak Spanish, and accommodating children with physical handicaps and students of minority religions.

But the audit also found “missteps” due to a rushed process of implementation. The program was overbilled for $102,350 for children who enrolled but never attended their child-care sites.

Sarah Peterson, spokewoman for the Mayor’s office, said their office has not been shown those records.

"Our hubs work closely with providers to verify enrollment during the invoicing process," Peterson said in an email. "Also, PHLpreK’s reimbursement process compares favorably to other publicly funded ECE programs because we pay invoices based on actual enrollment after the fact, whereas Pre-K Counts and Head Start pay providers up-front."

Part of the program involves ranking providers by their quality and giving providers that are found to be below quality standards some time to improve. The city uses the Keystone STARS system to evaluate quality. The system, implemented by the state Department of Education in 2002, assigns a ranking of one to four stars based on staff education, learning environment, leadership/management, and family/community partnerships.

At the start of the program, 39 agencies, or 44 percent, joined at or below STARS level 2. To date, more than half of those providers have improved their quality, leaving the city with 18 agencies, or 20 percent, that still have not met quality standards for STARS level 3 or 4.

Otis Hackney, the city’s chief education officer, responded in a letter to the city controller, Alan Butkovitz: “The report suggests that partnering with lower-quality pre-K centers was due to a ‘rush’ to implement PHLpreK. This is simply not the case. The City was always transparent about its quality improvement strategy. This strategic investment has already resulted in the elimination of five pre-K deserts.”

Hackney argued that the lower-quality pre-K programs were only chosen when necessary to offer programming in neighborhoods that would not otherwise have it and that most of those providers had since improved their quality.

Butkovitz recommended that the city establish formal written policies for removing pre-K providers that fail to meet those quality standards within 18 months.

Hackney said in his letter: “At the end of the 2017-18 school year, we intend to assess providers’ continued participation in PHLpreK on a case-by-case basis and will only continue to partner with those that have a demonstrated commitment to improving the quality of their program. We will remove providers from PHLpreK that have not shown growth in key areas.”

The audit found that many providers are not paying their business and wage taxes and recommended that the city monitor providers for compliance.

"We already monitor providers for tax compliance on a monthly basis with help from the City’s Revenue Department," Peterson said. "Whenever we find a provider has fallen behind on their taxes, Revenue works with them to either settle the balance in full or enter into a payment agreement that will help them catch up."

Butkovitz also took issue with the way the city was accounting for revenue from the soda tax. That revenue is deposited in the city’s general fund, and not a special revenue fund used to ensure that money is spent on a specific project or for a specific purpose.

“There is no guarantee that these revenues will be used for the supposedly ‘dedicated’ purposes,” Butkovitz said in a statement. He recommended that the city place the soda-tax revenue in dedicated funds.

"The Philadelphia Beverage Tax supports projects beyond PHLpreK, namely Community Schools and Rebuild," Peterson said. "The City’s Finance Department, following best practices in government accounting, views a special revenue fund inappropriate for this broad use of revenue, as the funding is not limited to one specific project."

The full audit can be read or downloaded here.

Pre-K access, teacher race, and more: Five notable facts about Pa. public schools

2017-08-09T15:31:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released a draft of its plan to comply with the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Under the new law, states are given more leeway in how to set education policy and spend federal public school dollars. The most notable news within the report was the announcement that PDE plans to unveil a new school quality metric in 2018 that it believes will foster a more holistic student experience, one less narrowly focused on state standardized tests.

But within the 133-page report, a few other noteworthy facts about Pennsylvania public schools caught our attention.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Hecklers derail attempted hearing on Philly beverage tax

2017-06-23T18:10:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Turns out it’s tough to conduct a public hearing when no one can hear you.

Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner learned that the loud way Friday as he attempted to hold a meeting in Philadelphia’s City Council chambers about the city’s sweetened beverage tax.

His attempt was thwarted by a legion of horn-tooting, whistle-blowing, hand-clapping activists and union organizers who shouted him down from the gallery. Channeling the endurance of a South African soccer crowd, they kept a constant blare for 45 minutes. Eventually, Wagner and his colleagues on the Pennsylvania Senate’s local government committee left the room and held a private press conference to discuss the aural ambush.

Wagner said the meeting would be rescheduled and held in Harrisburg.

Friday’s ruckus added more intrigue to a hearing laden with political undertones.

Wagner, a conservative state senator from York, is campaigning to win his party’s nomination and then unseat Gov. Wolf, a Democrat.

His Senate colleague Democrat Anthony Williams invited him to hold the hearing in Philadelphia – in the very same room where local lawmakers passed the new levy. Williams is a vocal opponent of the beverage tax and ran against its chief proponent, Jim Kenney, in the 2015 mayoral race.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Is this center in Northeast Philadelphia the future of Philly pre-K?

2017-05-31T09:33:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

At first glance, it’s impossible to tell a big experiment is happening inside the preschool program at FitzPatrick Elementary School in Northeast Philadelphia.

Because, as administrator James Cupit says, everything here looks almost exactly the same as it did last school year.

"I don’t think there’s lots of evident differences," Cupit said as a group of students nibbled on wheat crackers and yogurt cups. "Kids are happy. They’re having their snacks. Everybody enjoying their snack?"

Cupit strolled over to a nearby desk and pulled out a "meal and snack form" with each student’s name and a number listed in corresponding columns. Students whose families live at the poverty line or below are coded with a "6." Students from slightly wealthier families have a "7" or "8" next to their names.

It’s a boring, bureaucratic document intended, as Cupit put it, to tell "the person paying for those meals this is who’s having the meals and this is how much." The sheet is also, in this rare case, a window into the potentially groundbreaking changes happening at the FitzPatrick public school.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Here’s who’s benefitting from Philly’s pre-K expansion

2017-03-28T11:49:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

As Philadelphia’s pre-K program approaches its three-month anniversary, new data on the program shows that families in PHLpreK are, on the whole, poorer than the city average.

That’s one of many inferences that can be drawn from a raft of new figures released Monday by the mayor’s office.

The data dump details the number of children enrolled in the new program; the types of providers serving them; and demographic information about the families who’ve taken advantage of the city’s high-profile pre-K expansion.

A few highlights:

So far the city has contracted for 1,996 slots; 1,870 have been filled. Over the last few months, city officials have been reallocating seats based on where demand is highest. That process has yielded an enrollment bump, but about 6 percent of seats remain vacant. Remember, this initial enrollment period is part one of a multi-year expansion effort. Eventually the city pre-K program will have about 6,500 children.
The mean household income of children enrolled in PHLpreK is $31,776. That’s not an exact figure because it only takes into account the 1,227 children who enrolled through the city’s PHLpreK hotline. The remainder enrolled through individual pre-K sites. But this initial estimate at least indicates something about the kids Philadelphia’s pre-K expansion is serving. The mean household income across all Philadelphians is $59,766. So these numbers would suggest the city pre-K program is serving a poorer-than-average population.

Read the rest of this story at Newsworks

One month in, Philly pre-K faces a paradox: High demand and empty seats

2017-02-06T09:33:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A month after it began, Philadelphia’s pre-K program still has 500 unfilled seats, but officials and advocates praise the city’s progress and say the open slots don’t indicate soft demand.

About 1,500 of the 2,000 slots made available through the city’s sweetened beverage tax have been claimed, according to the Mayor’s Office of Education. Six hundred additional children have applied to the PHLpreK program, but have yet to enroll at a specific child care center.

Many of those families are stuck on waiting lists or still shopping around. Right now, the city is trying to readjust its distribution of new pre-K seats so that centers with backlogs can take on more students.

"There are a lot of kids on waiting lists at different providers," said Mary Strasser, acting director for the city’s pre-K initiative. "That’s part of our rightsizing process. And we’re making those adjustments today and early next week."

The coexistence of empty seats and overflow may be difficult to reconcile, but research suggests that the tricky economics of pre-K make it tough to match supply and demand. Families tend to prefer sites that are close to home or work and are unlikely to stray even a short distance to higher-quality centers.

Therefore, government officials have to be precise when choosing where to add new seats. After testing the waters in the first phase of the PHLpreK rollout, officials say they’re ready to recalibrate based on early enrollment figures.

Read the rest of the story at NewsWorks

Court dismisses lawsuit against mayor’s soda tax; plaintiffs vow appeal

2016-12-19T17:59:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A lawsuit challenging Philadelphia’s new sweetened beverage tax was dismissed Monday in Common Pleas Court, which allows the Kenney administration to move ahead with an expanded prekindergarten program funded by the tax.

In addition to saying he will use the tax – often referred to as the soda tax – for the expansion of early childhood education, Mayor Kenney also wants to fund the rehabilitation of hundreds of recreation centers and playgrounds, subsidize 25 community schools, and equip police with body cameras. The tax is expected to raise $92 million over the next five years.

"Today is much more than a simple vindication of the legal principles on which the tax is based,” the mayor said in a statement. “It is a victory for Philadelphians, who have waited far too long for investment in their education system and in their neighborhoods.”

The dismissal is also a huge victory for the mayor, whose main policy fight during his first year was expanding prekindergarten through the soda tax.

The city plans to spend the first influx of revenue from the tax to pay for 2,000 new prekindergarten seats in January — 1,700 of which have already been filled as of last week.

The tax, which goes into effect Jan. 1, collects 1.5 cents per ounce of most sugary and diet beverages. Revenue is collected from distributors, not customers, although opponents contend that still means a price increase for customers.

If this entire cost is transferred to the customer, that would amount to 18 cents on a 12-ounce can. The tax applies to any non-alcoholic beverage with added sweetener, whether it’s natural or artificial: sodas, sports drinks, sweetened teas, and flavored waters.

City Council approved the tax in a 13-4 vote on June 16, after the beverage industry spent $10.6 million lobbying against it.

The lawsuit against the city was filed in September on behalf of the American Beverage Association and the lobby’s affiliates within the state and city. Several local soda sellers were also plaintiffs: John’s Roast Pork, City View Pizza, Metro Beverage of Philadelphia, and Days Beverages.

Kenney called on the beverage industry not to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

“I urge the soda industry to accept the judge’s ruling and do the right thing for the children of Philadelphia, many of whom struggle in the chilling grip of pervasive poverty,” Kenney said. “The industry has chosen not to challenge beverage taxes in other municipalities, and there is no reason to continue pursuing it here.”

However, Shanin Specter — a partner at Line & Specter who represents the plaintiffs — told the Philadelphia Business Journal that “we shall appeal,” in a one-line email.

The Philadelphians Against Grocery Tax Coalition, which represents members of the beverage industry involved in the case, told the Business Journal that it supports the plan to appeal.

“Regardless of their decision,” Kenney said, “the city will not stop pursuing what those kids need most – quality pre-K, community schools, and better parks, libraries and rec centers.”

Passage of the tax made Kenney the first mayor of a major U.S. city to pass a tax on sugary drinks. Since passage of the tax in Philadelphia, five jurisdictions have approved similar taxes: Boulder, Colorado; San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany, California; and Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago.

The lawsuit argued that the new tax is a sales tax and therefore cannot legally be applied as a separate tax — it would have to be altered by amending the sales tax. The suit also contended that the tax would violate the state constitution, which requires similar classes of people and products to be taxed at the same rate.

“The Judge upheld the key points of our argument,” City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante said in a statement. “The Philadelphia Beverage Tax cannot be considered a sales tax, and neither does it violate the uniformity clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution.”

The lawsuit also contended that products that can be purchased through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) are exempt from sales tax, so taxing those purchases would violate state and federal law.

Common Pleas Court Judge Gary S. Glazer dismissed all three arguments.

He ruled that the soda tax and the state sales tax are separate forms of taxation because the beverage tax is levied on the distributor and the sales tax is levied directly on the customer.

Glazer found as “not relevant” the plaintiff’s argument that distributors will pass on at least some of the tax to retailers, who will raise prices. He said that what matters is how the tax “operates, not what private actors will do in response to the tax to offset the burden.”

He also dismissed the plaintiff’s argument about food stamps, pointing out that it wouldn’t be customers with food stamps paying the tax, it would be the distributors.

In terms of the constitutional argument, Glazer ruled that the tax is “uniformly applied to distributors,” and therefore does not have to uniformly affect all customers and products.

As of last week, the administration had already spent roughly $200,000 on pre-K programs and has a $12 million expansion budgeted for the spring.

Through July 2020, the tax’s proceeds will contribute about $41 million to the city’s fund balance and around $15 million to programs for youth homelessness and disability settlements. All other revenue will be used for expanding pre-K, funding community schools, and rehabilitating parks and recreation centers.

Mayor visits West Philadelphia preschool to boost city’s new initiative

2016-12-07T15:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Mayor Kenney visited Pee Wee Prep Education Center, a West Philadelphia preschool, to celebrate its new partnership with PHLPreK, the city’s new initiative to make free, quality pre-K more accessible starting in January. The school added 60 seats to accommodate new students set to arrive next month.

The PHLPreK initiative is partnering with child-care providers throughout the city to increase access to free preschool. The plan is to add 6,500 new seats over the next five years using the revenue from Kenney’s soda tax. “I’m excited to visit our new pre-K partners that will soon be educating our city’s youngest learners,” said Kenney. “And I encourage families to take advantage of this amazing opportunity while seats are still available.” Stacy Phillips, owner and executive director of Pee Wee Prep, started the school in 1990 to take care of her twin infants after a child-care provider left her kids unattended. She wanted to keep the school open for five years, until her children were elementary school age, but Pee Wee Prep became a fixture in the neighborhood.

“I thought when they turned 5, I was going to go back to work,” Phillips said. “They were going to go off to school, [and] I was going to shut the business down, because that was the whole point. And 26 years later, that didn’t happen. I fell in love.” West Philadelphia parent Pamela Buck has been sending her children to Pee Wee Prep since 2004, two biological children and six foster children. “A lot of people find it strange when you never had a problem with day care,” she said. “[But I] never had a problem.” She also said that because the PHLPreK program is free, it will be good for parents who can’t afford day care or are unemployed. “That’s what [the city] needs,” she said. “So some of these parents don’t have to worry about child care. Then they can get up and find jobs. You know your child is safe.” The school holds 170 students and has graduated about 1,300 students since opening. For parents who want their children to continue in the Pee Wee Prep system, Phillips founded West Philadelphia Achievement Charter School, which teaches kindergarten to 5th grade.

“We have them from infancy until 12 years old,” Phillips said. “Every graduation is a cry-fest.” PHLPreK is now enrolling for classes starting Jan. 4. For more information, go to www.phlprek.org.

It’s official: Expanded Philly pre-K has arrived

2016-10-20T19:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia’s long-awaited, much-debated pre-K expansion has officially begun.

At a Thursday press conference, city leaders announced the creation of 2,000 new high-quality pre-K seats, funded by Philly’s sweetened beverage tax.

Dubbed PHLpreK, the city-funded system is expected to have 6,500 seats by 2021. All city families can apply, regardless of income, but new seats are purposefully concentrated in high-poverty areas where quality pre-K is in short supply.

“As of this moment, families can now call and apply for free, quality pre-K, and I believe that’s just an awesome change in our environment,” said Mayor Kenney, who made pre-K expansion a signature campaign issue and battled for a sweetened beverage tax to pay for it.

The city plans to place the new seats at 78 sites run by 61 different providers. Most of those sites are run by private pre-K providers. Lamberton Elementary School is the only expansion site run by the School District. Twelve more sites are supervised by the School District, but managed privately. In all, the District received 340 of the 2,000 new seats.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

A quick look at who applied for Philly’s pre-K money

2016-08-29T09:55:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The race for Philadelphia’s new flood of pre-K money is on. The city announced earlier this week that 85 private child-care providers have applied for a shot at the roughly $23 million Philadelphia will dole out during phase one of its pre-K expansion. By January, the city plans to have 2,000 new high-quality pre-K seats. At full implementation — five years from now — that number is expected to be 6,500.

It’s not known yet how many of these 85 applicants the city will select in this first round. Officials will say only that the city expects to have “dozens” of partners.

The 85 applicants, representing 168 sites, seek funding for more than 4,000 seats. The city, of course, can only support 2,000 new slots right now. A typical applicant, officials say, is asking for an expansion of just 30 slots.

That’s largely reflective of the approach that Philadelphia has taken in its expansion efforts. Rather than work solely through the School District of Philadelphia — the city’s largest early childhood education provider — the city is using a mixed-delivery method that blends private and public centers. That means the School District — which submitted applications for 15 of its pre-K sites — is competing against private pre-K chains such as Brightside Academy, as well as mom-and-pop operations. The fact that a typical applicant has asked for only 30 additional seats suggests that some of those smaller providers have thrown their hats in the ring.

Also notable is that providers from all across the quality spectrum applied.

Counting the 15 public school sites, 44 percent of applicants have a score from the state’s early childhood rating system that qualify them as “high quality.” The remaining 56 percent fall below that threshold. The city considers centers with a STAR 3 or STAR 4 rating to be high quality.

Read the rest of this story at Newsworks

For one family, enrolling in District kindergarten is a lesson in frustration

2016-08-09T18:01:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Angela and Corey Battle have one immediate goal, and that is to get their 5-year-old son into kindergarten in a public school in Philadelphia.

So far, no luck.

The Frankford couple can’t understand this – especially given the city and the District’s emphasis on the importance of early childhood education and Mayor Kenney’s determination to provide access to universal pre-kindergarten.

“We didn’t know our local school didn’t have to accept our son, and now we’re stuck,” Battle said. “It’s August, and we have no idea where we are sending our child.”

How could this happen?

There are myriad reasons. First, kindergarten is not mandated in Pennsylvania, so the cash-strapped District is not obligated to provide it, although it does. For two decades, in fact, it has provided full-day kindergarten; many suburban districts are still offering half-day kindergarten.

But because the District is always facing tight budgets, it doesn’t automatically add classes at a school if the kindergarten demand exceeds the supply, as it does for upper grades. For more than two decades, state aid hasn’t been tied directly to enrollment increases, so adding an extra teacher would be costly.

Then there is the planning issue. School budgets are prepared well in advance, but many parents wait until the last minute to register. The city’s population is very mobile, and it is always hard to predict how many students will show up.

And even if a principal could manage to squeeze an extra teacher into the budget at the last minute, the recent massive downsizing of the system – more than two dozen schools have been closed since 2013, and more have been converted to charters – has made space scarce at many schools.

As one District veteran put it: “We were directed to make the highest and most efficient use of space, so we can’t open up a new classroom on a dime. We were so efficient in the use of space, there are no classrooms left.”

A student who shows up at the local school for kindergarten after it is full is put on a waiting list and is also offered a space in a nearby school. But in Philadelphia, kindergarten children are not allowed on school buses, so families must provide their own transportation. This doesn’t work for many families, who might give up on sending the child at all if travel is required.

Second, the policy of turning over schools to charter organizations to improve them – the Renaissance schools initiative – means that for many neighborhoods, the local school is a charter. This is the case for the Battles, and that complicates their situation.

Although some parents don’t want to send their children to charters at all, that is not an issue for the Battles. They tried to enroll their son in the Philadelphia Charter School for Arts & Sciences at H.R. Edmunds, because they live in its catchment area.

Angela Battle went to enroll their son Camal there in June, shortly after the District started touting kindergarten pre-registration. But she was told kindergarten was already full.

As a Renaissance charter school, Edmunds is required to accept all neighborhood students before accepting students from outside the catchment area. That is emphasized on its website and confirmed by a person answering the phone at the school who said she helped parents with registration but did not want to be identified by name.

She said that Edmunds, run by String Theory, starts enrolling students for kindergarten in October and was full by May. She said she hates turning families away; one, she said, lived right across the street.

“Our only option is to tell parents to go to the School District. They have to find a school for them,” the employee said.

Angela Battle said she didn’t know that registration started so early at Edmunds.

Her next option was to try to get Camal into Shawmont, way up in Roxborough. Her 5th grader, Coby, is bused there every day.

He attends Shawmont because five years ago, when Coby was starting 1st grade, the Battles received a letter from the District informing them that because their local school – then Edmunds, under District control – was underperforming, they had a right to transfer their child to a better school. This letter was required under No Child Left Behind, the federal law that required school districts to take aggressive action around so-called “failing” schools.

They chose Shawmont, and Coby has been there since. Battle said she asked the principal about Camal attending Shawmont as well, and she was fine with it. The Battles were willing to drive him there.

But Battle said they were told that they had missed the deadline for applying for such a transfer for Camal (such a transfer is still possible, but not under No Child Left Behind, which has been replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act).

“I was told that if you want to transfer your son out of the neighborhood school, there is a process for that, and it ended months ago,” Battle said. (At the very bottom of the web page on kindergarten registration is a sentence saying that the deadline for such transfer requests was Nov. 13 of last year.)

Angela Battle said she is reluctant to send Camal to another school in Frankford; she has done her research and says they are underperforming compared to Shawmont.

They have also tried two other charters in the area and are on waiting lists there. They have even looked into Catholic school options.

As Angela Battle sees it, “We can’t get into our local school, and they won’t let us go to the school where our other son is attending and the principal is on board.”

Their effort to find a school for Camal has proven to be far more difficult than it should be in a city that is putting a high priority on early childhood education, she said.

The District is required to provide Camal a spot somewhere. The Battles are still hoping they can get him into Shawmont. Corey Battle has a meeting Wednesday morning with the Office of School Placement to discuss the options.

Want to expand pre-K? Better put it in the right places

2016-08-03T14:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

By the City of Philadelphia’s count, more than 17,000 low- and middle-income children don’t have access to high-quality, publicly funded pre-K. Money from the new soda tax is supposed to help close that gap. But just because there’s more demand than supply doesn’t mean parents will necessarily rush to fill the new seats.

That paradox is rooted in how parents choose pre-K for their kids.

When we think about school choice, we often think about the K-12 sector, where quality heavily influences the choices parents make. Open up an awesome public school — or at least a school perceived as awesome — and parents will gladly flock to it. If their kids have to travel a little farther to attend a better school, so be it. Indeed, families often orient their entire lives — where they live, how they commute to work, and more — around finding the best school for their children.

It’s a safe bet that if the City of Philadelphia opened scads of new high-quality schools, it would have little trouble filling them.

Pre-K, however, is a different story. To understand why, you have to meet folks like Darlene Williams, who lives in North Kensington.

Williams’ grandson, Amir, is 5. For the last two years, he’s attended Candy’s Kids Learning Academy, a small, storefront operation located about 500 feet from the rowhouse shared by Williams, her daughter, and Amir.

Candy’s Kids opened shortly before Amir started attending, and it is still trying to move up the state’s quality-rating system. It has just one star out of four on the Keystone STARS rubric, according to state records. Centers must have three or four stars to be considered high-quality by the city.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Kenney stumps for soda tax at pre-K gathering

2016-05-25T23:32:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

In a fiery address to early childhood education advocates, Mayor Kenney stumped for the sugary-beverage tax he’s seeking to fund quality pre-K in Philadelphia and bashed the levy’s opponents.

His targets during the 10-minute address included the beverage industry, repeatedly, and even an esteemed member of his own party. In a particularly pugnacious moment, Kenney advised Ed Rendell, formerly both Philadelphia’s mayor and Pennsylvania’s governor, to "keep his mouth shut."

Rendell recently questioned whether it was wise to impose a tax that singles out the beverage industry and could disproportionately fall on poor consumers.

Kenney’s response to the critics: "These companies have advertised and marketed for generations in poor, underserved neighborhoods. They have made their billions off of poor, underserved neighborhoods."

Kenney’s remarks kicked off the fourth session of "Quality Talks," a series of panel discussions convened by the William Penn Foundation. The event featured national leaders on early childhood education and higher-ups from cities that have aggressively moved to expand pre-K, with the hope of swapping ideas on how to best roll out new programs.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Some improvement in Pa. preschool access, but pace slow and spending stagnant

2016-05-20T15:46:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania’s state-funded pre-K programs made moderate improvements in the last year, according to a report released last week.

In its annual State of Preschool Report, the National Institute for Early Education Research analyzed all state-funded pre-K programs across the country, with attention to changes in enrollment, resources, and quality in 2015.

The report shows continued growth in state-funded pre-K nationally, but cautions that the pace at which programs are expanding is worrisome – only 5 percent of 3-year-olds and 29 percent of 4-year-olds nationwide were enrolled in pre-K last year.

“Our findings tell us that we’re moving in the right direction, but states still have a lot of work to do,” said Allison H. Friedman-Krauss, an author of the report.

Pennsylvania didn’t recede in its pre-K services, as did Texas or Florida, where enrollment decreased substantially. But its enrollment increased slightly for 3-year-olds only, and its per-child spending decreased. The report also warned that some of Pennsylvania’s programs did not have necessary quality standards in place.

“Pennsylvania isn’t moving backwards and on one side that’s good,” said Friedman-Krauss, “but on the other side, there are still a lot of children that need to be served. [Pennsylvania] isn’t there yet.”

Following are the key findings regarding Pennsylvania from the report.

Pennsylvania ranks 30th in access for 4-year olds and 15th in access for 3-year-olds.

In 2015, Pennsylvania served 12 percent of its 4-year-olds, no change from 2014, and 6 percent of its 3-year-olds, a 1 percent increase from 2014.
This tracked with national trends. Across the country, enrollment rose modestly, growing by 37,167 altogether. Most of the growth was among 3-year-olds, with just 7,091 4-year-olds added, the report said.

Pennsylvania ranks 15th in state spending for pre-K.

The state saw a decrease in spending per child enrolled. In 2014, $5,875 was spent per child. That declined to $5,630 in 2015.
This spending exceeds the $4,489 national average for 2015.

Some Pennsylvania pre-K programs met very few benchmark quality standards.

Pennsylvania serves preschoolers through four state-funded programs. Of these four programs, three met more than half of the 10 research-based quality standards benchmarks. These standards include teachers that have a bachelor’s degree, teachers with specialized training in early childhood education, class sizes of 20 or less, and a teacher to student ratio of 1:10 or better.
One program that serves nearly 2,000 children only met three of the standards. That is the Pennsylvania 4-Year-Old and School-based Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Programs (SBPK/K4).

Philly Council president says 3-cent soda tax is too high

2016-05-05T15:28:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia City Council’s president says he is pessimistic that Mayor Kenney’s proposed tax on sugary drinks will pass "as is."

Darrell Clarke said he doubts the 3-cents-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugary drinks would win enough votes from his colleagues.

"That number just is not reflective of reality," Clarke said Thursday.

If the levy is not approved, Councilman Curtis Jones said, there will be no viable way to pay for Kenney’s proposed citywide pre-K and improvements to recreation centers and libraries.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Soda tax draws heat again from City Council

2016-05-03T15:39:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia’s proposed sugary drinks tax again bubbled up for discussion today during a City Council budget hearing. Addressing the city’s health commissioner, City Council President Darrell Clarke said he didn’t believe that a tax on soda and other sugary drinks would generate enough money to support pre-K and other initiatives of Mayor Kenney’s administration.

"If there are declining revenues, then we will ultimately get to the point where we will have to raise another tax to maintain particularly the level of service that you are proposing, which is quite significant," Clarke said.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Commission works on plan to expand universal pre-K

2016-04-05T09:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The mayor’s commission on universal pre-kindergarten is working to develop a plan, including recommendations on funding, to expand high-quality pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

The commission, which was approved by voters last spring, released a report in February citing benefits of the expansion and a $60 million annual price tag.

According to the report, two out of three of the city’s 42,500 preschool-age children lack access to high-quality pre-K. The expansion plans must address the issue of “high quality,” which is a challenge because only 29 percent of the city’s licensed early care and education seats are in centers that have high-quality ratings on the state’s Keystone STARS system. But it must also address the needs of an early education workforce that is limited by low wages and sometimes no benefits.

“We are trying to create a plan that builds on the best parts of our system and provides lots of resources for the child-care providers who are serving our most vulnerable children,” said Sharon Easterling, co-chair of the commission.

Studies from the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children, an organization dedicated to expanding quality early childhood education, have found a strong correlation between high-quality early education and long-term positive outcomes such as increased high school graduation rates, reduced crime and poverty, and a greater likelihood of college attendance and employment.

Mayor Kenney has made pre-K a priority and outlined his plans for expansion. He proposed a $256 million investment to create 25,000 high-quality pre-K seats over the next five years. The funding would come from a 3-cents-per-ounce tax on soda.

The mayor said that establishing more pre-K slots would create jobs inside and outside of early childhood education and stabilize the workforce. There is also a return on pre-K investments. For every dollar invested in high-quality child care, the need for services such as special education and remediation is reduced.

The mayor’s plan has received a $15 million grant from the William Penn Foundation to create 1,500 new seats by 2021. The commission is slated to release its final recommendations in April.

After long delay, a pre-K center opens its doors

2016-03-29T18:15:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania’s protracted budget negotiations stalled the expansion of new pre-kindergarten seats across the state this year.

On Tuesday, one high-quality center in Far Northeast Philadelphia finally celebrated its delayed opening.

State funds earmarked for pre-K expansion were released in late December, but logistics delayed the highly rated provider SPIN from opening a new 80-seat school in Parkwood until this month.

"Because we had a late start in the year, families had to find programs elsewhere. They might not be a free, high-quality preschool such as what we have here," said Kathy Brown McHale, SPIN’s president and CEO.

Based on the midyear start, the school has 26 vacant seats. It hopes to get state approval to grow to serve 120 children by next school year.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Pew awards $8.6 million to help poor youth and families

2016-03-22T16:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

On Tuesday, the Pew Charitable Trusts announced $8.6 million in grants to 45 organizations in the city and region that work with high-poverty children and youth.

The awards are focused on five areas: creating more high-quality early-education and child-care opportunities; prevention and early intervention relating to cognitive and other problems for at-risk young people; promoting wider access for families to behavioral health services; expanding good afterschool programs geared toward school engagement, academic success and college readiness; and improving vulnerable families’ access to public benefits and services that improve household stability.

Citing the 37 percent poverty rate for children in Philadelphia — the highest of any big city in the nation — the senior director of the Pew Fund for Health and Human Services, Frazierita Klasen, said that these areas have been identified in research as "helping poor and disadvantaged children improve their life trajectories."

The awardees range from the AARP Foundation, for its Experience Corps program, in which seniors tutor kindergartners through 3rd graders, to the Joseph J. Peters Institute, which works with victims of sexual abuse, to Public Citizens for Children & Youth, for its efforts to help families get health insurance. Some organizations, like Drexel University, received several awards for different projects.

The grants are awarded in a competitive process, said Klasen, and the final awardees are chosen with the help of outside experts. The money, distributed over three years, is customarily for a specific project.

"We select those we conclude are the strongest, based on understanding of the target population, the evidence they provide, the likelihood of the work being successful, and the strength and quality of the organization overall," said Klasen.

The Pew Fund for Health and Human Services has three grantmaking areas: children, youth, and families; the frail elderly; and vulnerable adults, a category that includes the homeless, mentally ill, and disabled. Grants are awarded in three-year cycles in one of these areas. Next year, the focus will be on vulnerable adults.

This is what a high-quality preschool looks like

2016-03-15T16:27:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

As the preschoolers made their way from the carpet to the five stations across the classroom, a buzz pulsed through the room at Chinatown Learning Center. It was a fusion of laughter and murmurs in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. The children were ready for the day’s lesson — the life cycle of chickens.

Under the tutelage of two classroom teachers, Yian Chu and Tiffany Villafane, the classroom of 3- to 5-year-olds got to work, all engaged in activities tailored to their age and learning level. Some students drew pictures of chickens in their various life stages. Others wrote sentences about chicks or practiced letter and number recognition.

This is what high-quality preschool looks like, and the center has earned the highest rating under the state’s Keystone STARS rating system – STAR 4.

It wasn’t always this way. About 10 years ago, the center was rated as a STAR 2 – it needed to improve in areas such as teacher credentials and parent engagement.

But then it went through Success by 6, a quality-improvement program led by United Way of Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey, which gave the center a network of support and the impetus to identify and achieve strategic goals.

“Our biggest hurdle was moving from a STAR 2 to a STAR 3,” said Carol Wong, the director of Chinatown Learning Center. “It’s not that we didn’t want to be high quality, it’s that we recognized that it took time and money. And it wasn’t a big deal back then.”

The challenges that come with moving to high quality – to a STAR 3 or 4 on the 1-4 scale – persist for many centers across Philadelphia. Only 29 percent of the 68,000 licensed early care and education seats are in centers that have earned three or four stars, according to a report from the commission on universal pre-K. And just 52 percent of centers even participate in the rating program.

“Success by 6 focuses on moving centers from a 2 to a 3 in Keystone STARS because that’s where we see the biggest change in child outcomes,” said Elliot Weinbaum, a program director at the William Penn Foundation.

The difference may be indistinct to outsiders, but it means that a center has become more focused on improving its physical environment and made changes in other areas, such as management and community engagement. And its teachers have received more training: For a center to be a STAR 3, its teachers are required to accrue at least 24 professional development credits by the end of a school year.

New research from the nonprofit organization Child Trends on Success by 6 identifies key lessons for the city on how the quality improvement process can bring centers to high quality.

In the last eight years, Success by 6 has worked with more than 350 centers across the region to improve quality. Centers received technical assistance, program improvement funds, and other support. The Child Trends report found that overall, the program resulted in boosting by 16 percentage points centers’ scores that determine the STAR rating.

The program moved 46 percent of the Philadelphia centers it worked with to a STAR 3 within 24 months, the report states.

Child-care providers who participate in Success by 6 “move up in STAR quality at a higher rate than centers that aren’t participating. They move up because of the supports they receive,” Weinbaum said.

But Child Trends identified that centers still face challenges to moving up even when there is support.

“Less than half of centers that participate are moving up in quality, so when we think about [pre-K] expansion, we need to up our improvement rate and help stakeholders across the city do this,” said Weinbaum.

The report specifically identified that the biggest barrier to quality improvement is a center’s inability to satisfy the Keystone STARS standards related to staff qualifications.

“Finding and retaining high-quality teachers is a constant challenge,” Wong said. “We help our teachers get their required degrees and certifications. And there’s always the chance that they may leave to go work at the School District for more money.”

The study found that Success By 6 consultants spend most of their time helping supervisors improve the learning environment, but little time is spent looking at staff qualification issues. The report recommends that child-care center consultants work with centers on teacher development, recruitment and selection of teachers, and the retention of high-quality teachers.

Wong said, “You can have wonderful materials and resources, but if you don’t have the staff that’s buying into high quality, it’s not going to work.”

She added, “Our teachers deserve more, but it’s hard to pay them what they deserve because the true cost of care is most times not reflected in what we can charge as tuition.”

Wong has made efforts to support her staff by investing in their education and by covering the costs of professional development opportunities. She also provides her staff members with health insurance, a benefit that isn’t granted to many child-care workers.

Other opportunities, such as scholarships for education and obtaining credit for Success By 6 trainings, are options that the report recommends to help centers meet the requirements for staff qualifications.

Carmina Bonfiglio, who has been a teacher at Chinatown Learning Center for three years, said she has seen nearly 20 teachers leave in her time there.

“It’s a challenge working with bilingual children, but I am learning so much from the kids and their culture,” she said. “It’s making me a better teacher. I feel like I belong here.”

But Bonfiglio, who had her bachelor’s degree when she started there and is certified in early child care and elementary education, sometimes feels the pressure to move on.

“The hourly pay is a concern,” she said. People’s perceptions of what it means to be pre-K teacher, she said, lead her to tell people that she teaches “bilingual English and Chinese” to make her role sound more interesting.

The report also identified the need to help centers develop systems that can facilitate entry and review of documentation and produce reports that can be used for monitoring and feedback.

These recommendations may seem technical, but set the stage for creating the kind of learning environment that exists at Chinatown Learning Center.

Wong recalled the days when she would write out invoices for tuition herself.

“The paperwork is phenomenal,” she said, in light of the various funding streams the center has to manage. Over time, Wong has recruited a qualified administrative staff that efficiently handles such logistics.

And over time, becoming a STAR 4 facility through Success by 6 and other efforts has provided the center with many benefits. The yearly merit award from Keystone STARS has helped Wong buy essential materials such as mats, books, supplies, and fixtures like the child-size sinks in every classroom. The STAR 4 designation has also brought in more federal government per-child funding.

“You don’t want to put kids you’re supposed to be helping in a center where they’re going to do the minimal,” Wong said. “The incentives are having the recognition of being high-quality and being able to use high quality as a vehicle to educate others about the importance of high-quality education.”

Chinatown Learning Center’s success is apparent and it has a waiting list, but it is still working to create better outcomes for kids.

The first-floor classroom was vibrant with streams of colorful tulle and plant vines strung from wall to wall. And the ceiling was an arrangement of crimson wooden beams that mirror the roofs of homes in Chinese villages. The feng shui helped the students, who are almost all new to America, feel at home.

And though they were excited about their project – the chickens – the children moved around the room in an orderly and respectful manner, signs of an emphasis on social-emotional development. Two boys wearing bright T-shirts made way for classmates who needed to get by. The children practiced saying “excuse me” and “thank you” as they used Legos and manipulatives. When it was time for lunch, they took turns washing their hands at the sink.

In a few days, these eager young learners will become surrogate parents to a brood of newly hatched chicks.

Kenney delivers $4 billion spending plan with call for soda tax

2016-03-03T16:42:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

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There were no major surprises in Mayor Kenney’s first budget address Thursday.

"It feels really good to be home. … I’ve spent half of my life in this chamber," said the new mayor, who served in City Council for 23 years.

Then he delved into the details of his more than $4 billion spending plan.

He told his former colleagues that a tax on sugary drinks is the only way to raise the funding for citywide pre-K, fixing recreation centers and libraries, as well as bolstering the sagging city pension fund.

"There is simply nowhere else to find this revenue," he said. "We all know we can’t raise property taxes again. We’ve already raised them four times in the last five years."

Despite the call for a new tax, City Council members said they will seriously consider the spending plan.

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, an outspoken education supporter, still has reservations about the tax, saying it could cost jobs — including hers — if it passes.

"I’m worried about labor, and I’m worried about labor because we should be," she said. "And like I continue to tell people around here, I like my job and I know how people feel about taxes."

Council President Darrell Clarke said the proposal deserves a thorough vetting before anyone makes a decision.

"I don’t think there is any appetite to raise real estate taxes for anything, even schools, which has been the case for the past several years," Clarke said. "We have a fund balance that allows us to provide core services to the city of Philadelphia."

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

Mayor pitches soda tax to help pay for pre-K and community schools

2016-03-03T15:01:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Mayor Kenney, in his first budget address, proposed $400 million in new money over five years to pay for a handful of priority initiatives, including universal pre-K and community schools.

The funding, he says, would come from a 3-cents-per-ounce tax on soda, a measure that has twice before been struck down by City Council.

Universal pre-kindergarten is a top goal for the mayor. With almost half of Philadelphia’s children entering kindergarten unprepared, the mayor said, his proposed $256 million investment would help create 25,000 high-quality pre-K seats over the next five years.

Investing in pre-K would have both long-term and more immediate effects on the economy, he said. Raising the number of pre-K slots would create jobs both inside and outside of early childhood education. Having every child in pre-K would also stabilize the workforce, because parents can be more successful at work when they have reliable child care, he said.

In addition to pre-K, the mayor proposed that $39 million from the soda tax revenue go toward his plan to create 25 community schools in his first term. These schools would act as neighborhood centers, integrating social services and health care into the school, while boosting parental and community engagement.

Here is the text of the mayor’s prepared remarks.

Mayor Kenney Budget Address 2017

Lacking a librarian, a school tries to promote reading

2016-02-24T13:37:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Just nine school librarians work full-time in the School District of Philadelphia’s 218 schools. This can be disastrous for literacy development in poor neighborhoods, where families often don’t have books at home.

Studies are clear that students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, perform better academically when they attend schools with functioning libraries. A report from the Library Research Service found that states that gained school librarians showed greater increases in 4th-grade reading scores than states that lost librarians.

And the more library access that students in grades K-3 have, the more likely that they will graduate from high school.

Still, over the last decade, budget constraints have forced many schools to lay off or not replace librarians and to bolt the doors of their libraries, leaving students with even fewer opportunities to read books.

Henry C. Lea Elementary in West Philadelphia is one school working to make up for its lack of a librarian. The school’s last librarian left about four years ago, when school funding was cut.

To help fill the void, the administration at Lea weaves together community-led literacy and reading initiatives to meet students’ needs. Two days a week, volunteers from WePAC, the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children, run a library program at Lea for children in grades K-3.

“As much as we would like that to be a real library, it’s a library program,” said Sarah Joseph, WePAC’s library program manager.

Joseph emphasized the difference between WePAC’s program and a school library with a full-time certified librarian.

The program allows students in grades K-3 to visit the library once a week. There, volunteers read books to students and students are able to return and check out books.

WePAC, which operates library programs in 13 schools across West and Southwest Philadelphia, gathered parents and other community members to curate the books in the library and maintain an updated collection.

“The impact [of the library program] has been incredible,” said Christian Edge, Lea’s engagement coordinator. “[The students] get so excited about what books they get and what they want to read. They’re excited about the text, and that’s what we really want. We want to foster literacy and a love of reading.”

At the start of Black History Month, WePAC donated to Lea a Little Free Library, an outdoor structure that contains books. There are more than 10,000 Little Free Libraries in the world. At Lea, it’s in the school’s yard and resembles a large birdhouse. It operates on a “take a book, leave a book” system that encourages students to read in settings outside of the classroom. Once the library was in place, principal Jennifer Duffy painted it herself with birds and clouds.

“We’re always looking for new ways to expand kids’ access to books to get them more engaged in reading,” Joseph said.

“The little library will probably operate more as ‘take a book,’ and kids will have regular access to books on weekends and on days when we’re not in the library. Kids who are not maybe great on returning their books will have another chance,” she added.

Lea and the Penn Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania will make sure the Little Free Library remains stocked.

“The Penn libraries have been working very closely with WePAC to bring libraries to schools,” said Ansel George, a community outreach librarian with Penn Libraries.

“[What we do at Lea] is run a library program, not a library. We are aware of the limitations in the District’s budget, but we would like to eventually put ourselves out of business and get those librarians back. Volunteers and librarians are not the same,” said George.

George was planning to retire in 2015, but then decided not to after he heard of the opportunity to help expand Lea’s library.

“Since February 2015, we have increased the quality of books and we have modernized the selection and made it more contemporary,” George said.

In addition to maintaining the selection, George and other university volunteers have created other avenues for bringing the latest books to the shelves at Lea.

“During the holiday season, we created an Amazon registry with a book wish list,” said Ralph DeLucia, associate director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs at Penn.

“And we sent the list to a lot of people on Penn’s campus and alumni worldwide. We asked them to buy some books while they made their Christmas purchases to support kids’ learning.”

At the start of the month, 201 of the 534 listed books had been purchased.

“[The Graduate School of Education] has taken to this, and even students there and some undergrads are coming in between their classes to volunteer their time and read to kids,” DeLucia said.

“People have a connection here, and as we look to expand [the library program], we are raising awareness in the Penn community. A core group of people have already been here and they are helping to champion the mission of learning. That was the impetus behind [the book wish list].”

George hopes to expand the library program at Lea to include students in grades 4 through 8.

“In the meantime, we are making library cards for the upper grades so that they can come to the library to check out books,” he said.

In addition to the support of volunteers, Lea also benefits from the University’s “A Book a Day Program,” through which Lea and Penn Alexander school each receive two quality, hardcover books every week. Penn Libraries select the books to match the curricular needs of the schools.

Heidi Gross, Lea’s literacy consultant from Penn, has made efforts to increase students’ literacy through reading at home. Gross coordinated a program that allows children to take books home several times a year. At the end of January, each kindergartner took home Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, a colorful book about the alphabet by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault.

“It’s nice to have brand new books,” said Joseph. “At the very minimum, we are providing access to books that they might not have on a regular basis. We’ve found that only one-third of students in schools that we send our library programs to go to the public library.”

She added, “Our larger goal is to get kids excited about reading and to see the library as a place that is fun. In September before we open up, they’re knocking on the door, and [during the school year] they are asking when they get to go to the library again.”

The concerted effort to increase students’ access to books at Lea demonstrates a community’s investment in improving student outcomes.

“Principal Duffy has revolutionized the way our partners work together,” said Edge. “They communicate effectively to increase opportunities for our kids. It has been a group effort.”

“I keep thinking, what would this look like without WePAC and without the volunteers?” asked George. “These are hundreds of thousands of kids. If WePAC decided they were done with this, what would happen?”

Mayor’s commission pitches City Council on universal pre-K

2016-02-23T14:44:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

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As Philadelphia’s Mayor Kenney pushes for universal pre-K, his commission on the subject is trying to enlist support in City Council.

Kate Shaw of Research for Action testified before City Council that the facts are very clear about pre-K.

"An extensive body of research in education, developmental psychology, neuroscience, medicine, economics shows that quality early childhood education programs produce better education, health, economic, and social outcomes for children, families, and the nation," she said.

Fatima Rogers, principal at Charles W Henry Elementary School in West Mount Airy, told Council that students with a good preschool education are better prepared when they arrive at her doorstep.

"The students who attend pre-kindergarten have an easier transition to kindergarten. The students are less stressed and don’t typically exhibit separation anxiety causing them to be sent to the counselor or other staff," she said.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

City commission hears from public on pre-K plan

2016-02-23T14:07:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The community came forward Monday to give feedback on the city’s plan to close the current child-care gap that leaves two in three preschool-aged children without access to affordable, high-quality pre-kindergarten.

"It is a great start, but it can do more," said Lorraine Simms, expressing the sentiment of most community members who spoke before the city’s commission on universal pre-K.

Simms, a grandmother of 16, is a community liaison with the West Philadelphia Action for Early Learning Initiative, which works through Drexel University to build awareness about early childhood education and improve the quality of child-care centers.

"Our children need to learn how to read by the end of 3rd grade, and pre-K is a major factor in determining whether they will be able to do this," said Simms. "The plan needs to emphasize the importance of having high-quality teachers. … We need skilled teachers who can meet students’ needs."

Earlier this month, the commission released an initial plan that recommends how Philadelphia can expand and fund high-quality early education for all 3- and 4-year-old residents. To gather feedback, the commission will be holding community meetings like this around the city over the next few weeks.

"This is a critical time in our movement, so we need to hear your voices," said Loretta Sweet Jemmott, co-chair of the commission. "And as we listen to your feedback, and write it down, we will work to incorporate it into our final report.”

Co-chair Sharon Easterling added that the commission is “trying to create a plan that builds on the best parts of our system and provides lots of resources for the child-care providers who are serving our most vulnerable children.”

Like Simms, many community members emphasized that growing and maintaining a talented early childhood workforce is essential to an effective universal pre-K system. And increasing workers’ wages and providing technical support to providers, they said, will be essential to establishing this workforce.

Nationally, pre-K teachers receive an average wage of $27,130, compared with nearly $50,000 for kindergarten teachers, according to the commission’s research. The low wages make it difficult for early child-care workers to sustain a living.

“I keep going to work every day, because I love it so much, but it’s clear that the lives of early childhood education workers are overlooked,” said Christopher Rouse, a pre-K instructor at Western Learning Center.

Rouse said he was homeless for a few months because he was unable to make ends meet on $9.60 per hour with no benefits.

“As pre-K workers, we are bridging the gap for these 3-year-olds to do something they’ve never experienced before. It’s important work and I love to see the impact we make, but the city is not investing in us,” Rouse said. “We cultivate the future.”

The center where Rouse works is rated a STAR 4 on the Keystone Stars scale, meaning that it provides the highest quality care to its children. Yet to maintain this quality, Rouse said, teachers must meet a certain number of training hours each year and some of these trainings must be paid for out of pocket.

Members of the commission reacted to Rouse’s testimony with a sense of urgency and understanding.

“We are committed to raising salaries,” said Easterling. “We can’t build the skills of young people on the backs of people who continue to be impoverished. It’s not right.”

Speakers highlighted the amount of time and funding it will take to move facilities to become high quality, a large focus of the commission’s plan.

“Quality is not cheap, and it takes time,” said Allison Acevedo, director of education at United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. “Under United Way’s Success By 6 quality improvement initiative, it takes 18 months and $30,000 for one child-care center to go through the quality improvement program.”

And this amount of time and money doesn’t even cover how much it takes to sustain quality, Acevedo said.

Some speakers called on the commission to keep the needs of English language learners in mind, reminding the commission of the importance of building a system that will be a natural bridge to the K-12 school system.

“Great ideas came through tonight, and we will continue to engage the community, because it is important to give everyone a voice,” said Jemmott. “The community realizes how important it is to give all of our children access to quality early education, and this will not happen overnight.”

The commission will continue to collect comments until March 15 and will release a final report on April 15.

Commission outlines $60M-a-year pre-K plan

2016-02-03T15:54:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The mayor’s commission on universal pre-kindergarten released a draft report that cites a $60 million annual price tag and makes it clear that unprecedented public and private cooperation will be necessary to reach a goal of providing a high-quality experience to all eligible students.

The 17-member commission, comprised of educators, early childhood education experts, and city officials, was tasked with drafting a plan for high-quality universal pre-kindergarten in Philadelphia.

The draft report comes after months of digging into scientific research on child development and the effects of high-quality early education. The commission, approved by voters last spring, studied similar pre-K expansion efforts across the country and spoke with parents, child-care workers, and community members.

“We envision a Philadelphia where all 3- and 4-year-olds have access to quality, affordable, and accessible Pre-K opportunities, which are sustainably funded and allow each student to become a lifelong learner and contributing citizen,” the report said.

Out of 42,500 preschool-aged children in Philadelphia, it is estimated that only one out of three has access to high-quality, publicly funded pre-K, according to the report.

One of the benefits of good early childhood education, the report found, is return on investment. For every dollar invested in high-quality child care, the need for services like special education and remediation is reduced by $4 to $16.

Expanding high-quality pre-K can also help close the achievement gap, particularly for poor families. Children enrolled in good pre-K programs are more ready to enter kindergarten, are less likely to be deemed at-risk, and have better life outcomes than their peers who are not.

“We believe expanding pre-K is more than feasible,” said Otis Hackney, the mayor’s chief education officer, through a spokeswoman. But it will require work, he said, to maximize existing state and federal funding sources and to better coordinate current resources.

“The Kenney administration is working diligently with City Council, philanthropists, the corporate community and the finance department to align our policy priorities to resources,” Hackney said.

But “ultimately, moving towards quality pre-K for all children will involve the addition of local city investments,” he said.

The report calls for a $180 million investment over three years. In order to boost access to affordable pre-K, the commission made a number of recommendations and is currently evaluating three proposed funding models.

Recommendations

The recommendations address how to deliver high-quality child care, which populations to target, how to determine areas of priority, quality standards, time in classroom, professional development, curriculum, governance structure, and evaluation of providers.

For a complete list of the recommendations, visit the report or executive summary.

The umbrella recommendations are:

Create a pre-K system that is available to all 3- and 4-year-olds in Philadelphia.
Assure that all Philadelphia pre-K programs are high-quality programs.
Improve quality by increasing participation in the Keystone STARS rating program.

The commission recommends that the city give priority to children most likely to be academically and socially unprepared for kindergarten (children who have special needs or low income, English Language learners, homeless children, and children of immigrants).

High-quality programs follow rigorous standards, are monitored by outside observers, and report on child outcomes. The commission recommends that pre-K be delivered in Keystone STAR 3 and 4 facilities and facilities rated “STAR 3 Ready.”

Many child-care providers struggle to reach STAR 3 and 4 ratings, because of the cost of attaining high quality with little financial returns. The commission recommends that the city develop an outreach plan to help providers gain access to supports that will move them to high-quality status.

Funding

The commission reported three funding models for investing in high-quality pre-K. Each model assumes a yearly recurring revenue of $60 million over three years, a total of $180 million through fiscal year 2019.

Philadelphia Pre-K Supplemental. Under this model, the city would create and fund “Pre-K Supplemental Slots.” The cost of each slot would match the current Pre-K Counts per-child rate of $8,500. The city would choose providers and focus on certain zip codes to expand quality access. Under this model, there would be about 25,000 high-quality slots in Philadelphia in FY19, almost 10,000 more than what exists in FY16.
Quality Supplement: This model would allow the city to provide a supplement of $5,000 for each existing high-quality slot. Providers and families can combine up to two funding sources. Under this model the total number of high-quality slots could grow to 19,689.
A hybrid of Philadelphia Pre-K Supplemental and Quality Supplement: A combination of these two models would fund additional high-quality slots and provide supplemental funding to help providers fill the gap between the cost of care per child and existing funding.

The commission also identified some next steps for the city to consider as it expands access for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

The city needs to maximize the potential of the existing early childhood workforce by helping teachers navigate the process of getting degrees and certifications, and by supporting providers with pre-service and in-service training, technical assistance, and classroom coaching.
The commission also recommends that the city explore various models of governance that include public and private partnerships and stronger coordination among the city, School District, and the state to manage the distribution of funds to pre-K providers. This would lessen the burden that providers face in combining and collecting funds.
Lastly, for children to experience the best outcomes, the pre-K program must successfully transition children to kindergarten, making sure the children’s experiences are aligned to what will be expected of them. The commission suggests that the city develop an approach that involves providers, families, and the community to look at curriculum, instruction, and supportive services.

Over the next few weeks, the commission will continue to gather feedback from stakeholders and will release a final report inclusive of feedback in April. The public is welcome to submit comments to prekcommission@phila.gov.

A book fair with multicultural appeal

2016-02-02T18:18:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It’s uncommon for children of color to learn whole truths about their history in school. Finding books about it on their own is another challenge, but the community wants to fill this gap.

To jump start Black History Month, the African American Children’s Book Project will host its annual African-American Children’s Book Fair this Saturday, Feb. 6.

The event, which will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Community College of Philadelphia, is free and open to the public.

The fair’s mission is to preserve and promote multicultural literature and foster a joy of reading within children in the community.

“Books empower our children,” said Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, founder of the African-American Children’s Book Project. “But children have to read books that reflect their image. And they have to read outside of their normal school coursework.”

Children of color make up about 85 percent of students in the School District of Philadelphia, where 51 percent of students in the 3rd grade could not read at grade level in 2012.

The Book Project’s response? Introduce children to books that can mean something to them. Nationally, there is no concerted effort to assure the inclusion of culturally relevant literature in school curricula, and there are still reports of books that give children misleading and sanitized accounts of history.

“Our children need to find books with stories about themselves and about the people who made them,” said Lloyd-Sgambati. “The past does dictate the future, and this doesn’t always have to be negative. They need to know about their ancestors.”

The book fair, attended by about 3,500 each year on average, will give attendees free books and the opportunity to purchase affordable books from the largest selection of African-American children’s books in the country.

“We put the books at eye level, because we want everyone to feel comfortable. We don’t want them to feel intimidated when they walk in,” said Lloyd-Sgambati.

Children will get free books through activities like a reading circle hosted by NBC10 and TELEMUNDO62, and a literary salon hosted by PECO.

Over 20 renowned authors and illustrators will have their work featured. And award-winning illustrator will lead children in a book illustration workshop and David Miller, author of Khalil’s Way, a book about facing challenges, will host a bullying workshop. Karen Thompson, author of Crocheting with Lucy Loop will teach attendees how to crochet using the story she tells in her book.

The educator’s book giveaway — sponsored by Wells Fargo, Health Partners Plans, Health Partners Foundation, Always Best Care Senior Services, and Tierney — will donate books to teachers and librarians who present identification at the fair.

This is an opportunity for educators to learn about the multicultural books they can bring into their classrooms, said Lloyd-Sgambati, citing Ira’s Shakespeare Dream by Glenda Armand and illustrator Floyd Cooper, a book about 19th century Black American and British actor and playwright Ira Aldridge.

This is a great way to connect children of color children to Shakespeare and theater, Lloyd-Sgambati said.

For parents, Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, and Universal Companies have sponsored a book-giveaway that will take place at the fair. The Book Project’s Preserve a Legacy, Buy a Book campaign aims to ensure that children have books to read at home.

Lloyd-Sgambati stressed the importance of giving books that present children with possibilities.

“When a child reads something they are not interested in, it discourages them from reading. We need to put more thought into what we have them read.”

The long drive to higher-quality child care

2016-01-14T14:57:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Every weekday morning, Rosaida Benitez makes an almost hour-long drive from her home in the Northeast to her son’s child care center in North Philadelphia.

This is her son Gabriel’s second year at Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha, a community child care center located near Temple University’s campus. They make this trip each morning because APM was the only high-quality center with open seats that could meet Gabriel’s needs.

“When I started looking for centers in the Northeast, they were very limited [in number],” said Benitez, “And by the time I filled out applications, they were all full.”

Benitez’s quest to find a high-quality center for her 4-year-old is representative of Philadelphia’s wanting supply — only 20 percent of children have access to high-quality early education.

Designations of quality come from the state’s Keystone STARS rating system, which sets performance standards. Factors that determine a site’s rating, set on a scale of STAR 1 to STAR 4, include staff qualifications, professional development, family and community relationships, and a facility’s leadership and management.

Only facilities rated STAR 3 or 4 are considered high-quality; those rated STAR 1 or 2 are working up to high-quality, with each level building upon the previous one.

A study by The Reinvestment Fund found that 66 percent of child care programs across the city participate in Keystone STARS. Only 21 percent of these programs have a rating of STAR 3 or 4.

This gap of 29,000 high-quality child care slots means that 68 percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds in the city are not in high-quality facilities.

“Most of our 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t sitting at home during the day. A vast majority of them are in child care centers,” said Sharon Easterling, co-chair of the Commission for Universal Pre-K, which is developing an implementation plan for pre-K expansion across the city.

“So the challenge is determining to what extent we create new services and move the children around or take these existing programs and raise the quality,” she added.

Choosing high-quality care

For Benitez, “high quality” meant finding a center where her son could feel comfortable. This meant sacrificing convenience. “The locations in the Northeast didn’t meet the expectations I was looking for,” she said. “I was looking for something my child could relate to, culturally.”

Gabriel lives in a Dominican household, where his family mostly speaks Spanish. “In making my decision, I realized that my son would be in the classroom for 10 hours a day and sometimes for 12 hours. It would’ve been difficult to place him in a location where the teachers only speak one language,” she said.

Among parents or guardians making such thorough decisions about child care, Benitez, a program director at the KenCrest South child care center, is an anomaly.

“I was able to make this decision for my son, because I am familiar with what a high-quality environment looks like,” she said.

The commission on pre-K has determined that bolstering parent knowledge and engagement around quality is a large part of achieving universality.

“Most parents aren’t asking about quality. They come in and just want to know if we have any openings,” said Carlotta Harris, a worker at Theresa’s Little Treasures, a child care center in the Northwest. “Some parents aren’t aware that there is a rating system and that certain STARS facilities can offer their child more.”

A University of Pennsylvania study found that children in STAR 3 and STAR 4 facilities were observed to have significantly higher outcomes than children in STAR 1 and STAR 2 centers.

To raise awareness around differences in child outcomes, the city needs to put forth a public education campaign and give parents incentives, such as tax credits or no copays, for choosing high-quality options, said Easterling.

Barriers to achieving high-quality

While Gabriel’s child care center has a STAR 4 rating, Benitez has recognized a trend in high teacher turnover.

“Over the past 12 months, my son has had three different lead teachers. Each time one leaves, he has to adjust to another teaching style. And the teacher then spends a lot of instructional time assessing students to determine where they are,” she said.

Finding and retaining enough teachers for the thousands of slots that will be opened is an area of focus for the commission. “It’s harder to find qualified teachers to work in early education, because the wages are low,” said Catherine Blunt, a commission member and former principal of Parkway Center City High School.

A report from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, supported by the William Penn Foundation, found that early child care providers universally do not pay well. Workers who hold four-year degrees make on average $24,000 a year and less than a quarter of staff receive employer-funded health insurance or retirement benefits.

Research has shown that one of the biggest barriers to receiving and maintaining a STAR 3 or 4 rating is a center’s inability to afford the most qualified teachers.

“The higher the rating, the more expensive it is to provide care,” said Blunt, “So most of these child care workers are making anywhere from seven to 10 dollars per hour.”

To improve and maintain Keystone STARS ratings, child care centers must hire directors, lead teachers, assistants, and aides who have met particular education requirements and acquired the necessary certifications and clearances. Each year, all staff must fulfill a certain number of training hours. The checklist of requirements gets longer with each STARS level.

The NFF study also found that providers struggle to reach a high-quality rating, because expenses increase over time, with no promise of commensurate gains in revenue.

High turnover occurs because teachers are looking for the best deal, said Benitez. Childcare workers may be in situations where the salary is higher than most other places, but there are no benefits or in a situation in which the salary is average but they have benefits, she said.

“As we move to universal pre-K, there is a need to increase the salaries of workers and there is a need to provide additional training at low costs to the centers. The workers themselves may be struggling parents and most likely have loans to pay off,” said Blunt.

The city wants to move in this direction. “We are working on financing scenarios that are both fair to the workers and will also ensure many more children can access opportunities for quality pre-K quickly,” said Anne Gemmell, the city’s new director of pre-K.

Benitez’s ideal situation for Gabriel would be that he goes to a center that is within walking distance of his home, where he forms strong relationships with his teachers, said Benitez.

“I’m worried about his transition into the school system,” she said, “because he will end up going to a neighborhood school here in the Northeast, away from the community he had at APM.”

A challenging path to affordable, accessible pre-K in Philadelphia

2016-01-12T13:53:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

When Jim Kenney took the oath of office last week as the city’s 99th mayor, he outlined a vision to help “make every Philadelphia neighborhood the best it can be.”

He highlighted expanded pre-kindergarten as a key part of this vision.

“For a young family, affordable pre-K can make the difference of whether or not they save for college,” he said.

The mayor’s push to expand pre-K is not coming from out of the blue.

It is in line with the city’s voter-approved implementation of the Commission on Universal Pre-K in June of 2015. Tasked with developing a plan for adopting affordable and accessible universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds across Philadelphia, the commission has been grappling with how to ensure that all children have access to high-quality care.

“There are quality deserts across the city, and if we were to look at a map we’d find that the areas with the highest need have low numbers of high-quality programs,” said Sharon Easterling, executive director of the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children and co-chair of the commission. “We must start with these neighborhoods.”

A shortage of about 7,000 high-quality child care slots exists across the city, according to a report from The Reinvestment Fund, which uses investments to create opportunities for Philadelphia’s low-income community. In particular, Center City, the far Northeast, Strawberry Mansion, the River Wards in North Philadelphia, and Southwest Philadelphia have the most critical shortages.

Studies have found a strong correlation between high-quality early education and long-term positive outcomes such as K-12 cost savings, higher high school graduation rates, reduced crime, and an increased likelihood of college attendance and employment. Poverty is also less likely to persist from generation to generation.

Research shows there are short-term benefits, too. Shared Prosperity Philadelphia, the city’s comprehensive anti-poverty plan, reported that high-quality early learning promotes school readiness by improving early literacy.

“In Maryland, they have had pre-K for about a decade,” said Anne Gemmell, the city’s new director of pre-K, “The First Five Years Fund found that the vast majority of children [there] who had quality pre-K were ready for kindergarten.”

“By extension … kindergarteners who were ready to learn were reading on grade level by 3rd grade. Right now [in Philadelphia], our kids are going to school unprepared to learn.”

Funding the expansion

The commission will make recommendations on how to finance a universal pre-K system, but the “full costs” associated with expanding high-quality pre-K are still not understood.

A study from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, supported by the William Penn Foundation, reported that early care and education programs universally operate on the financial edge with no financial safety nets. They make short-term decisions from paycheck to paycheck because of their small, unreliable cash reserves and lack of operating surpluses.

The inability such programs to cover their expenses each year is a direct result of their financial model, the study found.

“It’s difficult to cover the high, fixed cost of care since the dollars follow the low-income students,” said Elliot Weinbaum, a program director at the William Penn Foundation, which funds research on early childhood education.

The financial model also prevents providers from setting high tuition rates. Government subsidies cover about 75 to 85 percent of a child’s true cost of care, which ranges between $10,300 to $12,800 per child depending on provider quality, according to the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Providers must complete an extensive process to collect all tuition fees.

“There are gaps in funding,” said Weinbaum. “No funding source is reaching the cost of care for each child.” Providers deal with an overly complex financial management system that required them to combine multiple revenue sources with child care subsidies, the NFF study reported.

Funding for pre-K in Philadelphia has traditionally come from the federal government in the form of Head Start funding and the Child Care Fund, with Pre-K Counts and entitlement dollars also helping to serve the city’s early education needs.

“There is nothing predictable about the the state budget,” said Gemmell, “We’re hopeful the state budget is resolved and a few extra million dollars come to Philadelphia for early ed, but we’re prepared to operate without it.”

The quality issue

Funding proposals are challenged by the need to increase not only the number of slots available, but also the quality of available slots. “It’s a balancing act between quality and quantity,” said Gemmell.

“Right now we’re talking about providing quality pre-K to children who currently lack access. We are estimating [it will cost] about $60 million,” said Gemmell. “We are looking to add local funding and better coordinate the existing investments, so we can get the most for our children out of existing funding.”

The commission has cited other, more long-term figures. To fully fund pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds in the city, it is going to take another $500 million, roughly $120 million in state money each year for the next four years on top of what the state is already spending, said the pre-K commission’s Easterling.

“State governments aren’t dripping in extra money, but it has to come from somewhere,” she said.

Wolf’s release of an emergency half-year spending plan recently granted Philadelphia 1,500 new Pre-K Counts seats.

“While this number sounds large, it is a small step in the right direction, considering the need in all counties,” said Gemmell. It’s a “common sense investment in what we know works for children and families,” she said.

Early literacy campaign gets big boost from Kenney’s inaugural fundraiser

2016-01-07T12:02:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For Mayor Kenney, celebrations are about coming together to make Philadelphia better.

At his inauguration “block party” Monday night, attendees did just that, raising $650,000 in private donations for public education. Early literacy efforts in the School District of Philadelphia will be the main beneficiary.

The two largest donations, each $100,000, came from the city’s carpenters’ union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 98.

“Our goal was to raise more than what the campaign could have just donated — so, more than $250,000,” said Lauren Hitt, the mayor’s spokesperson.

About 100 individuals and 50 businesses, including the Automobile Dealers Association, Comcast, and Friends Hospital, contributed to the funds raised, said Donna Frisby-Greenwood, president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, which collected the donations.

Kenney’s goal is to have businesses, nonprofits, and city government work together to improve educational conditions.

“Mayor Kenney and his team have been steadfast in their commitment to children and families,” said Diane Castelbuono, the District’s chief of early childhood education. “We are delighted that they have such confidence in the city’s early literacy efforts to devote their inaugural day fundraising efforts in support of this work.”

The city’s efforts in early literacy, through the READ! by 4th campaign, have been centered on getting every child reading at or above grade level by the time they enter 4th grade.

The independent, nonprofit Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, which brings private philanthropic donations to individual District schools or initiatives, will channel most of the $650,000 to its Right Books Campaign, which aims to raise $3.5 million by the 2017-18 school year to put a leveled library in every K-3 classroom. If the campaign meets its goal, about 48,000 students across 2,000 classrooms will benefit.

The leveled libraries, which contain books grouped according to reading levels, will be distributed as teachers participate in the District’s summer literacy training institutes. Forty schools that participated in the literacy institute last summer have already received partial libraries for all their K-3 classrooms.

But literacy efforts aren’t the sole beneficiary of Monday’s fundraiser.

“We know that there is some interest from the carpenters’ union in supporting mathematics instruction,” said Frisby-Greenwood.

The union wants to increase the number of students who enter apprenticeship programs with the right skills, Frisby-Greenwood said. The Fund is in the process of working with the School District to determine how donations can be used to support mathematics instruction.

“To have the mayor say education is his number one priority is important. And now, through the Fund, which we have rebooted, private donors can support the impactful work happening at the School District," Frisby-Greenwood said. “This is more than I could have ever imagined or asked for.”

The Kenney administration said it will focus on raising funds for expanding access to pre-K, building community schools, and working with the governor on state funding.

“We know that the money raised from this event doesn’t make up for the state’s funding obligation,” said Hitt.

Fund for School District kicks off early literacy, classroom library campaign

2015-11-19T12:21:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The city is fueling its mission to put kids on track to reading on grade level by 4th grade.

On Tuesday, Superintendent William Hite, Mayor-elect Jim Kenney, and 30 other city leaders convened at Clara Barton Elementary School to launch the $3.5 million Right Books Campaign that aims to place leveled libraries in classrooms and comprehensive literacy coaches in every public elementary school in Philadelphia.

“We have until 2017 to raise [the money], but we know with the generosity of Philadelphians that we will do that much sooner,” said Donna Frisby-Greenwood, the president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, which heads the campaign.

The Fund is an independent, not-for-profit organization that channels investments from the private sector to the initiatives of the Philadelphia public education system in early literacy, school safety, and high school redesign.

It seeks to match a $6 million investment from the William Penn Foundation and a $4.5 million donation from the Lenfest Foundation. So far, it has raised $10,000, the cost of two classroom libraries, which will be named in honor of Mayor-elect Kenney and Superintendent Hite.

“We solve a lot of problems that we see later on when we teach kids to read on grade level by 3rd grade,” said Hite. “We know how to teach reading and we are training our teachers, and the next part is making sure we get the right books in the right hands at the right grade level for our young people.”

If the campaign meets its goal, more than 48,000 K-3 students in the District will have access to classroom libraries as well as teachers trained to implement effective early literacy methods with support from reading coaches.

The Right Books Campaign recognizes that in any given K-3 classroom students may be reading on as many as 26 different levels. Though classroom libraries don’t replace school libraries and librarians, the “right” books in a classroom ensure that every student can have access to curriculum-aligned books that match their reading level and learning style.

“We are all on the same team here,” said Kenney. “We are going to continue to fight our battles at Harrisburg to try to get the money that we need … but in the end we have the ultimate responsibility to provide our kids with the resources they need to reach their potential.”

He added, “No zip code should matter relative to the opportunities in their lives.”

The city leaders made a start on this by reading to students in 30 classrooms at Clara Barton that morning. To participate in the read-athon, the leaders each raised $160 for the campaign.

“If we want our children to have a bright future, the single most important tool we have to use is reading at grade level,” said Frisby-Greenwood.

Teachers put their literacy training to work at Taylor Elementary

2015-11-06T16:16:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

“Es tiempo de limpiar y regresar a sus mesas,” said Carolena Lescano as she called the attention of the 26 2nd-graders in her dual-language classroom at Bayard Taylor Elementary School in North Philadelphia. Then in English: “It’s time to clean up and return to your tables.”

It was the last few minutes of guided reading time. Near the windows, Eli, Fernando, and Jacqueline were lost in their headphones listening to stories on the site Raz-Kids. Stretched out on the carpet, a handful of students independently paged through picture books.

In the center of the room, Randy and Jeremy, one of five pairs, switched between English and Spanish as they used colorful magnetic letters to spell out “high-frequency,” or common vocabulary words at the “word work” center. Nearby, four upturned faces hung on to every word as Lescano read El Papalote by Alma Flor Ada, a story about a mother who passes on a family tradition of kite-making to her children. “¿Cual es esta palabra?” Lescano asked Yasarie, a girl with dark shoulder-length hair in the group. “What’s this word?”

“¿Que sonido hacer esta letra? What sound does this letter make?” she asked, pointing to words on the page. The teacher continued around the circle like this, asking Maria, then Ingrid, and then Anelis, who all read at a 1st-grade level, to pronounce words and read sentences until they covered each page of El Papalote. The girls were learning that strong readers self-monitor their understanding by stopping to ask questions while reading.

When guided reading time was officially over, students scrambled back to their seats. “Dame un abrazo,” some said as they hugged each other. A few students settled for high-fives. Before long, they were quietly awaiting Lescano’s directions for their seven-minute exercise break.

As random as it might seem, the scene in Lescano’s classroom is carefully scripted, part of Philadelphia’s renewed effort to make sure that all children can read proficiently by the time they leave 3rd grade. Over the summer, the District held a weeklong early literacy institute for K-3 teachers from the District’s lowest-performing schools. Nineteen of Taylor’s 26 K-3 teachers were among about 700 who attended the training, which was grant-funded as part of the city’s READ! by 4th campaign.

The goal is for children to spend more time practicing “authentic reading and writing” while freeing up the teacher to spend more time with individual students and smaller groups, explained Sara Lazrow, Taylor’s early literacy specialist. That approach is known as “balanced literacy,” and it allows instruction to meet the needs of all students, despite the disparate reading levels in one classroom.

“We’ve adopted the District’s balanced literacy framework and we’ve adopted the Children’s Literacy Initiatives’ (CLI) best practices,” said David Laver, now in his second year as Taylor’s principal.

CLI, which has promoted best practices for teaching young children to read since 1988 in Philadelphia and elsewhere, is working with Taylor to make instruction consistent across classrooms.

“A lot of teachers were doing great things, but everybody was doing their own thing to a large extent,” said Laver. Significantly, most teachers did not break down their classes into small groups so students could get more focused attention.

Helping teachers like Lescano do this effectively is Lazrow’s main job. She coaches Taylor’s K-3 teachers through CLI in partnership with the District and tries to see each teacher at least twice over a three-week period.

Throughout classrooms in Taylor’s main building and annex, balanced literacy was in evidence. In Samantha Cafaro’s morning literacy block, she led a whole-group activity around “word families” with her 2nd graders. Students raised their hands to volunteer “family” words, meaning words that are related, for example, because they end with “-an,” “-en,” “-in,” or “-un.”

Subsequently, students dispersed around the room into small, differentiated groups. They organized words into word families at their desks, put together word parts using Legos, or picked among the color-coded books to reach their independent reading goals.

In Cheryl Veney’s 1st-grade classroom, students read in pairs. Under this model, the two students switched between the role of coach and reader.

This independent reading was also mirrored in Nicole Molino’s 3rd-grade classroom.

“I like to read with others so I don’t get bored and I understand the book better,” said 3rd grader Seinnel Cruz, who read a book titled Animals of the High Mountains by Judith E. Rinard with a classmate.

With a grant from United Way, Taylor implemented a 100-Book Challenge this year, through the American Reading Co., which supplied leveled libraries to all K-3 teachers who attended the District’s summer institute.

“We adopted the 100-Book Challenge because students in one classroom may be on different reading levels,” said Leah Perucci, Taylor’s school-based teacher leader. “The challenge allows students to read on their independent level based on a book’s color band, and as students’ skills go up, they change color bands. It allows teachers to set power goals, and pretty soon all students will know these goals.”

As part of the challenge, Christian, a 3rd-grader at Taylor, reads on level 1-Red, equivalent to 2nd grade. To make it to the White level, which represents where he needs to be for 3rd grade, Christian must meet his goal of decoding three-syllable words, said Lazrow.

To meet such goals, students spend at least 30 minutes a day reading and practicing their skills in school and at home.

In addition to the schoolwide shift to balanced literacy and the 100-Book Challenge, teachers at Taylor have physically altered their classrooms to establish a student-centered classroom culture.

“Coming out of the summer training, the focus of my coaching at the beginning of the year was the physical environment,” said Lazrow. “Teachers needed a lot of support with that. The physical environment includes setting up basic classroom procedures, teaching children around the classroom culture, and making sure small-group and large-group areas exist.”

In keeping with student-centered spaces, no K-3 classroom at Taylor has a teacher’s desk. Students handcrafted all the alphabet charts on the walls. The colorful posters that catalogue classroom rules and procedures are living community documents – students build on them as the year progresses.

“Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible,” was a phrase that appeared on a bulletin board in every room, accompanied by a list of student-friendly action steps to help them meet these class culture goals.

“I like to have responsibility in class,” said 9-year-old Louis Duprey. He explained: “That can mean that I only interrupt the class if I have an emergency.”

Veney established her classroom culture around the book I Like Being Me, by Judy Lalli. “I’m so glad they introduced it to me at the training this summer,” she said.

“The poems in the book give my students ideas they can relate to, and I’ve formed a community in my classroom because of it," she added. "They talk about their feelings and they learn about the feelings of others. This goes a long way with management and the learning process. Not much teaching can go on without this kind of community.”

This strong sense of community is also what kept the doors at Taylor open in 2013, when the District attempted to shutter the school for low performance on standardized tests.

The school’s 2013-14 progress report shows that 20.5 percent of 3rd graders scored proficient or advanced on the PSSA, compared to the District’s 41 percent average. The results were similar in grade 4 with 20.3 percent of students at Taylor meeting proficiency, compared to 41 percent in the District.

“Our biggest challenge is our very large ELL [English language learner] population,” said Laver, the principal. “This is a Latino community, so a lot of students are coming from homes where English is not the primary language. They don’t have that base when they get to us in kindergarten. A lot of them don’t have that literacy foundation in either language.”

Taylor is located among rowhomes adorned with Puerto Rican flags and Latino establishments like Ashley’s Dominican Beauty Salon, Diaz’s food market and Iglesia Evangelica Bautistia. Students at Taylor are a part of this culture.

Three-quarters of students identify as Latino, and 19 percent identify as Black, with the remainder identifying as Asian or "Other." All of the school’s students are classified as economically disadvantaged.

“It’s great that we allow them to use their first language to learn,” said Lescano. “It gets challenging, because I have a lot of kids with strong literacy skills to begin with, but I also have kids who are very low because they have low background knowledge. This is a 2nd-grade classroom and a lot of them are reading at a kindergarten level.”

Veney, the 1st-grade teacher, saw similar patterns in her classroom. Of her 20 students, she said, “I have five on grade level, which is a level J in the leveled library. The rest are on the yellow levels, levels A and B for pre-K.”

To address students who are far below proficiency, teachers regularly use AIMSweb, a screening and progress monitoring system, to track student reading levels throughout the school year.

“We have a lot of challenges,” said principal Laver. “We are working with parents and the community, and with these new implementations, we are moving in the right direction."

Fabiola Cineas’ coverage of early literacy in the Notebook is supported by funds from the Free Library of Philadelphia.

READ! by 4th director explains goals of campaign

2015-10-29T12:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Notebook sat down with Jenny Bogoni of the Free Library, READ! by 4th’s executive director. In the interview, she outlines the mission of the campaign, its strategies, and challenges.

What is the READ! by 4th campaign’s main goal?

Ensuring all children can read on grade level by the time they enter 4th grade.

Why does Philadelphia need this campaign now?

For decades, we have had a high percentage of kids not reading on grade level. There is research nationally and locally that shows that kids who aren’t reading on grade level by the time they reach 4th grade are set on a path where they’re unlikely to be successful.

They are four times more likely to not graduate high school on time. Research also shows that if you don’t graduate on time you are more likely to not attend college and earn less than a family-sustaining wage in your lifetime.

As the pedagogy shifts from learning to read to reading to learn, students are essentially no longer being taught how to read. They have to use their reading skills to learn other things. And if they’re not reading on grade level, they’re then not learning those other things effectively. All of these things just pile on each other.

Reading by 4th grade is the gateway benchmark to a life of success. And if we are not fulfilling this benchmark for kids, we’re not giving them this fundamental skill that they need for everything else and our city’s got no hope. This is the foundation of everything else. Philadelphia is trying to become a world-class city. This is why we need this campaign now.

Previously you’ve talked about the four strands of the campaign: increasing parent involvement, improving student attendance, strengthening instructional strategies, and creating avenues for outside-of-school learning time. Would you say that any of these four is more important than another?

No. It’s the interlocking nature of the four that is key. Parents need to understand how they can be the best and first teachers of their children. We need to give them the tools and the strategies to do that and to feel empowered to do it. I don’t know a parent anywhere who doesn’t want their kid to learn how to read.

Once kids are supported in the home and in their communities, we need kids attending school regularly. If they can’t attend school regularly, every day and on time, they’re not going to be there to learn from the specialists. And with instructional strategies, more and more people are [saying] that teaching reading is rocket science. It is complicated. It’s not something you can just do casually. It’s extremely critical to have those trained professionals with best practices in reading instruction.

And then we need out-of–school time and spaces where kids can reinforce instruction. And it’s the interplay of those four strategies that will allow it to be successful.

So can we describe these four areas as a staircase, with each step representing a facet of the campaign?

I don’t think of them as chronological, but more as four legs of a table. Without any one leg, the table isn’t stable.

How does the campaign decide what area it pushes for when? For example, do you say “we will focus on improving attendance today, and in two weeks we will tap into parent engagement”? How is it all organized?

Everything has to be pushed simultaneously. There’s urgency to this mission and this vision that requires that we both build the plane and fly the plane at the same time. To some degree, people out there know what should be done. There are best practices and research-proven strategies. We now have to adopt them, implement them, and find resources to scale them.

We must also make sure that none of our neighborhoods are left behind and that all of our children can be touched. But because I feel like these four legs of the table are all important, they have to be happening together.

So how do you plan to make these things happen simultaneously? And how do you hold READ! by 4th partners accountable?

We are an initiative, an effort. We are driven by a coalition of partners. So it’s the ability of the campaign to articulate a set of standards that we believe to be essential. That would be going below each of those four pillars, determining some of the key activities we want to see, and articulating what those are so that people and organizations know what we are prioritizing. Then, to some degree, we have to hope that the resources flow to let people implement them with as much fidelity as a possible. We need to encourage philanthropy to invest in those priority strategies. We have to keep all of those balls in the air at once.

Data from 2012 show that in Philadelphia, 70 percent of White kids and 57 percent of Asian kids met proficiency, compared to less than 40 percent of Blacks and Latinos. Proficiency levels were also lower for special education students and those learning English. Has the campaign tailored strategy towards this achievement gap and reaching out to certain communities over others?

That decision hasn’t been made yet. That’s a discussion we need to have at the advisory council level. I personally believe that tailored strategies make some sense. We must still make the decision whether to identify tailored strategies and not do anything else, or just have, among our set of strategies, some that are tailored to certain groups.

Skeptics of the campaign claim that it does not and will not reach enough kids, but one way to address this would be to make sure each child has access to a library. Does the campaign advocate for school libraries with full-time certified librarians?

The campaign has not identified an advocacy agenda. If we as a city are committed to this vision, then we have to have a conversation about what resources are necessary. What are the conditions for success that will allow all of these strategies to survive?

When skeptics say "What’s our likelihood of touching all kids?" it really depends on to what degree Philadelphia decides to makes this a priority. So that’s part of making this a campaign and not a program. We have to talk about the statistics, develop an advocacy agenda, and get people invested financially and with their own time and energy in what we are doing.

What makes READ! by 4th different from anything the city has seen before?

It is this collective impact approach. It is an ever-growing group of partners that has come together around a shared vision. We are working to identify shared metrics and are committed to shared accountability and working together to ensure that the strategies they prioritize get implemented.

Do you feel that the campaign has everything it needs to meet its goal? If not, what kind of support does the campaign lack?

We do not have everything we need. We need fully funded schools with a fair funding formula, which many groups have been working toward for a long time. We need more high-quality Pre-K slots, and we need to make sure kids and families know how to access them and are taking advantage of them. We need families to be aware of the small, yet important things they can do to set their kids up for success. It can be something as simple as singing to their kids each day. We need this known by every family in every corner of our city. We need a belief and sense of urgency this campaign can and should be done and should permeate the city. It needs to become everybody’s priority.

Can you speak on the role of certain partners? Is there something that each partner is assigned to work on?

The request is that the partners continue to do, and perhaps increase, what they would normally do around this initiative. Funders are asked to continue to fund or increase their funding. Literacy specialists inform people about how to teach kids, for example. So everyone has their role to play. We’re not asking people to go outside of their role. Partners who get to sit around a table together to create a shared vision start to imagine new and different things they could be doing but haven’t thought about. So one could imagine over time that companies who might be funders can find programmatic ways they might be involved as well.

Who would you like to call to the table? Is there a certain industry absent or any major groups around the city you’d like to call to action?

There’s a role for every sector. There are sectors we’ve talked to less deeply, like all of the major cultural institutions, many of whom have said they are ready and willing to help. We just haven’t had a deep conversation about their roles.

More companies can be at the table in new ways. We can start to think about how their HR departments can be vehicles to educate parents who are their employees. So that goes beyond how to use them just as funders. The health sector should be involved. We can tap into the role pediatricians play informing parents on what they should be doing with their children.

The faith-based community should also be involved. Anywhere that families are where there are trusted voices – we need to think about how to tap those. If just the usual suspects are in the room, we aren’t going to be successful. Of course we need every youth-serving organization in town to be listening to this and figuring out what their role is, but then it has to go beyond that.

What about the campaign excites you the most?

I know our children want to read and can read if they’re given the right supports. I want every child, every future adult citizen of the city to be able to have access to the skills that will set them on the path to be what they want to be. I want us to invest in our children, and I want to see them succeed.

Who is Jenny, and what charges you to lead this campaign?

I’ve been working since the mid-1990s in education, mostly nonprofit work related to children. I’ve become intimately aware of the state of our public schools and the challenges families and children face. And now, years later, I’m the mother of two children who themselves are trying to learn to read, and I see how hard it is to guide our kids through that process. It’s not easy for anybody, and I wish there was more clarity and more of a road map for me to help my kids get there.

What can we look forward to from the campaign in the next months?

We are beginning to delve into a communications agenda, determining what the outreach to the communities should look like and the kinds of activities we will be launching at the community neighborhood level. It’s time for READ! by 4th to get more specific on what programmatic strategies we want to see implemented as priorities in the coming years – and what our plans are for getting those off the ground.

For quality pre-K, look for more than the ABCs

2015-10-19T09:51:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Take a tour of Children’s Village, a highly regarded child-care center in Philadelphia’s Chinatown neighborhood, and some of the elements that make it a high-quality program are immediately evident.

In Room 303, a group of 3- and 4-year-olds is absorbed in a variety of activities, playing with toys, listening to recorded music and stories, or engaged in drawing, making and building things.

The spacious room where they spend their day is divided into well-equipped stations filled with intriguing educational material. Each one – block-building, dance and gross motor skills, art, dramatic play, and science – has accompanying materials that encourage specific kinds of learning.

With the help of teachers Noelle Woytko and Kevin McClellan, the children had earlier created “play plans,” writing their names and drawing pictures of what they would do next. The plans encourage children to think ahead and to verbalize their ideas.

There is also a library, where the children can borrow books to take home. Even though most of the children have not yet learned to read, chairs are labeled with the children’s names, and many other objects are labeled as well.

But the strengths of the center go far beyond what impresses a visitor at first sight.

Foundations for quality care

“A place may seem to be clean and have lots of bright plastic toys, but that is not always an indication of quality,” cautioned Shawn Towey, the child-care policy coordinator for Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), a Philadelphia-based child advocacy organization.

Research on pre-K programs that achieve long-term literacy gains has found several important factors: a well-structured, high-level curriculum, well-educated teachers who have taken early childhood education courses, small class sizes, and solid teacher-parent relationships.

Children’s Village has a Keystone Stars 4A rating, meeting the highest Pennsylvania child-care standard; the A stands for “accredited” with a national pre-K association.

The Keystone Stars ratings – ranging from one to four stars – provide a uniform set of standards that a child-care facility must meet in its educational environment, management, and community relations. The ratings make it easier for families to compare programs: The more stars, the higher the standards. A number of studies show a high correlation between these standards and the development of literacy skills in later years.

The Stars standards set a bar for everything from the teachers’ qualifications, to how effective the staff is in communicating with parents, whether teachers have continuing education and planning time, and what benefits employees receive to help reduce staff turnover.

In the highest-rated programs, at least half of the lead teachers have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, and all have at least an associate’s degree. (Publicly funded pre-K programs in Pennsylvania like the Children’s Village require that all lead teachers have bachelor’s degrees.)

All Keystone Star-3 and Star-4 pre-K programs are required to base their curriculum on a comprehensive 100-page set of state “Learning Standards for Early Childhood.” These standards include language arts, mathematical thinking, art and music, scientific thinking, and learning through play.

This document takes a broad view of educational growth: “Young children learn best when they are able to construct knowledge through meaningful play, active exploration of the environment, and thoughtfully planned activities,” it says. But it also emphasizes the need to support language and literacy development throughout the program.

A focus on communication

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The Children’s Village uses several curricula, including “Blueprint for Early Literacy,” according to executive director Mary Graham. The staff has had extensive and recent training in teaching literacy, she said.

Children drawing pictures and verbalizing what they want to do next may not seem to be a literacy activity, Graham said, but it is.

Many people think of literacy as “just being letters,” she said. “But it’s also language – children talking with each other and with the teachers, developing cognitive concepts. … It begins with verbal communication.”

Parent participation is also a big element at Children’s Village, said Ellen Saint Clair, a development director at the school. At the start of the school year, mothers and fathers can spend the first two hours of the day at the center with their children, to prepare them for being there alone. Parents are invited to breakfast with their children any time they choose.

At all Keystone Star-4 facilities, there must be daily updates to parents on how a child is faring, sit-down conferences at least twice a year, and a discussion of the transition to kindergarten as that date approaches.

Teacher and child

Towey, of PCCY, said she believes that the key to high-quality pre-K is the character of the interaction between the teacher and the child, which is often influenced, she noted, by the teacher’s level of education and how long he or she has been teaching. Several studies of literacy readiness back up that contention.

According to the Stand for Children Leadership Center, an education advocacy organization, some of the features of effective teacher-child interaction include the use of varied teaching strategies; a responsive, back-and-forth interaction style between teachers and children; an emphasis on both oral language and print awareness; and attention to developing self-regulatory skills.

All those features are part of the design of the Children’s Village, said Tonja Whitehead, the center’s education director. “The teachers are very involved in paying attention to the individual needs of the children and getting to know what will help them develop.”

Pre-K programs that meet all the standards for a Star-3 or Star-4 program do well in preparing children for literacy in elementary school, early education advocates say. A recent report by the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) found that in 2012-13, the percentage of 4-year-olds who had age-appropriate language, math, and social skills more than doubled after they took part in a high-quality pre-K program.

And the benefits of high-quality pre-K care go well beyond those preschool years, advocates say.

“We know that there is a good return on investment in putting money into high-quality pre-K,” said Michael Race, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a child advocacy group. “It will reduce education costs later on. … Children will be at less risk of repeating grades and have an increased chance of graduating high school.”

How to judge the quality of pre-K programs

2015-10-19T09:50:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) has a well-regarded 10-point standard for high-quality programs. Publicly funded Keystone Star-3 and Star-4 pre-K programs meet at least seven of them, including having a comprehensive early learning curriculum, all lead teachers with at least a bachelor’s degree, continuing professional education, maximum class size of 20 and teacher-child ratio of at least 1 to 10, and on-site inspections at least every five years. (Pennsylvania programs are not required to meet NIEER standards of conducting comprehensive health screenings, giving all children meals, and requiring assistant teachers to have at least an associate’s degree in child development.)

Pennsylvania’s Promise for Children, an early childhood advocacy campaign, takes a different approach, encouraging parents themselves to gauge program quality by asking question like: “Does staff communicate daily with parents about their child’s progress? Does staffing allow for each child to receive individual attention? Does staff sit and read to the children?”

Other questions: “Do the children have a consistent routine that they can understand and follow? Do the children seem occupied and engaged? Are the children involved in activities that promote learning? Is there a policy on discipline? Do the children seem happy?”

The cost of high quality

2015-10-19T09:48:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The benefits of high-quality pre-K can be great, but relatively few Pennsylvania children receive it. In 2013-14, less than half of 3- and 4-year-olds statewide attended licensed programs. Only about 31 percent were in high-quality pre-K.

One big reason: expense. The average annual cost to provide a Star-3 or Star-4 program in Southeastern Pennsylvania is $12,789 per child, more than $2,000 more than for a Star-1 or Star-2 program, the Nonprofit Finance Fund reported. Higher teacher salaries and higher facility and classroom materials costs were mainly responsible. Without public funding, the report concluded, “high-quality care is … especially unattainable for families living in poverty.”

Gov. Wolf’s administration wants to more than double 2015-16 state funding for Pre-K Counts, a high-quality program for low- to moderate-income families, and to increase state Head Start funding by 50 percent. The state legislature passed a June budget with much smaller increases; Wolf vetoed it. That standoff continues.

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children is calling for the legislature to substantially increase pre-K funding for the next several years, said spokesman Michael Race. “Quality comes with a price, and high-quality pre-K is no exception. … It will save money in the long run.”

How to help children develop into readers

2015-10-16T09:20:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Experts say that it’s never too early to start reading with your kids.

According to Reading Rockets, the national multimedia literacy initiative, parents of babies should snuggle up with them and read a book.

Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan also encourages conversation with kids. In a recent blog post, he said, “Too many moms and dads feel a bit dopey talking to a baby or young child, but studies have shown that exposing your child to a variety of words helps in her development of literacy skills.”

He recalled how he “drowned” his new granddaughter in language.

“I talked about her eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and fingers. … I talked to her so much that her parents thought I was nuts,” Shanahan wrote. “But reading is a language activity, and if you want to learn language, you’d better hear it and, eventually, speak it.”

What preschoolers need to know

What children know before they enter school relates strongly to how easily they learn to read in kindergarten and 1st grade.

Three skills that indicate later reading achievement can be learned at a young age, Reading Rocket experts say. These are:

• The ability to recognize and name letters of the alphabet.

• General knowledge about books, such as being able to tell the front of a book from the back, realizing that we read from left to right, and knowing how to turn pages as you read.

• Awareness of the sounds, called phonemes, that create spoken words.

Parents often don’t learn about teaching and practicing phonemic awareness until their child is identified as a struggling reader. The child’s ear needs to become attuned to the discrete sounds – more than 40 of them – that make up spoken English. Shanahan, the researcher, offered this example: the word dog has three sounds within it (duh-aw-guh).

Some tips:

• Using nursery rhymes is one way of helping a child learn to discern between similar sounds.

• Breaking a word apart into its distinctive sections is another: ch-ch-ch-air.

Timing of key word skills

The Reading Rockets website (readingrockets.org) and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) offer guideposts showing at what age most children are likely to develop such skills.

From an early age, children need to acquire basic listening skills, a vocabulary of several thousand words, and an ability to speak in whole sentences. They also need to acquire the ability to use language to express themselves, to react to what is happening to them, and to understand what others are saying to them.

• At ages 2 and 3, according to ASHA, a child should know the difference between big and little and up and down and should be able to follow directions (“Put the book on the table”). At that age, children have words to use and can talk or ask about things and can be understood by their caregivers.

• By ages 3 and 4, a child can answer simple questions, can talk in sentences of four or more words, and can be understood by people outside the family.

• At age 4, children enjoy rhyme and alliteration. “Seven silly snakes sing songs seriously” is an example.

• At age 5, they can recognize which words in a series – i.e., stair, steel and chair – rhyme and which don’t.

• At 5½, they can blend parts of a word into its whole (th-umb). They can produce a rhyme (What word rhymes with car?), and they can isolate the initial sound in a word (ride – /r/).

• At 6, most children can blend phonemes into complex sounds (/sh/ /o/ /p/ = shop) and do other manipulations of phonemes and sounds upon request.

Problems and warning signs

Caregivers should watch for vision and hearing problems that might impede learning and should seek advice, if needed, from the child’s pediatrician or clinic. Communication disorders affect about 46 million Americans, according to ASHA, with 28 million experiencing hearing loss and 14 million having a speech or language disorder. A child with even minimal or moderate hearing loss can miss half of what’s said in the classroom, according to the group.

Vision problems can surface at any age. According to the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, the five most common signs that a vision problem might be interfering with student achievement are when the student:

• Skips lines or rereads lines.

• Has poor reading comprehension.

• Takes longer than expected to complete homework.

• Reverses letters (“b” into “d”) when reading.

• Has a short attention span when reading or doing homework.

Other warning signs among children who might have trouble learning to read, according to Reading Rockets, include:

• Difficulty rhyming words;

• Difficulty learning the alphabet, numbers, or days of the week;

• Difficulty following multi-step directions; or

• Difficulty telling or re-telling a story.

Of special concern is the child who does not appear to be making efforts to speak. A pediatrician might recommend an exam by an audiologist, who has expertise in identifying and treating hearing disorders. Another professional that might be consulted would be a speech and language pathologist who can identify and treat speech and language delays.

A concern about cell phones

In recent years, cell phones have surfaced as a possible obstacle in caregivers fully engaging their young children in language development. Parents distracted by tweets or YouTube videos can miss the kinds of interactions that build communication and word skills.

Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair explored this issue in her book The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age. Children ages 4 to 18 reported being “mad, sad, angry and lonely” in interviews with Steiner-Adair. It’s an issue that’s just beginning to be explored.

Working with the school

Reading Rockets also offers guidance for parents as advocates of their school-age children. A parent has cause to be worried and needs to be proactive if the child is not reading in 1st or 2nd grade.

To ensure that your child is progressing as he or she should in literacy development, Reading Rockets experts offer this advice:

• Get to know the child’s teachers and principal and stay in touch between report card periods.

• Save important test results and hold onto samples of the child’s work and any school communications that show how he or she usually performs.

• Ask for help if you suspect a problem. Start with the child’s teacher, but also be ready to talk with the principal, reading specialist, or special education teacher.

Reading: A team effort

Reading Rockets calls teaching reading “a team effort.” According to the website, research shows that “what families do makes a difference, what teachers do makes a difference, and what community programs do makes a difference. … It is our shared responsibility.”

Literacy campaign stresses importance of teacher training at schools of ed

2015-10-09T15:19:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Education scholars continue to churn out best practices for literacy instruction, but these practices slowly, if ever, make their way to the hands of educators in the classroom.

This grim circumstance is connected to the 56 percent of Philadelphia 4th graders who scored below basic in reading on the 2013 National Assessment for Educational Progress. Sixty percent of these students were African American.

The School District and philanthropic organizations have made a pledge to more aggressively address this gap. As part of the citywide READ by 4th! campaign, over the next three years, almost every K-3 teacher will receive regular professional development, on-the-job coaching and libraries for their classrooms with books coded by reading level.

A big part of the campaign is to improve the effectiveness of training programs for early-grade teachers by ensuring that they are steeped in research-proven curricula and social justice. Although research has long been clear that students who don’t read on grade level by 4th grade find it doubly hard to catch up and succeed in school, elementary school teachers often are never explicitly trained in reading instruction.

“We need our schools of education to adopt programs of study and standards that make sure that every student who graduates with a degree in elementary education knows and understands the science of teaching children how to read,” said Superintendent William Hite at a workshop held at Drexel University.

To ensure high-quality instruction across all schools in the city, the campaign is encouraging schools of education to promote, via their curricula, evidence-based ways to teach reading. One such way is through the implementation of the International Dyslexia Association’s (IDA) Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading.

“It’s hard to tell whether a program is providing rich literacy evidence-based training,” said Nancy Scharff, a READ! by 4th instructional strategies consultant. This new campaign push counters this difficulty: If a school is accredited under the IDA’s standards, this signals that its graduates are prepared to tackle literacy challenges as soon as they are hired.

“You cannot teach what you don’t know, and there are a ton of students graduating from these schools who can’t name the five skills of successful readers,” said Judith Birsh, senior fellow of special education at Relay Graduate School of Education in New York.

“Teachers with prime preparation make a difference. They can identify at-risk students in a nanosecond.”

But what makes these standards different from what’s already being taught in teacher-training programs? First, they are comprehensive. And second, they carefully specify what all teachers and specialists need to know and do to instruct students to read proficiently.

The standards address a wide array of technical knowledge, from phonology (the study of speech sounds), orthography (conventions of writing such as spelling), morphology (the study of word structure), and semantics (the study of meaning behind words and expressions), to oral and written language, assessment, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities. They also contain appendices that address motivation in children, for example.

The standards also pay special attention to the structure of language and the complexity of skilled reading, which is important for teaching English language learners, students with learning differences, and those living in poverty.

Representatives of 10 schools of education — Drexel, Penn, Temple, St. Joseph’s, Shippensburg, Relay, LaSalle, Chestnut Hill, Clarion, and Lehigh — were present at the workshop. These schools educate a vast majority of the region’s teachers.

But St. Joseph’s Urban Teaching Residency Program (UTR) is the only one accredited by the Center for Effective Reading Instruction (CERI), a subset of the IDA. There are just 17 accredited institutions across the country.

This is the first year of the accredited program at St. Joseph’s, which has six urban teacher residents. In the residency, students will take courses aligned with the Knowledge and Practice Standards and apply what they learn in a yearlong clinical experience at a high-needs host school in Philadelphia. The two current host schools are KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy (K-4) and KIPP Philadelphia Charter School.

Students take on more responsibility than they would in a typical undergraduate student teaching scenario. They have modified schedules to complete specialized coursework that ultimately amount to about 1,000 hours.

Another major component of the program is the series of social justice seminars that students must take. The courses are sponsored by SJU’s Faith-Justice Institute and led by Keith Magee, a leading social justice proponent and faith and politics expert.

“Quality education is the civil rights issue of our time," said Magee, who had a hand in developing the social justice component of the program. "We need to create a vast movement about literacy for our children. Literacy is the way up and out."

The social justice emphasis is crucial to the teacher preparation, said Cathy Spinelli, a professor of special education at St. Joseph’s and coordinator of the fellows program.

Putting reading and literacy in that context for the teachers-in-training makes them "the ideal diagnostic remedial specialists to go out into the field and be able to work with a needy population of students that is deserving of the best that’s out there,” she said.

There was some doubt among workshop attendees, however, about whether adopting these standards is enough to change outcomes for students. Several pointed out that the successful education systems of Japan and Finland, for example, have much more extensive teacher training and preparation requirements. Other initiatives along these lines have continually failed Philadelphia students, people said.

But, said Birsh, “To have a deep, robust training is a good beginning. They never stop learning, and if they can get the basics, they can ground their experience and further their knowledge.”

To make this work, READ! by 4th is going to need the continued support of those in higher education and philanthropic organizations said Jenny Bogoni, the campaign’s executive director.

And teachers from these programs can count on actually putting their expertise to use.

“The District is committed to hiring elementary-grade teachers who are familiar with evidence-based reading instruction and prepared to teach using these strategies on the first day they enter the classroom," said Hite. "Our children deserve no less.”

A daunting journey, but profoundly rewarding

2015-10-08T10:10:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Parents of struggling readers come from all walks of life, but they all have one thing in common.

That moment when they realized that something wasn’t quite right.

“He just wasn’t getting it – and I couldn’t figure out why,” said Erica Fields, a mental health caseworker from West Philadelphia.

“He’d say, ‘It’s all a bunch of letters, and they’re not coming together,’” said Tine Hansen-Turton, a nonprofit executive from Gwynedd Valley in Montgomery County.

“It wasn’t until we had our second son that we realized, ‘Oh,’” said Jo-Ann Rogan, a musician in Wissahickon.

The moment may arrive in kindergarten or 1st grade, when a child starts acting out or falling behind. Or a few years later, when coping mechanisms like memorization finally fail.

But whenever it comes, that moment is confusing and stressful, and it marks the beginning of what can be a grueling journey for the entire family.

At first, “it was almost a sadness,” said Deborah Lynam, a former graphic artist from South Jersey. “I was watching my neighbors, my friends. Their kids were reading. They liked going to school. And it was very clear that my son wasn’t making benchmarks.”

Lynam’s moment arrived when her eldest son was in 2nd grade in Haddon Heights, Camden County. He’d had issues for over a year, but she still hoped the school’s various interventions would eventually work.

But then one day, the boy’s teacher finally said, “I’m not sure if anybody’s really telling you, but … he’s not just ‘behind.’ He’s not reading.”

It was a blow. After Lynam’s sorrow came anger – mainly directed at her school district. But that ended when she started to work with other parents. The problem is everywhere, she discovered, and schools of every description struggle to address it.

“Is it an emotional toll? It’s terrible. Terrible,” said Lynam, who went on to help found a national advocacy network called Decoding Dyslexia.

“But it’s hard to stay in that angry place when all of a sudden there are 12 other parents dealing with the same problem, or worse.”

Never take no for an answer

With the right diagnosis and intervention, these families have found, children once swamped in confusion can make tremendous strides.

But getting there requires their parents to become informed, relentless advocates.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, Lynam said. Dyslexia – a term covering a wide range of reading disorders – affects as many as one in five students nationwide. It’s no accident that levels of dyslexia among prison inmates are much higher. One study in Texas found that almost half of its inmates are dyslexic.

“We have to start talking about this,” she said.

Any number of other disabilities and environmental factors can have the same effect. A parent who has discovered a learning deficit must respond quickly – and get results.

“You have to do your homework – and you have to be willing not to take no for an answer,” said Fields of West Philadelphia, whose son Mikal struggled in his neighborhood school before finding success in a specialized charter.

The landscape that families face is daunting: expensive tests and tutoring, vexing bureaucracies, uneven resources. Underfunded districts can be overwhelmed. Even prosperous districts and pricey private schools can be unprepared. Students find themselves changing schools. Siblings feel ignored. Parents may quit their jobs.

“I had to give up my career and go back to bartending,” said Rogan.

Was it worth it? Absolutely, she said. Her son Ryan, now in the 6th grade, is “doing well, and he’s happy.” Gifted with a high IQ, but diagnosed with a handful of learning and motor-skills disabilities, Ryan is now at Education Plus, a charter for students with “learning differences.” In two years, he went from being 3½ years behind grade level to just half a grade behind.

“To me, that’s incredible,” Rogan said. “He’s being treated with respect and loved and listened to.”

That’s a major turnaround from Ryan’s early years. A promising start at his neighborhood school, Cook-Wissahickon, turned sour by 2nd grade. A key special education aide left, a strict new teacher arrived, and Ryan was soon foundering in the classroom.

“They sat him in the back under the pencil sharpener,” Rogan said.

Feeling singled out and berated, unable to do his work, he began acting out, and the family was soon embroiled in draining battles over harsh discipline and the details of Ryan’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). At one point, the family was spending entire weekends on homework. Rogan was exhausted, and the boy was traumatized.

“It was horrific,” Rogan said, her voice cracking. “And he was in 2nd grade! He was little!”

Erica Fields’ son Mikal doesn’t have Ryan’s specific disabilities, but he too struggled; slow to pick up the basics, he suffered academically and socially.

“The other kids didn’t want to play with him,” Fields said. “He was the outcast.”

Mikal left his neighborhood school, Daroff, and he, too, landed at Ed Plus, where extra attention and a phonics-based curriculum helped him get over the comprehension hump.

“Now he’s getting it,” Fields said. “At home, you’ll say a word, and he’ll try to spell it out. He likes books with a little sense of humor.”

Ed Plus’ future is uncertain, due to a dispute with the state over its hybrid cyber/brick-and-mortar model. But for now, Fields said, Mikal is happier, more confident, and “has learned how to make friends.”

An elusive, unfamiliar problem

Success for families means finding the right resources. Every school and district is different.

But the first and perhaps hardest step, parents say, is to fully commit to grappling with an elusive, unfamiliar problem.

“You’ve got to give up control – or the illusion of control – and realize that your child is going to do their thing,” said Hannah Rhodes, an engineer living in Point Breeze, whose daughter Abi is dyslexic. “Who she is is very different from who I am.”

Rhodes’ son, two years older than Abi, started reading on his own. His sister eagerly tried to imitate him, but by 2nd grade, it was clear that she was wired differently.

“She had the interest, but also the roadblocks,” Rhodes said. “She did a lot of guessing.”

Faced with the prospect of holding her daughter back a year at Independence Charter School, Rhodes instead pushed for a better diagnosis. The school psychologist uncovered an ocular condition (strabismus) and got Abi an IEP with a simple program of instruction and eye exercises.

A summer program at the Springboard Collaborative gave her an extra boost. Abi, now in 3rd grade, is cheerfully “cruising along,” Rhodes said – closing in on grade level literacy.

Rhodes feels grateful to have found quality support close at hand. “Everybody’s like, ‘We can fix this!’” she said. “She doesn’t have to have an IEP forever.”

But she also knows not everyone is so lucky. “I was treated as an asset and not as a liability, which is huge. But I had to trust these people.”

Be ready to collaborate – and fight

Accepting the problem isn’t easy.

“You fight it,” said Tine Hansen-Turton, whose dyslexic son struggled in both a suburban public school and a private school before settling in happily at the private AIM Academy in Conshohocken. “You’re somewhat in denial, until you recognize, ‘Oh my God, I’m actually harming the kid unless I do something different.’”

But once a family commits, parents say, the keys to success in any situation are diligence, collaboration, and perseverance.

“You have to be your own case manager,” said Lynam. “And you need to work collaboratively with the school.”

And if that doesn’t work, “be prepared to fight,” said Rogan, who doesn’t know what she’ll do if Ed Plus shuts down – she only knows she won’t send Ryan back to his neighborhood school. “Get a lawyer. This is your kid. You don’t get a second chance.”

It’s a marathon, not a sprint, they caution.

“You’re not ‘cured,’” said Hansen-Turton, whose son is now college-bound, while she sits on the Ed Plus board. “He’ll always have issues.”

But the rewards of success are profound. It lightens parents’ hearts to see their children thrive, relieved of the lead weight of feeling “dumb.” And they’re delighted to turn their attention to more normal family activities – like taking the kids on tour with mom’s punk rock band.

“I was able to take him across the country and back – and he did amazing,” Rogan said. “He reads himself to sleep every night.”

All in – to support young readers

2015-10-08T10:08:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Philadelphia has embarked on an ambitious campaign, called READ! by 4th, to ensure that all city students are able to read by the time they enter 4th grade, which numerous studies have shown is a make-or-break point for future success.

Students who reach this benchmark are more likely to do well in school and graduate. Students who don’t are more likely to tune out and drop out.

In this edition, we look at teaching reading in schools and at home and highlight where families can find resources.

Although there are many places parents can turn for help, dealing with struggling readers is not easy. It can become a full-time job – not something all parents can do. Families who have found positive solutions say that even well-resourced schools may be ill-equipped and resistant to meet the needs of students with dyslexia and other reading challenges. They advise parents to be relentless advocates and demand diagnoses. Their stories highlight how critical it is for schools to have the resources and personnel to help their students.

Schools here are revamping reading curricula. Many of the District’s lowest-performing schools now have retrained teachers and classroom libraries that are tailored to student reading levels.

The medical community is raising awareness of children’s health issues – how vision problems or asthma can affect learning. It is also emphasizing the importance of mentally stimulating activities for children from the earliest ages. We offer tips on what parents can do with their children during everyday activities to help them become better readers.

Medical professionals help ensure students are on track

2015-10-06T09:36:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work.

Responsibility for a newborn child’s medical care is assigned to a pediatrician soon after birth.

Any conditions, such as vision problems, that could threaten the child’s learning are quickly spotted and explained to the parents or guardians. Checkups screen not only for physical ailments, but also for issues with language development and learning. The child sees a pediatrician at least once a year for a regular examination.

Prescribed medications are taken regularly. Parents monitor the child for signs such as sitting too close to the TV, which could mean nearsightedness, or persistent lethargy, which could signal something as serious as lead poisoning from flaking paint.

Later, if a condition flares up when the child is at school, a nurse is there to deal with it, and often the child can return to class. If it’s more serious, the parents are informed, and they notify their pediatrician and seek appropriate care.

Sitting at the nurse’s desk at William Dick Elementary School in North Philadelphia, where she has worked for almost a decade, Pat Westerfer talked about how it actually works in a low-income, urban district.

“Sometimes the nurse in the building is the only medical practitioner the kids see,” said Westerfer, who is at Dick only on Tuesdays and Fridays.

She has had cases when a sick child comes and tells her, “My mom told me to come to school so I could see the nurse.”

It’s possible that the child has no regular pediatrician and neither the parent nor the child fully understands prescribed medications.

And even with children who have a pediatrician, getting them there can be difficult for a parent who may work at a low-wage job with no paid sick days.

“I’ve seen more of that [recently] because of the job situation,” Westerfer said. “Maybe they have to take three buses to get to St. Christopher’s,” the nearest children’s hospital.

Colleen McCauley, health policy director for Public Citizens for Children & Youth, said that although most children, other than those who are undocumented, can get health care through either Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), many parents don’t know how to sign up or how to navigate the system once enrolled. (Any health center or pediatrician’s office should be able to help.)

Daniel Taylor, a pediatrician at the Center for the Urban Child at St. Christopher’s, said, “There’s an epidemic of missed appointments.”

All this connects to literacy. A child’s health is important to support proper brain development. A pioneering 2003 study showed that some children growing up in impoverished environments hear 30 million fewer words in their first four years of life than peers in more privileged settings, due to the types of interactions with adults in their lives.

Medical professionals like Taylor have become involved in promoting with parents the importance of reading to children, talking with them, and listening to them. Through the Reach out and Read program, Taylor makes sure that families have reading materials and learns what he can about the child’s home environment.

“The [health] choices a family has to make get embedded in a child’s brain,” he said.

He is also on the lookout for missed developmental milestones that can act as warning signs. By 2 months, a child should smile in response to a parent. The child should have at least said one word by age 1. By 5, he or she should be able to speak in complete sentences. A stranger should be able to understand what the child is saying, and the child should be able to draw a square, play with others, and begin to understand the letters of the alphabet.

Many parents don’t know what to look for, so teachers and child-care professionals should act as another set of eyes.

Pat Westerfer and other school nurses also encounter many children who have undiagnosed medical issues.

The worst problem, she said, is that the nurses are not there every day.

“When I come into the building on a Friday,” she said, “one of the kids might say, ‘Where were you yesterday? I needed you to take care of me.’"

“If they don’t feel well, they’re not going to learn anything.”

Another downside of a school having no nurse on duty is that children are often sent home as a precaution when they could be safely treated – or just observed – and sent back to the classroom.

And Westerfer said she sometimes finds that parents are keeping a child home when the condition doesn’t call for it. A student who has a cast for a broken arm was one example she cited.

Nationwide, 45 percent of schools have a full-time nurse, said Beth Mattey, president of the National Association of School Nurses. The average in densely populated areas is higher, she said.

After nurse layoffs in recent years, the staffing situation in the School District of Philadelphia has become more difficult. How much more difficult is hard to estimate.

Nurses staff 218 District schools and 95 city private and parochial schools.

In January, the District reported having 183 certified school nurses on its payroll. That is 100 fewer than just four years earlier, according to District budget documents.

District officials did not respond to Notebook queries about nurse staffing levels in District schools. They also declined to make anyone available for an interview, providing only a short, prepared statement from Health Coordinator Shannon Smith that gave a general description of nurses’ duties.

Having a full-time nurse in a school “makes all the difference in the world,” said Mattey, who works in the Brandywine School District, which serves a portion of Wilmington, Del. She said that even a part-time nurse might be more likely to send a child home in a borderline situation when she doesn’t know the child well.

“You get to know the kids. … They become more comfortable with you when you know your school and community,” she said. “It could be kids being bullied, kids who are depressed. A kid might sit in the nurse’s office if they can’t deal with [the noise in] the cafeteria.”

Brianna Scogna, a full-time nurse at Mastery Thomas Elementary, a charter school in South Philadelphia, asked, “How do you function every day without a nurse with so many children with chronic conditions? A lot more kids have asthma now.”

For a child with diabetes, she said, “You might have to vary insulin doses based on what a child is doing, exercise. You have to educate the children. … You do it kid by kid.”

Both Westerfer and Scogna see themselves as teachers. So does Taylor, who founded the web-based advocacy program CAP4Kids (Children’s Advocacy Project), which offers resources for accessing and utilizing health care.

Although a child of any background can be born with a medical problem involving hearing or eyesight, Taylor said that conditions in a low-income neighborhood like the one surrounding St. Christopher’s are more likely to result in that problem interfering with learning. Chronic absence is a major cause of lags in literacy development.

“About 80 percent of medical conditions have a social origin,” he said.

Taylor said that when he takes a new patient, he finds himself “taking more of a social history than a medical history.”

Roughly 20 percent of the children he sees have asthma, he said, “mostly because of social issues such as unsafe housing or secondhand smoke exposure.” And poorly treated asthma results in sleep deprivation during formative periods of brain development after age 3, Taylor said.

Iron-deficiency anemia, which can cause extreme fatigue, is related to poor diet and is most common in “food deserts” – neighborhoods without supermarkets, where fresh fruits and vegetables are harder to find.

Lead poisoning, caused by flaking paint in older homes, can cause vomiting and irritability. At high levels, it can affect brain development.

Taylor worries especially about parents who don’t catch symptoms in the child’s preschool years even when they are told what to look for.

“A lot of our families have had significant trauma in their lives,” he said. “They don’t have the energy to maybe even notice the subtle stuff.”

Fabiola Cineas contributed reporting.

Point Breeze gets new parent-resource centers

2015-04-08T12:23:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Two new resource centers opened in South Philadelphia in March, providing a two-generation approach to tackling poverty in the Point Breeze section of the city.

The iParent@Diversified Resource Centers, funded by a grant from the William Penn Foundation, operate out of early childhood education centers in Dixon Learning Academy and Western Learning Center.

Last December, Diversified Community Services, a nonprofit social service organization that provides leadership and services to residents in Point Breeze and surrounding communities, announced that it had received a $438,500 grant from William Penn to help improve the lives of families in one of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods.

“It is clear that children from low-income communities are set up for academic and economic failure before they enter kindergarten,” said Diversified’s executive director, Otis Bullock Jr., in a press release.

The resource centers will support Diversified’s effort by providing a quality education for infants and young children, but also by offering needed services for parents, such as parent training, financial workshops, computer literacy, résumé preparation, and workforce development.

During the grand opening of one of the centers at the Dixon Learning Academy, Olive Anderson performed yoga with students, while parents listened to a discussion on mental health awareness. Yoga and music lessons are some of the activities used to enhance the school readiness curriculum for the center’s pre-kindergarten students.

“Our two-generation approach addresses the short-term economic and educational realities of the parents in order to prepare young children for long-term educational success,” Bullock said in his statement.

Report finds that Pa. lags in early childhood education access and equity

2015-01-09T12:13:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

A new report finds that Pennsylvania ranks 41st nationally in early childhood education, lagging behind New Jersey, Delaware, 37 other states, and the District of Columbia.

This week, the nonprofit Education Week Research Center released its annual Quality Counts report on state-by-state school performance for grades K-12. For the first time, the report also looked at preschool and kindergarten numbers, using information from the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The reported awarded letter grades were based on preschool and kindergarten enrollment numbers and looked at how family income affected preschool attendance.

"There’s really kind of a data desert for this age group," said Holly Yettick, director of the Education Week Research Center, which puts out the report. "It’s sort of an area where policy is all over the place."

Without national policies or locked-in government funding for early childhood programs, "the private sector plays a much bigger role in that area," Yettick said.

Pennsylvania, which received a D-plus on the report’s Early Education Index, did worse than most states in providing equal access to preschool for high- and low-income families.

The state did better on other measures tracked by Education Week, finishing eighth overall nationally.

But here are some of the data behind the low ranking for early childhood efforts:

More than two-thirds of children from Pennsylvania families with yearly incomes above $100,000 are enrolled in quality early childhood education programs. For families making less than $20,000 a year, though, that number is only about one in five.

Read the rest of this story at NewsWorks

A citywide push on literacy — READ by 4th — has its official launch

2014-08-13T14:37:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Amarii Simpson, 9, was sitting up front, a copy of My First Dictionary on the table before him in a room at the McVeigh Recreation Center at D and Ontario Street in Kensington.

Why was he reading a dictionary?

He gave a "duh" look in response to the question.

"So I can learn more words!"

Amarii is on the ball in other ways, too. A 4th grader at Elkin Elementary School, just a few blocks from McVeigh, he is quick to announce that he gets all As and Bs and scored proficient on the PSSA — not just in reading, but in math, too. And the veteran Recreation Department camper also knows that the reading breaks and other activities, like the trips to the library that punctuated this summer at McVeigh, are something new.

"Last year," he announced confidently, as dignitaries bustled around him, their speeches done, "we didn’t have the city of Philadelphia doing this."

"This" is READ by 4th, an ambitious campaign to have almost all Philadelphia students reading on grade level by the 4th grade. Now, just about half do — a troubling statistic because data indicate that students who don’t reach that benchmark are many times more likely to fall behind and drop out of school.

READ stands for Ready, Engaged, Able, and Determined. The goal is for all 4th graders here to be proficient in reading in six years — by 2020.

City leaders including Superintendent William Hite came to McVeigh on Tuesday for the official launch of READ by 4th, which is Philadelphia’s piece of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and underway in some 150 cities and towns and 39 states.

Based on leveraging resources and bringing together important civic actors around this goal, READ by 4th has 50 local sponsoring public and private businesses and organizations. (Disclosure: The Notebook is among them, having committed to cover the campaign and the issue of summer learning loss.)

The "founding corporate sponsor" is Wells Fargo Bank. Greg Redden, regional president, called the campaign "one of the most important public/private efforts we can support. It’s important to have a well-educated workforce." Companies know, he said, "the consequences of having an unskilled applicant pool."

As founding corporate sponsor, Wells Fargo will make a six-year financial commitment that, among other things, will underwrite "ultimate block parties" that get reading materials and other resources into the hands of parents. They will also support bringing technical assistance to early-grade teachers so they can create literacy-rich classrooms and use the best teaching strategies.

The "founding media partner" is Clear Channel Media. Loraine Ballard Morrill, its director of news and community affairs, said that Clear Channel’s six radio stations will spread the message, especially to parents of young children.

"We will make this our priority," she said.

The major areas of focus are:

Improving early learning and child care.
Giving parents training and tools to help their children develop reading skills.
Making sure students read over the summer to counteract the so-called "summer slide" in skills.
Attacking absenteeism by addressing health issues.
Improving reading instruction in schools to provide more individual attention to students.

"It’s obvious that all of us need to do a better job" in getting children to be proficient readers, said Debra Kahn, executive director of Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia. She said that while the public and private sectors have long recognized the problem, "what’s missing is collective strategy." This campaign is providing that, she said, adding, "We have our work cut out for us."

In its planning stages, the campaign has been led by Public Citizens for Children and Youth and the Urban Affairs Coalition. Sharmain Matlock-Turner, CEO of UAC, said that the groups are seeking another organization "to step forward and carry the ball for the next six years."

The campaign is also continuing to seek more partners and funders. Among those already involved are the Free Library, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Please Touch Museum, the Maternity Care Coalition, the YMCA, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the Philadephia School Partnership, the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Drexel University, Parent Power, and United Way.

"If we can provide for a child to learn to read, we’ve gone a long way to solving the problems we are faced with as a city and a country," said Hite.

As part of the initiative, the Recreation Department added a literacy component this summer to 20 of its camps, including McVeigh’s. Deputy Mayor Michael DiBerardinis said that the goal is to expand it to the entire system.

Diane Halin was point person for the program at McVeigh. Every Friday, the children went to the library branch at McPherson Square and picked out books.

At first, she said, they were resistant, but "the more we did it, the more they liked it." Halin also bought books for them to have at the recreation center and read to them regularly.

Maribel de Jesus was there with her two grandchildren, Briseyda and Anthony McKissick.

She was proud that Anthony, 8, who is about to enter 3rd grade, could read "big books" on his own. And Briseyda, 9, loves to read to her brother, she said.

Anthony was right there with de Jesus, but she looked around to find Briseyda.

"There she is," she said, pointing to a little girl sitting quietly by herself on the other side of the room. "See, she is reading a book."

City and William Penn allot $500K each to improve early childhood education

2013-06-26T12:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Sonia Giebel

Councilwomen Jannie Blackwell, Blondell Reynolds Brown, and Maria Quiñones-Sanchez (back) announced increased funding for early childhood education at City Hall on Tuesday. A new grassroots organizing group has gotten backing and money from the city and the William Penn Foundation to encourage the expansion of quality early childhood education.

Called Philadelphia for Early Childhood Education (PECE), the group on Tuesday announced a $500,000 grant from the Office of Housing and Community Development and another $500,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation. The city investment was arranged by Councilwomen Blondell Reynolds Brown and Jannie Blackwell.

The city money will be used to help renovate facilities and increase their capacity. The William Penn grant is for equipment and teacher training.

"Early childhood is the single most significant period of development in a child’s life," said Reynolds Brown in announcing the initiative.

PECE hopes to increase the number of early childhood education seats deemed “high quality” by the state’s Keystone STARS rating system, and to gain traction for a generally under-recognized issue.

There are now just over 100,000 preschool-aged children in the city, but only 12 percent of those attend high-quality institutions, according to PECE’s analysis of census and other data. Of the city’s youngest residents, almost 60 percent are living in poverty, and 36 percent in deep poverty – in families with incomes below $5,700 a year.

PECE, a coalition of parents, grandparents, teachers, providers, and some advocates, came together in March. That was when the School Reform Commission, citing the District’s budget crisis, voted to privatize 2,000 of its Head Start slots. District-run Head Start is more expensive, so privatizing slots would increase access, SRC members said.

But many early childhood advocates feared that privately run slots would not be as high-quality as those run in schools, which require certified teachers.

The city will focus its investment on expanding programs already deemed 3- or 4-STAR quality, on a scale of 1 to 4, according to Janet Filante, the executive director of Childspace CDI. Her group works to improve the training and the job quality of child-care workers, who are often low-paid.

After that, it will look to improve programs at the 2-STAR level. Providers looking to run Head Start programs will compete for grants likely to range from $25,000 to $50,000, Filante said.

Sharon Easterling, the executive director of Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) and a PECE member, said that quality preschool yields lasting effects. Children who attend such programs are twice as likely to graduate from high school and half as likely to be incarcerated, she said.

“We have to do better,” said Easterling. “If we really want to close the achievement gap, one of the most important strategies that we can undertake is to transform more than 50,000 seats in Philadelphia, taking them from babysitting to programs of early learning.”

Reynolds Brown highlighted that a $1 investment in early childhood education pays a $7 return, attained through lower costs for such things as special education and incarceration, coupled with higher tax payments from people who are employed. She said that the community needs to make sure that “leaders understand that [early childhood education] really does matter.”

“This is a major, major step, but we still have work to do to make sure that this is sustainable over the years,” Reynolds Brown said.

Councilwoman Maria D. Quiñones-Sánchez, who was also in attendance at the announcement, described the allocation as an investment in the future.

“We need to start planning, articulating what we want, so that … we are talking about what Philadelphia will look like in five years, 10 years, and what we want our children to experience.”

Quiñones-Sánchez said that programs need to start the application process for grants immediately. If the money is underutilized, she noted, there won’t be much support for a renewal next year. Reynolds-Brown said there would be a briefing session to explain the application process to potential grantees.

Easterling suggested following in the footsteps of cities like Chicago, Miami, and Union City, N.J., where there are “dedicated streams of funding” for early childhood services.

“There is a lot of room for conversation and for us to be creative and to figure this out together,” she said.

Union City has almost all of its students enrolled in high-quality early education centers. Despite the majority of 3- and 4-year-olds coming from poor and non-English speaking backgrounds, the high school graduation rate there is 90 percent, Easterling said.

Sonia Giebel is an intern at the Notebook.

KIPP presents proposal to move into closing Wilson Elementary

2013-06-14T14:04:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Sonia Giebel and Mark McHugh

KIPP wants to move into the soon-to-be closed Wilson Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia, starting with a 100-student kindergarten next year and gradually expanding to a K-4 school.

Marc Mannella, CEO of KIPP Philadelphia, presented the proposal to a community meeting Thursday night called by City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who is among those fighting to keep Wilson open in some form.

“The majority of the parents, the grandparents, the neighborhoods, everybody, the whole neighborhood, this community, everybody wants to keep the school open,” Blackwell said. “I don’t know one person who doesn’t want the school open. That’s their first priority.”

The KIPP solution would not solve the neighborhood’s biggest concern — that the current students at Wilson will have to travel a long distance to Lea Elementary without, community members say, sufficient guarantees of their safety.

And it also flies in the face of the School Reform Commission’s decision to freeze any charter school expansion until the District has gotten out from under its financial crisis.

Mannella, however, said that he had been in contact with District leaders about the plan and that it hasn’t been rejected out of hand.

“We don’t have a ‘yes,’ we don’t have a ‘no,’ we have a ‘hang on,’” he said.

He said that KIPP would rent the building and educate the 100 kindergartners at its own expense in the first year, not asking the District for the payment it would be owed. This would create a “one-year bridge,” in Mannella’s words, and presumably skirt the SRC’s determination not to add any charter seats.

But, after that, KIPP would add a grade each year and eventually become a 500-student K-4 charter school with full District funding. The school would be called KIPP: Encourage.

“What we’re doing at KIPP is changing lives,” Mannella said. “We’re trying to be part of the solution.”

He said the plan would also keep the building open at a time when community members fear that crime will increase if it is abandoned.

District: No charter expansion

Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn said that the SRC has been talking to charter operators, including Mannella, but remains firm on not granting any new seats to charters for the next school year.

"Our current fiscal crisis requires this shared sacrifce," Kihn wrote in an email. "Unfortunately, the families of District schools are being forced to sacrifice, as are our employees, as are charter schools."

At the same time, he said, the District remains open to "creative solutions to our complex financial challenges," specifically "ways to reduce the net cost of charter schools to the District."

Presumably, Mannella’s plan to educate the 100 kindergartners at its own expense could reduce the District’s net costs next year if KIPP cut enrollment at its four existing schools and didn’t seek to put an expansion request for these students in its charter. Kihn also said that the District was not now considering charter expansion requests beyond next year, but charters can be amended later if the District gets a more stable funding base.

Pressed further on the KIPP plan, Kihn wrote: "At this time any [charter] school’s actions, creative or not, that would require an increase in the authorized seat numbers written into their charter agreement constitutes an expansion."

The District must plug a $304 million budget hole for its next fiscal year and is seeking $120 million from the state, $60 million from the city, and $133 million in union concessions. Just two weeks from the deadline for Harrisburg and City Hall to adopt their budgets, nothing has been settled. City Council passed a $2 cigarette tax, but to be applied, it would require Harrisburg’s approval. State legislators have been discouraging about coming up with anything near the $120 million for city schools.

So far, to make ends meet, the District has laid off nearly 3,800 workers, including all its counselors and secretaries, most assistant principals, more than 600 teachers, and every school-based support worker.

The District also voted to close 24 generally underutilized schools, including Wilson, in an attempt to “rightsize” and eventually cut overall costs. Although some other school communities successfully lobbied the SRC to keep their schools off the closure list, Wilson was not among them. But since the March vote, parents have continued to lobby to keep Wilson open and they have a powerful ally in Blackwell.

Kihn said, however, that there are no plans to reverse Wilson’s closure.

Concerns about safety

At Thursday’s meeting, not everyone among the 60 or so in attendance was sold on the KIPP proposal. Some community members stressed that they were most concerned about the safety of the current students who would have to commute to Lea, located a mile to the north across highly trafficked thoroughfares like Baltimore Avenue and Spruce Street.

Transportation isn’t provided for students, no matter how young, unless they live at least 1.5 miles away from Lea, at 47th and Locust Streets.

“The crime rate around that school [Lea] is terrible. They have all those halfway houses. They get out the same time the kids do,” said Wilson parent Lisa Woods.

Blackwell agreed. “Going from here to Lea is like going from here to South Philly or Germantown. It is not at all the same area. That’s a big, big problem.”

According to Woods, many community members do not own cars, and their children would be forced to walk to school, regardless of weather or safety concerns. They also worried about overcrowding in the Lea building with the addition of several hundred students.

“We’re concerned about everything from transportation to neighborhood fights, to all of the community issues that you have when you take two different areas of the city and put it together,” Blackwell said.

Quetta Jefferson, head of the West Shore Civic Association, is primarily worried about what will happen to the Wilson students. “We’re fighting for our children’s right to stay,” she said.

Regardless of KIPP’s possible move into Wilson, 1st through 4th graders and current teachers at Wilson will be displaced. Jefferson said they are looking into a private transportation alternative.

At the meeting, KIPP promised community members preference in their lottery, practically ensuring that a Wilson-based kindergarten would be populated with neighborhood children.

Mannella hopes to move into Wilson because of its proximity to KIPP West Philadelphia Preparatory Charter.

KIPP had originally wanted to rent the shuttered Turner Middle School, but the District relocated Motivation High School into that building.

Plans for K-12 networks

KIPP Philadelphia now operates four schools in the city — three in North Philadelphia and a middle school in West Philadelphia — that educate more than 1,000 students, according to its website. Its goal is to create two K-12 networks.

Its North Philadelphia charter is up for renewal, and it is seeking more than 1,000 new seats to fill in missing grades and otherwise expand. The three schools now operate as a K-2, 5-8, and 9-11.

The SRC’s next meeting is June 19. The commission is demanding that charters seeking renewals sign an agreement with an enrollment cap. KIPP is among several charters that have not yet done so.

KIPP does not participate in the Renaissance Schools initiative, in which low-performing District schools are converted to charters. It prefers to start its own schools in underserved neighborhoods one grade at a time.

Sonia Giebel and Mark McHugh are interns at the Notebook. Contributing editor Dale Mezzacappa contributed reporting.

District outlines plan to outsource more Head Start seats

2013-03-21T20:09:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

One issue that has mostly flown under the radar in the frenzy over school closings: The District is planning to privatize nearly 2,000 additional Head Start seats, saying that without this move the number of children getting pre-K services — already just a fraction of those eligible — would shrink precipitously.

The District’s reason, as with almost everything, is money. It is losing between $70 million and $80 million in federal Title I grants next year, about $17 million in additional federal funds because of the sequester, and more millions in state Head Start money. The District-run Head Start sites, which use certified teachers, cost $3,400 more per child — $11,700 vs. $8,300, according to a presentation by Renee Queen Jackson, deputy chief of early childhood education, at the School Reform Commission on Thursday night.

The difference is due entirely to the higher salaries paid to the teachers, she said when questioned by Commissioner Joseph Dworetzky.

Queen Jackson said that 1,830 of 6,182 Head Start slots are now provided by private partner agencies, with the rest provided by the District. "We propose to more than double that," she said, adding that keeping the current ratio would result in 500 fewer available slots.

"The service reduction would be a tremendous loss to the children, families, and communities in Philadelphia," Queen Jackson said.

She maintained that quality won’t be compromised, but several teachers and parents from Head Start programs forcefully begged to differ. They called most private providers "day care centers," that often don’t even require a bachelor’s degree for their teachers.

Several people from the Trinidad Head Start site in North Philadelphia recounted the successes of graduates, the family atmosphere, and the support of many partners. They said that turning it over to a private provider would destroy a community institution.

"Are the children in this neighborhood worth so little in your quest to save money?" asked teacher assistant Bridget Anderson. "The fact that you would close this school without knowing anything about it shows poor judgment."

Christine Palermo, a teacher at the Head Start program at Fulton Elementary in Germantown, pointed out that the District was closing 17 Head Start classrooms in Northwest Philadelphia. "I understand the need for reform, but I am having a hard time understanding how you are going about the reform. You are hitting the most economically challenged communities the hardest. Those are the communities that need us most."

Among the critics of the change were representatives of the Head Start Policy Council, which is made up of parents and community representatives and functions as a governing partner with the District for the program.

"We understand the restructuring process and the possibility of having to outsource services; however, we are asking for funding from any venue which will allow us to minimize the impact while saving jobs," said Andrea Chaney, a Head Start parent and chair of the council’s budget and finance committee. "We must assure that we are not sacrificing quality in saving quantity."

Head Start, an initiative started in 1965 as one of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, was designed not just to deliver high-quality early education, but also as a community development program that provided jobs while involving low-income families in their children’s schooling. Many parents, mostly mothers, worked in the centers and went on to further their own educations and lift themselves out of poverty.

In a PowerPoint, Queen Jackson presented information indicating that students in partner sites and those in District-run Head Start programs showed similar results in early-literacy indicators. The District is putting out Requests for Proposals to current partners to expand and is now seeking additional partners, she said, giving assurances that the employees of the partner agencies would get District-run training. The goal is to have at least 60 percent of the providers with at least three stars (out of five) on the state rating system known as Keystone Stars, she said. The stars measure both financial and educational factors.

Christie Balka, director of child care and budget policy at the advocacy group Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), was the only person to speak in favor of the District’s plan. She said that quality pre-K is now available to only one-third of the children who need it, and she doesn’t want to see that number shrink.

Balka said that she had some concerns about maintaining quality, but that "PCCY supports the restructuring."

No Easy Road, Part 3

2009-09-29T13:31:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Ninth grade didn’t finish the way Corey White had hoped.

The high-achieving teen’s final grades at Academy at Palumbo High School included Cs in English and biology.

Concerned, Corey’s mother and great-grandparents moved him out of their Southwest Philadelphia home and in with his grandparents.

It’s the reverse of the move that White’s mother, now 28, made at his age.

“I had Corey when I was 13,” says Robin White, who dropped out of Thomas Middle School in 8th grade.

When Corey was just a toddler, she moved in with Corey’s great-grandparents.

Rebecca White, now 70, was well positioned to provide support. She had studied elementary education at Bowie State University and later worked at child care centers, preschools, and the ELECT Program for teen moms.

She also taught at the Evelyn Graves Christian Daycare Academy when Corey started there as a three-year-old. The following year, she and Corey moved on together to preschool at St. Charles Borremeo.

As a result, Corey’s early schooling reinforced his education at home.

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear was Corey’s favorite book,” Robin White recalls. “I had to take it out of the library for him. He knew it without even having to read it.”

“[In preschool], we did a whole play out of Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” laughs Rebecca White. “Our hearts were open to helping him learn, so he was ready for kindergarten.”

Now, Corey is focused on 10th grade. Despite lackluster English and science grades last year, he excelled in algebra, making him confident about the new year.

“Chemistry is going to be an A subject,” he predicts. “It’s more math-based than biology.”

•••

Dominique Holloman somehow accumulated enough credits to make it to 10th grade.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t shown up to school yet this year.

Last spring, Dominique was facing months of missed schoolwork following the birth of her daughter, Destiny.

After staying home for the entire 2007-08 school year, Dominique’s freshman year at Audenried High School was supposed to be a new beginning.

But Dominique missed over two months of school while pregnant, and she didn’t return after Destiny’s birth on May 1.

She was slotted for summer school, but records show she attended for only three days.

Now, it looks like the promising teen might drop out permanently.

Dominique and her mother, who dropped out in the 11th grade, declined to be interviewed for this article. Others aren’t sure what she wants.

For months, Dominique, Destiny, and Destiny’s father have been living with Samantha Adams, Destiny’s paternal grandmother.

Adams, 39, says she talks to them constantly about parenting skills and making good choices.

“My plan is to help them become productive parents on their own,” she explains.

Through her work to help troubled families prevent their children from being placed with the Department of Human Services, Adams knows how dramatically her granddaughter’s future will be affected by Dominique’s decisions.

Daughters of women who graduate from high school are one-third less likely to drop out than daughters of women who dropped out, according to a recent study.

Adams holds out hope that Dominique will return to Audenried. While that looks unlikely, the school says its doors are open.

“She’s still enrolled,” says roster chair Victoria Monacelli. “She could come tomorrow if she wants.”

•••

Will Green spent much of his summer on the phone, talking to girls.

“I haven’t been doing anything to get ready for 10th grade,” he said in late August, surprised at the thought.

Will’s mother is concerned.

“I’m worried about him falling into the life that I was in,” Freena Green says quietly.

Before Will was born, his mother served a 90-day sentence at Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility on drug charges.

Will’s father, William Rodriguez, is currently incarcerated, also on drug charges.

During Will’s early years, his mother struggled to turn her life around.

When Will was about four, she got a cleaning job at the Spectrum. Later, she worked as a receptionist, then at a child care center.

“I was so happy taking care of the kids, working my job, and coming home. But I was going through a lot,” she recalls.

Perhaps as a result, she got a late start enrolling Will in preschool. Will eventually attended Head Start at the Houston Center and then kindergarten at Abigail Vare Elementary.

His mother, meanwhile, continued to struggle.

“I was calling out to the Lord, but I was not able to give up that way of life. And I ended up having a breakdown,” she says.

Will remembers crying on his first day of kindergarten – after school, because he worried that no one was going to meet him. Otherwise, he says he doesn’t recall much about his mom’s struggles.

Freena Green says she was saved six years ago. Ever since, the Whole Truth Church of Deliverance in South Philadelphia has been her life.

“God has delivered me from a generational curse,” she says gratefully.

As for Will, she can only pray that he too escapes the cycles that threaten to ensnare him.

But with summer winding down, the beginning of 10th grade was barely on Will’s mind.

“I don’t know when the first day of school is,” he said with a shrug. “But I’m sure someone will tell me.”

No Easy Road

In the third installment of the Notebook series about what keeps students connected to high school, we check in with three South Philly teens at the beginning of 10th grade – and look back at their early years.

To read the previous installments, click here for part one and part two.

Who pays for early education: A look at funding

2009-09-23T17:43:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Unlike public school K-12 schooling, which is funded mostly with local and state taxes, early care funding is complicated, and spots are not guaranteed for all families who want or need care.

Preschool access and policies are driven largely by federal dollars and programs, primarily Head Start. States distribute these dollars, and may or may not add money of their own.

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), based at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., tracks preschool spending nationally and issues an annual report.

NIEER’s most recent report, covering the 2007-08 year, showed that 12 states offered no state-funded preschool. On the other end of the spectrum, in one state, Oklahoma, virtually every child can start school at age four due to a combination of federal and state dollars. Pennsylvania is in-between – after years near the bottom of the pack.

Of the 38 states with state-funded programs, according to NIEER, 33 of them increased enrollment in 2008. But in just eight states and the District of Columbia did a majority of four-year-olds attend some kind of publicly funded preschool.

In 2007-08, Pennsylvania enrolled 6 percent of three-year-olds and 11 percent of four-year-olds in public preschool programs. This ranked the Commonwealth 28th among the 50 states in terms of access to preschool for four-year-olds and 8th for three-year-olds.

Nationwide, funding for state pre-K from all sources, including fees paid by parents and other private sources, was more than $5.2 billion, a 23 percent jump over the previous year. But with the national economy in dire straits, NIEER warned that since pre-K spending is largely discretionary, unlike K-12, it is particularly vulnerable to cuts. NIEER predicted lower spending this year, even with $44 billion in federal stimulus funds promised to the states for education-related programming.

Overall, Pennsylvania ranked 8th in terms of state spending on its preschool programming – a huge jump in a short time. In 2002, Pennsylvania spent virtually none of its own money on early childhood.

Private funding – that is to say, parents – accounted for 72 percent of funding for preschool programs across Pennsylvania, according to the report.

For low-income parents, eligibility for programs varies. Head Start is free to parents who meet federal poverty guidelines, which currently tops out at about $22,050 for a family of four. Under the state’s Child Care Works program, subsidized care is available to families with a maximum yearly income of $44,100 for a family of four, or twice the poverty guideline.

Pre-K Counts, targeted toward children who are at risk of school failure for a variety of reasons including lack of English proficiency and special needs, has higher income cutoffs – three times the federal poverty guidelines, or $66,150 for a family of four.

According to NIEER, Pennsylvania in 2007-08 paid $3,742 per child for early childhood services. That contrasts to nearly $11,000 per child in neighboring New Jersey, which is mandated under court order to provide services to three- and four-year olds in 30 of the state’s poorest cities.

Early education funding still fuels a hot political debate

2009-09-23T14:40:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Maintaining Pennsylvania’s seven-year commitment to expand and improve preschool services was a prime point of contention in this summer’s prolonged budget stalemate in Harrisburg. And the debate illustrated the political lines that are drawn when early childhood education is at stake.

Gov. Rendell made it a signature point of his administration to put state dollars into early education, arguing that investing in preschool has a long-term payoff. He said it contributes to better high school graduation rates and reduces costs in other areas, including special education, welfare, social services, and prisons.

Legislators, mostly Republicans, called for cuts to the state’s relatively recent investments in early childhood programs. They said that it was unfair to raise taxes in a recession and that early childhood education is an expendable item.

Swirling beneath the surface are deep issues rooted in divergent views over the government’s role in child rearing and supporting low-income families.

The debate “is really around some fundamental values,” said Harriet Dichter, deputy secretary in the state’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning.

In this round of the debate, with a shrinking state budget, supporters of early education seem to have at least succeeded in staving off severe cuts – which puts Pennsylvania in a better position than several other states that decimated their early childhood programs.

In the final budget agreement, funding for the Pre-K Counts program was kept at the same level; Gov. Rendell had sought an increase and the legislature had wanted to cut it.

The Pre-K Counts program, begun in 2007, helps children acquire school-readiness skills at no charge to their parents. According to the state Department of Education, the program currently serves 11,800 three- and four-year-olds from families whose children are at risk due to either poverty, lack of English proficiency, or special needs issues.

Other spending, including Head Start Supplemental, was also level-funded. This means that 5,600 Head Start spaces paid for by state rather than federal dollars avoided the chopping block.

The state also will continue to provide subsidies to low-income working families through the Child Care Works program. The allocation, however, is not enough to reach all eligible families – those who are working at least part-time and earning less than 200 percent of the poverty line.

The subsidy allocation, according to preliminary reports, was cut minimally, and some federal stimulus money will pick up the slack. But more than 4,700 eligible families are still on the waiting list for subsidized care.

Other major initiatives impacting early childhood learning in Pennsylvania are Early Intervention services for children with developmental delays from birth to age five; the Nurse-Family Partnership, which serves low-income first-time parents; Head Start and Early Head Start; and the Keystone STARS program, which promotes continuous improvement in child learning centers.

Many other states are losing ground in the face of shrinking budgets. Due to lack of money, New Jersey shelved a five-year, $25 million plan to expand preschool to all low-income three- and four-year-olds in the state.

At some centers, Pennsylvania’s budget impasse did take a toll this summer that could last a long time. Centers that enrolled children of low-income working families were especially hard-hit when their subsidies were suspended as the budget deadlock dragged into September.

The Beautiful Beginning Child Care Center in the Bustleton section, for instance, cut staff hours and asked parents to increase their copay, which was to be refunded once state monies came through. However, some hard-pressed families opted to make other arrangements, according to Melissa Blatz, director.

Many early education advocates are now looking to the federal level for help. The Obama administration has spoken about the importance of early childhood education and has proposed an Early Learning Challenge Fund and the creation of Promise Neighborhoods with comprehensive services for children aged zero to five. This is in addition to long-standing federal programs including the Child Care Development Block Grants and Early Head Start. The House of Representatives included $8 billion for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, to be distributed to states over eight years, in a higher education bill passed in mid-September.

But the administration proposals, so far, are “thin financially,” said Dichter. In fact, much of the additional money invested by Pennsylvania over the past seven years in early childhood has gone to replace federal money that has remained flat or declined.

The debate over state and federal funding of early childhood education initiatives has a long history. Twenty years ago, conservative groups put forward two main arguments— one focused on costs, the other on the viewpoint that young children should be tended to by their mothers.

In the years since, published research has documented that children who were in high-quality preschool programs are less likely to need special services in grades K-12, more likely to be promoted each year and graduate from high school, more likely to find employment and pay taxes, and less likely to need welfare or enter the criminal justice system. One study even estimated that for every $1 spent on preschool, $17 was saved in the long run.

Skeptics have criticized programming, and Head Start in particular, as costly and lacking in education quality. They have argued that Head Start should be revamped and judged by whether its graduates gain certain literacy skills.

The stay-at-home argument was still being heard in the corridors of the Capitol over the summer, said Bruce Clash, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national group with a membership of law enforcement leaders and survivors of violence that advocates the lasting value of early childhood supports.

“We all have a stake in other people’s children is how we see it,” Clash said, adding, “When we talk to legislators, we hear that we’d be better off with moms at home and families intact. But we have to be realistic.”

More, better care

2009-09-22T12:53:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The last six years have seen a transformation of child care and early education in Philadelphia.

With prodding and money from the state, quality has been significantly upgraded, access has been expanded, and thousands of child care practitioners have improved their own education and skills, which is better for children. A growing cadre of parents has become more aware of how to find, choose, and evaluate the services that exist.

“We know that the best long-term strategy in getting our kids where they need to be academically over the long term is the quality of the early childhood experience,” said Sharon Tucker, deputy education advisor to Mayor Nutter.

At the same time, huge hurdles remain to ensure that all the city’s children have the opportunity to enter kindergarten ready to learn and become literate by grade three – a key predictor of future success.

For example, despite the increase in program quality and access, early education options in the city remain a confusing hodgepodge. While spending for child care subsidies has gone up, less than half the eligible low-income families actually get them, and thousands are on waiting lists. Underutilization is a problem for the federally supported Early Intervention program, which targets children of all income levels who have significant developmental delays.

“That means that the School District and any other early education provider who’s picking up a child at [age] three or four will get that child already behind unnecessarily because the child has never received the federally funded early stimulation that’s available,” said Donald Schwarz, deputy mayor for health and opportunity. “The issue is assuring that families know about this, that people can identify developmental problems and then get children into the service.”

Administratively, the city and District still largely operate in parallel worlds, rarely working across agencies to direct services where they are most needed. For instance, the city provides a number of services for children up to three years old, including Early Intervention, while the District deals with older children.

With help from the Mayor’s Early Learning Advisory Committee, officials are trying to overcome that divide, but the effort is just getting off the ground and has been hampered by the budget uncertainty at both the city and state levels.

“We’re trying really hard to coordinate [services] with the School District because otherwise we have redundancy,” Schwarz said. “And the cost of redundancy means that fewer children are served.”

A call to action

Drawing on a compelling body of research from economists, child development experts, and scientists demonstrating the importance of early brain growth, reformers across the spectrum have made early childhood education a national rallying point.

The arguments are both practical and moral: business leaders cite economic research on long-term cost benefits of quality preschool, while neighborhood organizations and advocates for low-income families look at its role in increasing educational opportunity.

Gov. Rendell jumped on that bandwagon, and since 2003, Pennsylvania has moved from the bottom third of states investing in high quality preschool to one of the nation’s leaders in that area. It has significantly boosted child care subsidies for low-income parents, set higher standards for preschools and child care, and created programs to assist with quality improvement.

In this process, everyone from legislators to parents to child care workers has had to change how they think about early child development.

“The paradigm shift that has been taking place is [seeing] that early childhood education is very much a part of the whole education continuum in a child’s life,” said Sharon Easterling, director of the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC), an advocacy group. “That’s what Pennsylvania has done.”

For Philadelphia, this shift has meant a significant increase in how many young children receive quality early childhood education. The numbers attending District-run programs, including Head Start and Pre-K Counts, have jumped from about 6,000 in 2002-03 to nearly 10,000 today.

Through Pre-K Counts, the District formed partnerships with more than 50 community-based centers and helped many of them make the leap from custodial care to providing education.

“When we first got involved with this work with the child care partners, the battle was convincing [some of] them that they were educators,” said Donna Piekarski, the District’s Director of Early Childhood. “It’s probably been some of the most rewarding work we’ve done, because when the light bulb goes on, the place takes off.”

Through Keystone STARS, these centers get help from the state to improve their management, finances, and educational quality. The centers are rated according to a STAR system on factors including staff credentials, professional development, financial management, and the educational environment. The state has also increased requirements for child care employees, requiring lead teachers to have at least a BA in early childhood and other workers a Child Development Associate degree.

One achievement of the Mayor’s Early Learning Advisory Committee was to get a $500,000 grant to help send child care providers to school to upgrade their skills.

Many options, not enough slots

Today, there are more than 113,000 children aged 0 to 5 in Philadelphia. Nearly three-quarters of them are poor enough to qualify for subsidized child care.

More than 30,000 children do receive subsidized care through the state’s Child Care Works program, up from 20,000 in 2005. And a higher proportion of those families are sending their children to centers – providers that are more likely to be licensed and regulated for quality – than to family child care homes.

But while the state has boosted the number of subsidies over the past several years, there are still not enough to serve all families who seek help. This year, 4,700 Philadelphia families are on the waiting list, meaning that they sought a subsidy after the money had run out.

“It’s a very difficult thing when you have to turn a parent away,” said Piekarski. “But it’s all fund-driven.”

But building political support for early childhood is still chancy; one of the biggest battlegrounds in the protracted state budget battle was over Gov. Rendell’s proposal to further increase child care subsidies, Pre-K Counts, and Keystone STARS (see early education funding story).

In Philadelphia, parents seeking services face such a tangle of options that it is hard to sort them out. District-run preschool comes in the guise of several different programs – Head Start, Pre-K Counts, Bright Futures, and Comprehensive Day Care – and parents who call the District seeking help get voice prompts asking them which one they want. Just finding the proper contact is daunting.

“We know we have some work to do in that area,” said Piekarski.

Many parents also don’t realize that a spot in preschool is not guaranteed, like it is in K-12.

“We have tremendous wait lists and disappointed parents and disappointed children,” Piekarski said. “I had one in my office yesterday. It was heartbreaking because all our slots are filled, and here’s the little boy. [His mother said,] ‘But I promised him he’s going to go to preschool this year.’”

Schwarz, Tucker, and Piekarski all said that they would like to see universal pre-K in the city within the next 10 years, meaning at the very least enough slots for all three- and four-year-olds to attend quality programs if they want to.

As part of her Imagine 2014 strategic plan for the District, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has decided to open up child care centers in high schools, starting with one at Lincoln this year. She has also announced plans to set up early childhood resource centers around the city where parents can learn about available services. As yet, there is no timetable for opening the first of them nor is there a decision about where it will be, and the grim new budget reality complicates this plan.

Saving money in the long run

While the short-term funding picture is bleak, Schwarz pointed out that coordinating and enhancing services for young children has the potential to save taxpayer dollars in the long run. One of the best predictors of student graduation is whether a student is reading on grade level by 3rd grade.

Piekarski has data from testing of more than 10,000 kindergarteners on DIBELS, a major test of emergent literacy. Results show that those who went through formal child care are more likely to have sound and letter fluency than those who either went through informal care or none at all. In addition, pre-and post-testing of four year olds last year in District programs showed progress in areas of social and emotional development, language and literacy, mathematical and scientific thinking, and the arts.

At the same time, results on the District’s definitive test of literacy at the end of grade three are still troubling, having essentially remained flat for at least six years. According to the Developmental Reading Assessment, less than half – 48 percent – of 3rd graders were on grade level in 2009.

“We know that if children read at grade level in 3rd grade, all of the public sector investments that are required thereafter will be reduced, particularly the very expensive ones, including special education, imprisonment, complex behavioral health institution placement, and so forth,” said Schwarz. “And that’s probably most important to the future of the city.”

At the SRC

2009-01-09T01:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

At its December meetings, the School Reform Commission:

Clarified its policy on suspension and expulsion and voted for the first time since 2004 to expel a student. The resolution states that the District is committed to using "all of the tools at its disposal" to maintain safe learning environments, reaffirms the need to identify and help troubled students early, and spells out how expelled students will be placed in alternative schools unless the parent chooses to put the child in an educational setting outside Philadelphia. The SRC also heard a report on placements in disciplinary schools.
Voted to the lower compulsory school age to six, after receiving the go-ahead from the state legislature under the prodding of Rep. James Roebuck (D.- Phila.). In the rest of Pennsylvania, children are not required to start school until age eight. Roebuck argued that students needed the earliest start possible to fulfill their academic potential.
Adopted a new policy addressing the public’s right to procure copies of District records, complying with changes to the state’s new open records law, Act 3 of 2008. Requests for records are to be submitted in writing to the “Open Records Officer” at the School District and can use the form provided by the state.
Heard an update on its financial status from Chief Business Officer Michael Masch, who said that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, the District was able to reduce its deficit to less than half a million dollars. Masch said that despite cost increases due to contract settlements and borrowing expenses, the District expects to end the current fiscal year with a balanced budget, and does not expect to see major decreases in tax revenues until 2009-10.

‘Pre-K Counts’ could help thousands

2007-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

To the editors:

Parents want to prepare their children for life and give them the tools they will need to be successful adults. Quality pre-kindergarten is an important step.

This is why Governor Rendell’s proposed $75 million investment in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts is so important.

Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts would make it possible for 11,000 three- and four-year-olds to attend a quality pre-kindergarten program at no cost to their families. Parents in participating communities would be able to choose full- or half-day quality pre-kindergarten in schools, Head Start, child care centers and group day care homes with a rating 2 or higher on the state’s Keystone STARS rating system, and licensed nursery schools.

All Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts classrooms would have quality features such as small class sizes, teachers with education in early childhood, and a curriculum designed to promote the healthy development of each child.

Children age three until they enter kindergarten would be eligible to apply. Priority enrollment would be targeted at children who have economic, language, cultural or other disadvantages putting them at risk of failing in school.

It is up to all of us to let our legislators know that Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts is crucial for our young children’s success. Learn more at www.prektoday.org.

Melissa Stueck
mstueck@philasafesound.org
The writer is coordinator of the Philadelphia Alliance for Better Child Care at Philadelphia Safe and Sound.

The developing brain

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

According to a 1997 report by Rima Shore, Rethinking the Brain, there are five key discoveries about developing brains in young children (emphasis in original):

“How a brain develops hinges on a complex interplay between genes and experiences;
“Early experiences have a decisive impact on the architecture of the brain and on the nature and extent of adult capacities;
“Early interactions don’t just create context; they directly affect the way a brain is ‘wired;’
“Brain development is non-linear: there are prime times for acquiring different kinds of knowledge and skills;
“By the time children reach age three, their brains are twice as active as those of adults. Activity levels drop during adolescence.”

Wait lists suggest lack of affordable care

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Despite increased funding commitments from both the state and the School District, Philadelphia families are confronting a shortage of quality, affordable child care.

Groups whose access to child care is problematic include teen parents and Latino and Asian families, child care advocates say.

The clearest sign of the child care gap is that there is a wait for virtually every form of free or subsidized child care in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia parents seeking subsidized child care face waiting lists in four of the city’s five regions, with waits ranging from two to more than four months.

Despite its addition of 1,200 early childhood slots over the past three years, the School District also has long waiting lists for both its Head Start and Bright Futures programs.

“We’re probably serving about 50 percent of the Head Start-eligible children,” said District early childhood chief Donna Piekarski. “We always have a waiting list. Federal Head Start really needs to be bumped up.… That’s where the bulk of the money is.”

In recent years, the growth in federal Head Start funding has been modest, and it has been through state funding increases that the program been able to grow in Philadelphia.

One group that has been adversely affected by the waiting list for child care subsidies is teen parents. Piekarski noted, “We have had reports of some of our teens being on this list for a very long time and then missing school because they don’t have anyone to care for the baby.”

The state established a set-aside of subsidy funds for teens to ensure that they do not get stuck on waiting lists, but some advocates say the system has not been working.

The current squeeze on affordable, quality child care has brought a significant shift in the number of low-income families who are using less expensive, informal care. While in the late 1990s, nearly all subsidy dollars went to licensed or regulated providers, the high cost of formal care and looser restrictions allowing parents to use child care subsidies for relative or neighbor care have led to a surge in usage of informal, unregulated care among subsidized families.

Research suggests that such care may not provide the same long-term benefits as formal preschool. The shift toward informal caregivers will also make it difficult for the District and School Reform Commission (SRC) to achieve one of the 2008 goals of their Declaration of Education – that “85 percent of all students entering kindergarten will have participated in a formal preschool experience.”

Piekarski commented, “The SRC knows that we can’t meet that target unless some additional funding sources are identified for early childhood.”

The percentage of Philadelphia kindergartners who have had formal preschool experience has been hovering in the high 60s, but is significantly lower for Asians (48 percent) and Latinos (57 percent), and in the North and Central East Regions. The District has targeted those regions for Head Start expansion.

If the state provides another increase in Head Start dollars, Piekarski is looking to focus new funds on four regions – Central East, North, South and Southwest – because of “major influxes of immigrants in those areas.”

Mary Graham, executive director of The Children’s Village, a center in Chinatown, says in that community, there is demand for more formal, licensed child care.

“The problem is most of those that come here need a subsidy and find themselves on a state subsidy waiting list,” she explained. “There are openings, true, but a long wait to get the subsidy.”

“Only the lowest incomes get assistance,” Graham added, saying affordability is a big issue for many who do not qualify for subsidies.

Thoai Nguyen, executive director of SEAMAAC, which provides services for recent Southeast Asian immigrants, sees low usage of formal child care as reflecting the fact that “families feel the mainstream centers won’t meet their child’s needs.”

“Right now the system – post 9/11 – is anti-refugee,” he explained. “There’s a level of distrust of the system in general and subsidies and free services.”

The District is expanding access to its program by contracting out Head Start slots to 23 child care providers, with the District providing professional development, curriculum, and technical assistance to these child care centers.

Deborah Russell-Brown and Janine LaBletta contributed research for this article.

Teachers say NCLB’s impact reaches K and pre-K classrooms

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Most of us have fond memories of kindergarten. There were toys to play with, snacks and naps, and everybody seemed pretty relaxed.

But with the pressures generated by the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB), the toys are increasingly being put away. Pressures to raise student achievement have made kindergarten – and even pre-K classrooms – more stressful places.

While school readiness remains the overarching goal, emphasis has shifted to more explicit literacy instruction. Much of what was traditionally taught in first grade is now realized in kindergarten. And high-stakes testing has reached down into pre-K, with all Head Start children now given a test, called the National Reporting System, on vocabulary, letter recognition, and early math skills.

Head Start – standards and testing

Theresa Willer-Grinkewicz, a Head Start teacher and academic coach with two decades of classroom experience in Philadelphia, sees the coming of clear standards for early childhood education as a necessary and positive development. “The curriculum gets teachers focused on what kids need to know,” she said.

But Willer-Grinkewicz also sees in its implementation many practices that she characterizes as developmentally inappropriate. She cites as examples eliminating dramatic play, children sitting in circles for more than 45 minutes, and teachers complaining that children “talk too much.”

Willer-Grinkewicz and many researchers believe that children learn through active engagement with their environment, a process that involves varied physical activity, problem solving, and negotiating with other children and adults.

Willer-Grinkewicz also echoes many critics who doubt that the National Reporting System renders an accurate assessment of preschool learning because of the great fluctuation in development at this age. The data from this test are used to evaluate the effectiveness of Head Start programs.

Speaking about her own experience in administering the test, Willer-Grinkewicz says children often don’t attend to the question but go off in directions that are of interest to them.

“You might show them a group of letters, for example, and ask them which one they recognize, and they will ask why some other letter is not there or explain that the letter C is the first letter in their name even if C is not on the list,” she explains.

Kindergarten teachers face new pressures

In an interview with Julia de Burgos School kindergarten teachers Hillary Oyer and Betsy Ortiz, joined by Liz Gomez, first grade and former kindergarten teacher, all three describe how even in kindergarten the bar is being raised for literacy instruction. Students are regularly assessed to gauge their reading levels and grouped accordingly.

“Last year we had to get the children to ‘Level C’ by the end of the year. Now we have to get them to ‘Level D,’” Ortiz observes.

This expectation for kindergartners, which teachers are hearing from administrators, goes well beyond the stated objectives in the School District’s Core Curriculum, which calls for kindergartners to be at Level B. According to the teachers, moving from Level C to D is a big jump. A typical text at Level C consists of a picture and one sentence with two or three sight words and one word where students need to use decoding strategies or the picture to figure it out. Level D involves independent decoding and more sight words, while introducing vowels, chunks, and blends.

The impetus for including more advanced material in kindergarten is the requirements of first grade. First graders must reach Level J by the end of the year, which involves reading texts with several paragraphs.

“There is no way they reach Level J without being at D by the end of kindergarten,” first grade teacher Gomez says. Given these objectives, the Core Curriculum for kindergarten is actually not rigorous enough, she maintains.

These teachers think the more ambitious literacy standards for kindergarten may be achievable for most of their students but only if other problems like absenteeism, large class sizes, and lack of pre-K experience are addressed. Gomez adds that 60 percent of her last kindergarten class was on grade level at the end of the year.

Those children who go to kindergarten certainly are entering first grade with greater literacy readiness than in the past (Gomez said about 10 percent of her first graders had no kindergarten). But in the process, kindergarten has become, for both teachers and students, more like the environment in the upper grades, with more stress and perhaps fewer “teachable moments.”

“Teachers are stressed out trying to stay on task, stay on schedule, and meet all the demands of the curriculum,” says Gomez, “so when children want to explore a topic a little bit more, you have to constantly halt that. There’s never a time to just relax and let them be kids and enjoy them.”

Ortiz added, “The kids get frustrated. Some fall asleep. There’s no more nap time.”

Better get used to it?

In the newspaper Education Week, education writer Alfie Kohn describes how many have resigned themselves to the test-driven changes: "Child development experts are nearly unanimous in denouncing the use of standardized testing with young children. One Iowa principal conceded that many teachers too consider it ‘insane’ to subject first graders to a four-and-a-half hour test. However, she adds, “They need to get used to it.”

But others defend the traditional play-based curriculum with its emphasis on problem-solving and teaching social skills as the best way to prepare children for more formal instruction and facilitate their intellectual and emotional development.

This is a debate that is bound to continue as NCLB plays out in our schools and classrooms.

Which child care program fits my child?

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Choosing the right child care program for your child is one of the most important early decisions you’ll make as a parent. A good program does more than just babysit. It provides a safe and supportive environment where children are encouraged to play and learn.

The cost of the program needs to be within your budget. If you are worried about how to afford good child care, you might be eligible to receive child care subsidies. If you fit the income guidelines in the Early Care and Education: FAQ, call 1-888-461-KIDS (5437) to get more information on financial help.

Start your search early and follow these steps to help you find the right program.

Make a list: Talk with friends, family members and co-workers about child care programs they have used. But don’t stop there. Get a list of child care providers in your area by contacting Child Care Information Services (CCIS) of Philadelphia County at 1-888-461-KIDS or visit www.philadelphiachildcare.org.
Call: Call child care centers or homes that are conveniently located to your home or workplace that you are considering for your child. Start with basic questions: Is your program licensed or registered? How many children do you take care of? What are the hours? What are your fees? Do you give children breakfast/lunch/snacks? How do you handle a child getting sick at school? If the answers to the above questions fit your needs, you’ll want to get more information on these key indicators of quality:

Adult-to-child ratio: Ask how many children there are for each adult. The fewer the children for each adult, the better for your child. You want your child to get plenty of attention. The younger your child, the more important this is. State licensed centers are required to provide one adult for every four infants, while four-year-olds can do well with one adult for ten children. The lower the ratio the better.
Group size: Find out how many children are in the group. The smaller the group, the better. Imagine a group of 25 two-year olds with five adults, compared to a group of 10 with two adults.
Caregiver qualifications: Ask about the caregivers’ training and education. Caregivers with degrees and/or special training in working with children will be better able to help your child learn.
Turnover: Check how long caregivers have been at the center or providing care in their homes. It’s best if a child stays with the same caregiver for at least one year.
Keystone STARS or accreditation: Find out if the child care provider participates in Pennsylvania’s quality rating system – Keystone STARS – or has been accredited by a national organization. Such providers have met voluntary standards that are higher than state licensing requirements.

Visit and ask more questions: Make a short list of child care centers or homes that you are still considering and schedule visits. Morning is the best time to see a program in full swing. Avoid afternoon when children will be napping. During your visit, ask questions to help you decide if your child will be safe and happy.

What will my child do each day? What is your daily schedule?
How do your teachers handle behavior issues, disruptive children, or children who can’t sit still?
Besides yourself, who will be around my child when they are in your care?
How do you communicate with parents?

Look and listen: During your visit, look around the child care center or home and be aware of the surroundings and what’s happening. Use the following checklist.

See the checklist (An Adobe Acrobat PDF).

Task force wants supports for Latino preschoolers

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Recent research shows that in Philadelphia’s Latino community there are lower-than-average rates of participation in early childhood programs. A task force on early education issues has been meeting with the School District to identify gaps in services for young Latino children and to push for greater access to “culturally grounded” quality early childhood programs.

About 15 percent of Philadelphia’s public school students are Latino. The District’s Office of Early Childhood encouraged the formation of the Philadelphia Latino Task Force on Early Childhood Education & Head Start Equity in response to research showing Latino students have stronger literacy skills in kindergarten and better school attendance if they have preschool experience.

The Latino Task Force published an initial report with findings and recommendations last September. After a meeting in February with top District administrators including CEO Paul Vallas, Task Force co-chairs Johnny Irizarry of the Lighthouse and Pat DeCarlo of Norris Square Civic Association cited “significant progress” and said the Task Force would continue to work in partnership with the District.

A February 21 letter from the Task Force co-chairs to Vallas acknowledged several recent District commitments. These include targeting most new state funding for Head Start to the Latino community, creating a new career ladder program for bilingual District paraprofessionals, and developing dual language proficiency programs at several schools.

Irizarry said staff quality issues were a focus of the February meeting, such as the fact that the School District’s 6,000-student Head Start program had only one bilingual teacher citywide. The District has begun partnering with community-based organizations to create new Head Start programs with bilingual staff.

The Task Force urged the District to step up its recruitment and hiring of “fully bilingual, culturally informed, sensitive, well-trained personnel” across the District.

Another recommendation of the Task Force is greater community involvement in educational programming for Latino children. Its report proposed “Town Hall Meetings” that would address issues facing young children and discuss benefits of early care and education programs.

For information or to join the Task Force, contact Johnny Irizarry at 215-425-7800 or jirizarry@lighthse.net. Irizarry is executive director of the Lighthouse, which runs a nationally accredited bilingual child care center.

Valuing quality child care

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

It’s time to recognize the importance of high-quality early childhood education to the success of our educational system as a whole.

There is a solid base of research telling us the benefits of preschool education. A recent report by W. Steven Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research offers an impressive list of documented benefits of high-quality pre-K: “higher test scores, better social skills, less grade repetition and special education, higher graduation rates, increased earnings, less crime, and less teen pregnancy, abortion and smoking.”

We also have powerful local evidence on the value of preschool from a comprehensive study of Philadelphia kindergartners. Research from John Fantuzzo at the University of Pennsylvania has found that attending formal, center-based preschool not only made kindergarten students better performers, but those benefits carried over at least through third grade. Those who had formal preschool experiences do better on achievement tests and are also less likely to have attendance and behavior problems. Children facing risk factors such as poverty, lead poisoning, or maltreatment are less likely than their peers to suffer academic setbacks if they had attended a preschool program.

The benefits of high-quality early childhood education, while greatest for children living in poverty, are significant for children of all social classes. When child care and preschool are done well, they provide a safe environment that stimulates a child’s mental and physical abilities, nurtures emotional and social development, and builds a strong foundation for academic success. Investing in these environments is not an “entitlement program” for the poor; it is a sound policy strategy for which there should be a clear consensus at all levels of government.

Government has a critical role to play in early childhood education – not only when it comes to providing resources to support professional teaching staff and well-equipped classrooms, but also in ensuring equity of access to quality care.

The good news at both the state and local level is the signs that those responsible for early childhood education understand and are responding to the challenge.

As a state that until two years ago put no money into preschool at all, Pennsylvania still has a lot of catching up to do. But Governor Ed Rendell has made a substantial investment of state funds in Head Start; Accountability Block Grants cover the costs of full-day kindergarten or preschool for increasing numbers of children; and initiatives like Keystone STARS increase public awareness of and accountability for child care quality.

Locally, the School District has committed operating funds to increasing the number of preschool slots and has shifted resources into ensuring that classrooms are led by well-trained teachers who receive high-quality professional development. The District’s work has been furthered by area foundations, which are investing heavily in the creation of new models and strategies for early childhood education.

The bad news is that all those gains can easily be undermined if the federal government devalues the needs of young children. And tragically, in this era of intense focus on national security needs, neither the Bush administration nor Congress has made it a priority to invest in the safety and security of one of our most precious and fragile resources – our young children.

On the heels of a Congressional vote to cut child care assistance, health care access, and other needed supports from hundreds of thousands of children from low-income working families, the President’s budget proposal for the coming year loudly and clearly reinforced that approach:

By freezing funding for Head Start, the Bush budget could mean 19,000 fewer available slots for children in the coming year.
By cutting spending on Child Care and Development block grants, which provide child care subsidies to low-income working families and families in which a parent is in a welfare-to-work program, the federal government projects over five years to reduce the number of American children eligible for subsidies by 400,000.
By eliminating the “Even Start” family literacy program, freezing spending for special education in the early years, and eliminating the federal grants to states for teacher recruitment and preparation, the administration again displays its disregard for the needs of young children.

The President and his allies in Congress seem to operate in a bubble on any number of issues. Grasping the need to invest in high-quality early childhood education is no exception.

Now more than ever, it is critical that we speak out for investments in more quality choices and increased access to those already available. A good place to start is by contacting our representatives in Congress (see “Who ya gonna call?”)

Parents are a great unharnessed force for quality and equity in child care services. All of us together must reassert the value we place on quality, caring programs for young children by encouraging strong local and state efforts and holding our federal government accountable for its misguided priorities.

Counting the STARS

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

For many years, Pennsylvania’s involvement in child care included helping eligible, low-income, working families pay for child care and regulating the industry for health and safety standards. Three years ago, the state took the additional step of establishing a system to rate, recognize, and improve the quality of child care programs in Pennsylvania.

Keystone STARS is a voluntary quality rating system available to all providers, home and center-based, that are regulated by the state’s Department of Public Welfare.

STARS stands for Standards, Training/Professional Development, Assistance, Resources, and Support. Child care providers are awarded a quality rating of STAR One, STAR Two, STAR Three, or STAR Four. Ratings are based on their achievement of research-based quality performance standards in the areas of staff education, learning environment, and business practices.

STAR One is relatively easy to obtain for any provider who has achieved the minimal health and safety standards required by licensing. Achieving a STAR Four rating is similar to meeting accreditation standards developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Keystone STARS provides parents with a means of identifying higher quality programs, while offering grants, professional development, and other supports to child care providers to improve the quality of their programs.

For more information about Keystone STARS or to obtain a list of Keystone STARS participants, visit www.pakeys.org or call toll-free 877-660-2273.

Six- and seven-year olds still not all in school

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Children in Philadelphia, and throughout Pennsylvania, are not mandated to attend school until they reach age eight – generally the time that children are in or just finished with second grade.

State legislation known as House Bill 377, introduced by State Representative James Roebuck, Jr., of Philadelphia, would lower the age to six in Philadelphia alone. An exemption is included in the legislation for children who are home-schooled. This legislation has already passed Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and is awaiting action by the Senate Education Committee.

The School District of Philadelphia estimates that the bill would affect approximately 700 students annually, who enter school overage. “They come in, and they’re too old for kindergarten or first grade, and they’re lost from day one,” commented Paul Vallas, CEO, School District of Philadelphia.

According to Donna Piekarski, the head of the District’s Office of Early Childhood Education, a further consequence of children entering school at older ages is that they are at a higher risk of being held back in the future. She added, “They get into a vicious cycle of thinking, ‘Now I’m older than everyone else, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to know.’”

Piekarski maintained that the legislation “will help us with that population of children that we’re now losing in the seventh or eighth grade. Sixteen-year-olds are not going to sit in class with 12-year-olds.”

As Roebuck observed, “The policy of not requiring a child to be enrolled until they are eight years old is a legacy from the days of plowing fields with horse teams and children working in coal mine breaker buildings and textile plants, when every hand was essential on a farm and every income essential to the well-being of an urban working family.”

Pennsylvania is one of only two states that have retained the compulsory age at eight years.

Early care and education: frequently asked questions

2006-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

What kinds of programs can I find that will provide child care and educational experiences for my child before he/she goes to kindergarten?

There is a variety of types of early care programs from which Pennsylvania parents can choose. These include child care programs (also known as day care) that are licensed by the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW) and nursery, preschool and pre-kindergarten programs that may be licensed by the state Department of Education (DOE). Some early care programs are licensed by both DPW and DOE.

Additionally, children may attend a Head Start program. Some children remain with relatives or neighbors for their early years.

Choosing the right program for your child and family is one of the most important decisions you will make. In order to do this, you should understand the differences among the programs.

Can you explain to me the different kinds of state-regulated child care programs?

There are three types of programs that are licensed by DPW. These are licensed child care centers, licensed group homes, and registered family day care homes. These child care programs are often the choice of working families because they offer early education programming in addition to providing care for 10 or more hours per day.

Licensed child care centers must comply with state regulations that establish minimum health, safety, and caregiving training standards. They are inspected by DPW at least once per year. The maximum number of children permitted depends on the size of the facility and the number of staff.

Licensed group day care homes are also inspected by DPW at least once per year. They may be in a person’s home or in a separate facility. Group day care homes serve from 7 to 12 children (unrelated to the provider). Like the larger child care center programs, these facilities must comply with state regulations that establish minimum health, safety, and caregiving training standards.

Registered family day care homes also must comply with state regulations that establish minimum health, safety, and are giving training standards. They are located in the provider’s home. The provider may care for up to six children (unrelated to the provider) and her own children or grandchildren. DPW does not inspect the home before it opens but does conduct on-site visits to a random list of family day care homes every year. These programs often have more flexible care schedules offering care on weekends and evenings.

How are preschools or nursery schools different from these child care program?

Preschool, pre-kindergarten and nursery school programs provide educational experiences for children. They are also called “early education programs.” Some programs may only operate on a part-time basis. They may or may not be regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education or the Department of Public Welfare. In Philadelphia, the School District provides a free pre-kindergarten program, Bright Futures, to some four- and five-year-olds.

Head Start and Early Head Start are income-eligible, federally and state funded child development programs that provide a broad range of services to meet educational and other needs of young children and their families. These programs are available to families living at or below poverty. For example, a family of four must earn less than $20,000 annually to be eligible for Head Start.

Don’t some people just take care of a few children in their homes?

Yes. This is relative/neighbor care – sometimes known as “kith and kin care.” It is legally unregulated care. These caregivers might be relatives, friends, or neighbors. They cannot care for more than three unrelated children. This is the only regulation that a relative/neighbor provider must meet. DPW does not inspect or visit these homes. This type of child care can either be in the provider’s home or the child’s home.

How do I know if a program is good?

The quality of your child’s early education or child care program is very important to his/her healthy development and school readiness. Here are some general guidelines to help you determine quality.

Look for a program or provider that offers engaging and appropriate activities in stimulating settings that facilitate healthy growth, social, emotional and cognitive development, and prepare children for or promote their success in school. (See the checklist)

Key factors to determine quality include:

Staff qualifications and training
Low staff turnover
Emphasis on multiple areas of child development (cognitive, language, social, and emotional)
Stimulating environments
Small child/teacher ratios
Close, caring child/teacher relationship
Parent involvement.

In addition you can look for programs that are participating in Pennsylvania’s Keystone STARS Program and/or are accredited.

Keystone STARS (Standards, Training, Assistance, Resources, and Support) is Pennsylvania’s program to improve the quality of child care. STARS is a voluntary program that recognizes providers who exceed the minimum health and safety requirements set by DPW.

STARS establishes a quality rating system, much like restaurants and hotels, beginning with the “Start With STARS” level and progressing up through a STAR One, Two, Three, or Four designation. Each STAR designation has its own research-based performance standards or benchmarks that are linked to improving outcomes for children.

You can also look for programs that have earned “accreditation” – a process through which child care programs voluntarily meet specific standards to receive endorsement from a professional agency. Some organizations that offer accreditation for child care are:

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
National Accreditation Commission for Early Care and Education Programs (NAC)
National AfterSchool Association (NAA)
National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC).

Where can I get more information to help me make a good child care decision?

Your local Child Care Information Services (CCIS) agency provides resource and referral service to parents to help them learn about what to look for in quality child care. To find your local CCIS call 1-888-461-KIDS (5437). They also have a database of every licensed and regulated program in Pennsylvania and can provide you with a list of programs that will best meet your family and child’s needs. In addition, they have information on Head Start and the School District’s Bright Futures Programs.

Is there any financial help available?

The CCIS can also assist parents who need help paying their child care costs. If you are worried about how to afford good child care, federal and state funds subsidize child care costs for eligible families. Many working parents are eligible for help paying for child care bills if they meet the income guidelines:

Family Size	Maximum Yearly Family Income (May 2005)
2	$25,660
3	$32,180
4	$38,700
5	$45,220
6	$51,740
7	$58,260
8	$64,780

(Note: The above information provides only general guidelines. Other conditions may apply.)

Limited federal and state funding may mean that families will be on a waiting list for subsidized funding. Some providers offer scholarships or sliding scale fees to their parents who need financial help while they are waiting for subsidized funding or if they are not eligible for that assistance.

Prepared by Philadelphia Alliance for Better Child Care.

Sources: www.philadelphiachildcare.org; www.nieer.org; www.childcareaware.org; www.dpw.state.pa.us

Maestros ven el impacto de la presión por exámenes hasta en el preescola

2006-03-08T17:23:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

La mayoría de nosotros tiene gratos recuerdos del Kinder. Había juguetes, meriendas y siestas, y todo el mundo se veía bastante tranquilo.

Pero ahora, con la presión generada por la ley Que Ningún Niño Quede Atrás (NCLB por sus siglas en inglés), los juguetes se están guardando cada vez más. La presión por mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes ha hecho que el Kinder – y hasta el pre-Kinder – sean lugares de más estrés.

Aunque la meta principal sigue siendo preparar al estudiante para la escuela, el énfasis se ha movido a una instrucción más explícita de lectura y escritura. Mucho de lo que tradicionalmente se enseñaba en el primer grado ahora se está haciendo en el Kinder. Los exámenes de desempeño han llegado hasta el pre-Kinder, ya que ahora todos los niños en Head Start reciben un examen, llamado National Reporting System (Sistema Nacional de Informes), que evalúa vocabulario, reconocimiento de letras y destrezas tempranas de matemáticas.

Head Start – estándares y exámenes

Theresa Willer-Grinkewicz, maestra de Head Start y entrenadora académica que tiene dos décadas de experiencia en salones de clase de Filadelfia, opina que la llegada de estándares claros para la educación preescolar es un desarrollo necesario y positivo. “El currículo hace que los maestros se enfoquen en lo que los niños necesitan aprender”, dijo.

Pero Willer-Grinkewicz también ve en su implementación muchas prácticas que ella considera inapropiadas desde el punto de vista de desarrollo. Como ejemplo, nombra que se han eliminado los juegos de dramatización, se mantiene a los niños sentados en círculos por más de 45 minutos, y los maestros se están quejando de que los niños “hablan demasiado”.

Willer-Grinkewicz y muchos investigadores creen que los niños aprenden mediante participación activa con su ambiente, un proceso que incluye actividades físicas variadas, resolución de problemas, y negociar con otros niños y adultos.

Willer-Grinkewicz también opina igual que muchos críticos, quienes dudan que el National Reporting System hace una evaluación exacta del aprendizaje preescolar porque a esta edad hay demasiada fluctuación en el desarrollo. Los datos de este examen se usan para evaluar la efectividad de los programas Head Start.

Al hablar sobre su propia experiencia dando el examen, Willer-Grinkewics dice que los niños a menudo no prestan atención a la pregunta y se enfocan en otras cosas que le interesan.

“Se les puede enseñar un grupo de letras, por ejemplo, y preguntarle que cuál reconocen, y ellos preguntarán por qué otra letra no está ahí, o dirán que la letra C es la primera de su nombre aunque la C no esté en la lista”, explica ella.

Maestros enfrentan nuevas presiones

En una entrevista con las maestras de Kinder de la Escuela Julia de Burgos Hillary Oyer y Betsy Ortíz, junto con Liz Gómez, que ahora es maestra de primer grado y antes lo fue de Kinder, las tres describen cómo hasta en Kinder se está elevando el estándar para la enseñanza de lectura y escritura. Los estudiantes son regularmente evaluados para medir sus niveles de lectura y luego se agrupan según el resultado.

“El año pasado tuvimos que llevar a los niños al ‘Nivel C’ para el fin del año. Ahora los tenemos que llevar al ‘Nivel D’”, observa Ortíz.

Esta expectativa para los estudiantes de Kinder, que los maestros están recibiendo de los administradores, va más allá de los objetivos establecidos en el Currículo Base del Distrito Escolar, que pide que los estudiantes de Kinder están al Nivel B. De acýerdo con las maestras, moverse del Nivel C al Nivel D es un cambio grande. Un texto típico del Nivel C consiste de una ilustración y una oración con una o dos palabras de reconocimiento visual y una palabra que el estudiante tenga que descifrar usando estrategias de decodificación o la ilustración. El Nivel D incluye decodificación independiente y más palabras de reconocimiento visual, a la vez que introduce vocales, grupos de letras y combinaciones.

El ímpetu por incluir material más avanzado en Kinder se debe a los requisitos de primer grado. Los niños de primer grado tienen que lograr el Nivel J al finalizar el año, y esto incluye leer textos de varios párrafos.

“Prácticamente no hay manera de llegar al Nivel J si no están al D al terminar el Kinder”, dice Gómez, la maestra de primer grado. Según estos objetivos, el Currículo Básico de Kinder en realidad no es suficientemente riguroso, mantiene ella.

Estas maestras piensan que los estándares más ambiciosos de lectura y escritura para Kinder se pueden lograr para la mayoría de los estudiantes pero solamente si se resuelven otros asuntos como las ausencias, el tamaño de las clases, y que hay estudiantes que no fueron a pre-Kinder. Gómez añade que 60 por ciento de su última clase de Kinder logró el nivel requerido para el fin de año.

Esos niños que van a Kinder definitivamente están entrando al primer grado mejor preparados en lectura y escritura que antes (Gómez dijo que aproximadamente 10 por ciento de sus estudiantes de primer grado no habían ido al Kinder). Pero en el proceso el Kinder se ha convertido, tanto para los maestros como para los estudiantes, en un ambiente más parecido al de los grados mayores, con más estrés y quizás menos “momentos de enseñanza”.

“Los maestros sienten estrés porque se tienen que mantener enfocados en la tarea, mantenerse al día con el programa, y cumplir todas las exigencias del currículo”, dice Gómez, “por lo tanto, cuando los niños quieren explorar un tema más a fondo, hay que constantemente ponerle freno. Nunca hay tiempo para simplemente relajarse y dejar que sean niños y disfrutarlos”.

Ortíz añadió, “Los niños se frustran. Algunos se duermen. Ya no hay tiempo para la siesta”.

¿Nos tendremos que acostumbrar?

En el periódico Education Week, el escritor de educación Alfie Kohn describe cuántas personas se han resignado a aceptar los cambios causados por los exámenes: “Los expertos en desarrollo infantil están casi unanimemente de acuerdo en denunciar el uso de exámenes estandarizados en niños pequeños. Un principal en Iowa concedió que muchos maestros también consideran que es ‘una locura’ someter a niños de primer grado a un examen de cuatro horas y media. Sin embargo, añade, ‘Se van a tener que acostumbrar’”.

Otros, sin embargo, defienden el currículo tradicional que se basa en juegos con énfasis en la solución de problemas y en enseñar destrezas sociales como la mejor manera para preparar a los niños para una instrucción más formal y facilitar su desarrollo intelectual y emocional.

Este debate es uno que va a continuar a medida que la ley NCLB juega un papel en nuestras escuelas y salones de clase.

Early childhood programs in Philadelphia

2006-03-06T22:39:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Please click on this Adobe Acrobat PDF for a list of early childhood programs in Philadelphia.

June 30 deadline looms for action on Rendell’s education program

2003-05-28T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

On March 25, Governor Ed Rendell proposed several new statewide programs aimed at raising student achievement while providing tax relief for property owners. The proposals will give school districts $1.3 billion over three years in new funds for specific education initiatives and $1.5 billion in property tax relief.

According to Education Week magazine, Pennsylvania ranks third from the bottom among states in making sure school funding is distributed equally across communities. The Rendell plan would increase the state’s share of total school spending from 35 percent to 50 percent.

In the first year of this three-year program, the Philadelphia School District would receive a boost of over $145 million in new education funds.

The General Assembly now must consider these proposals. Because Rendell vetoed the school subsidy line item in the balanced budget that passed earlier in March, there is currently no state education budget.

Harrisburg’s political leadership faces a deadline of June 30 for action.

In addition to his proposed "education investments," Governor Rendell has proposed a 2.5 percent increase in funding for basic education. However, the increases vary by school district.

For the first time in several years, Rendell calls for the state to use updated enrollment figures in the subsidy formula. As a result, districts that have increasing enrollments will get increases greater than 2.5 percent. Districts that have shrinking enrollments will get increases less than 2.5 percent. No district will receive less state support in 2003-04 than they did in 2002-03.

Here is a summary of Rendell’s proposal (for information about how his plan would be financed, see related article).

EDUCATION INVESTMENT FUNDS

Rendell has proposed creating three new funds to support education improvements. All of the programs are phased in over a three-year period.

Early Childhood Education Investment Fund

Pre-kindergarten — This is a voluntary program for the 146 poorest school districts. It is expected to serve 40,000 students by the end of three years.

Full-day Kindergarten — All school districts are eligible for funding to begin optional full-day kindergarten programs.

Smaller Classes, K-3 — This program, open to all school districts that have classes of more than 20 students in grades K through 3, provides money to reduce class sizes to 17 students per teacher.

Student Achievement Fund

Tutoring — This program will serve all students in grades K to 11 who score "below basic" on the state’s PSSA tests. Programs would provide three hours per week of tutoring during the school year plus a six-week summer program.

Professional Development — This program funds professional development for teachers in the 146 school districts where more than 35 percent of their students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches.

Math and Reading Coaches — Also available to the same 146 school districts, this program provides one reading or math coach for every 600 students in grades K-9.

Family Resource Centers — These centers are available to districts where more than 60 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. Centers will provide connections between families and social services, including health care, which can help students succeed in school.

Rural Math and Science Teachers — 65 rural school districts will be able to supplement the salaries of math and science teachers to aid recruitment efforts.

Science Laboratories and Instructional Materials — This program will provide $50 million to help school districts update equipment and supplies used to teach science. All school districts are eligible to apply under a competitive grant process.

Rewarding Results Fund

Rewards for High Performance — Pennsylvania’s best- performing schools could share rewards totaling $30 million by the third year. Schools earn rewards for students’ academic success, high graduation and attendance rates, and success at closing achievement gaps.

School Improvement Grants — These funds are intended to support struggling schools. To get grants, schools will have to apply and present detailed improvement plans.

Distinguished Educators — This funds the training and deployment of 200 teachers and administrators to help struggling schools raise student achievement.

SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY

These proposals focus on raising student achievement at struggling schools and commit Pennsylvania to meeting the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

All schools will be held accountable for making adequate yearly progress in student academic achievement, graduation and promotion rates, and staff and student attendance.

The proposal includes new accountability systems for administrators and teachers:

Principals — The proposal seeks to "rethink" the role of principals, providing them with higher salaries and more power over their schools in exchange for elimination of tenure and greater accountability for school performance.

Superintendents — Like principals, superintendents would have five-year, performance-based contracts with their school districts.

Teachers — The proposal offers career ladders for teachers, replacing salary schedules that are based primarily on years of service. The governor’s goal is to reward the best teachers with the highest salaries. Early versions of the proposal did not state how schools would evaluate teachers to determine the steps of the career ladder.

Survey: several area legislators indicate support for Rendell plan

2003-05-28T23:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The Notebook conducted a survey of the entire 35-member Philadelphia delegation of the Pennsylvania state legislature, asking for their views on Governor Rendell’s proposals. Nine legislators completed the survey.

Responses indicated that while lawmakers are open to the Rendell plan, many still have questions. Some of the legislators who did not respond said they were sympathetic to the ideas in the plan but had concerns about how the Rendell education plan would be financed and what to do about restoring state budget cuts that have been projected in other areas.

Highlights of the legislators’ responses appear below.

Favor increasing state share of education spending to about 50 percent of the total: Curry, Fumo, Kitchen, James, Josephs, Roebuck, Washington, Youngblood.

Favor instituting all-day kindergarten, reducing class size to 17 students in grades K-3, additional training for teachers in the poorest districts, and expansion of preschool for children in the poorest districts: Curry, Fumo, Kitchen, James, Josephs, Roebuck, Washington, Youngblood.

Favor increased revenue sources: three respondents — Roebuck, James, Fumo — support all of the proposed revenue sources (increased personal income tax, closing corporate loopholes, slot machines, increased beer tax, telecommunications tax, reckless driving surcharge). No legislator expressed opposition to any of the proposals; however, some lawmakers were undecided about some of the proposed sources of funding.

On the horizon: more PA tax dollars for schools?

2002-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

The election of Ed Rendell as governor of Pennsylvania may be the prelude to legislative action in 2003 on new ways to fund education in the commonwealth.

Rendell has consistently pledged to increase state funding for public education and boost the state’s share of total education costs from 35 percent to 50 percent. Over the past two decades, as state aid for education failed to keep pace with spending, local property taxes in communities across Pennsylvania have soared.

Rendell’s campaign proposals also included funding for full-day kindergarten statewide, high-quality preschool programs, and reduced class size in grades K-3. With the state facing a ballooning budget deficit, Rendell has acknowledged that it will be hard to find funding for his whole education agenda.

But one sign of the ongoing frustration with the current school funding approach is that Republican legislators continue to be at the forefront in pushing for new state taxes that would both boost state education aid and allow a shift away from property taxes.

An increase in the income tax is the route being pushed in bills introduced by two Republican legislators – state Sen. James Rhoades, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and state Rep. state government.

More information on school funding proposals is available at the website of the Pennsylvania School Reform Network: www.psrn.org/campaign.html.