Are teachers setting goals for students' social and emotional growth?

EYES ON THE EARLY YEAR S

A monthly early education newsletter from EdSource

More educators should set goals for students' social-emotional learning, say researchers

Less than half of teachers (44 percent) report that their schools are working to improve social-emotional learning (SEL) through coordinated schoolwide programs, according to a new RAND Corporation report based on a national survey of educators, including at the elementary level.

According to the report, there is growing evidence that social-emotional learning, including skills like managing emotions, setting positive goals and understanding others, can have long-term life outcomes. Interventions that improve SEL skills can also improve academic achievement.

One obstacle to implementing schoolwide SEL improvement efforts is the lack of baseline data -- only 24 percent of principals report that they assess all of their students' SEL skills.

The RAND report draws on research from CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, which offers resources for creating a schoolwide SEL program. CASEL defines a successful program as one where "the leaders consistently model good practices, proactively train staff, welcome parents as partners, focus on relationships (student-student, adult-student, adult-adult), use positive discipline policies, and invest time and resources in and out of the classroom."

For teachers of younger children, NAEYC offers a helpful report at this link on how teachers can recognize social-emotional health, as well as specific strategies to support it in the classroom.

Gov. Newsom assembles team reflecting importance of children in his policy agenda


Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris

Gov. Gavin Newsom has put together a team of advisors on children's issues and education that is almost certainly larger than any governor in California's history. The appointments tilt heavily toward early childhood, reflecting Newsom's embrace of a child's earliest years.

Newsom created an entirely new post by naming Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, 43, California's first surgeon general. Burke-Harris, the founder and CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness, has a national reputation for her work on adverse early childhood experiences, often referred to as ACEs. She is a leader of the Bay Area Research Consortium on Toxic Stress and Health. According to Newsom, her work as surgeon general will focus on "combating the root causes of serious health conditions -- like adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress -- and using the platform of surgeon general to reach young families across the state."

Ben Chida, 33, will be Newsom's senior policy advisor for "cradle to career." The title is a reference to Newsom's pledge in the campaign to create a "cradle to career" system of education in California -- one that begins at birth and extends into the workplace. Chida previously was an advisor to Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., when she was attorney general.

A key appointee likely to have the greatest impact on education and policies affecting children generally, is Ann O'Leary, 47. Newsom's chief of staff, who has a long history of championing improvements to children's health and well being. O'Leary was formerly senior policy advisor to Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, and her legislative director when Clinton was in the U.S. Senate. She played a key role in the passage of the Child Health Insurance Program.

Giannina Pérez , 47, will be senior policy advisor for early education. Pérez formerly worked for Early Edge California and Children Now, both well-known advocacy organizations. She is no stranger to the Legislature, having worked for former Sen. Hilda Solis and Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez.

Further underscoring the importance of early education, Newsom has appointed Kris Perry, 54, as a senior advisor to the governor for implementation of his early childhood development initiatives. Perry will be based at the Department of Health and Human Services as deputy Secretary for early childhood development. Perry was previously president of the Save the Children Action Network, and executive director of the First Five Years Fund. She also headed First 5 California, as well as First 5 San Mateo.

Newsom has yet to fill four vacancies on the State Board of Education. Still evolving is Newsom's relationship with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, though he appears to be working closely with the new governor.

-By Louis Freedberg, EdSource

Commentary: Quality must be at the heart of expanding early childhood education in California

By Meera Mani, director of the Children, Families, and Communities program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Investing in comprehensive and meaningful programs for California's youngest children gives them the best chance to become successful adults and contributing members of society. But all too often, in the urgency to serve the most children, we don't pay enough attention to the quality of care children are receiving, and if child development benefits accrue.

Read more at EdSource

Recap of Early Education in the State Budget

Windfall for California K-12 schools, more spending on early ed in Newsom's first budget

While campaigning, Gov. Newsom pledged to make early education a priority. His budget includes about $1.8 billion for early learning and the well-being of children aged 0 to 5 -- a historic amount.

The money will fund several projects, including:

Build or expand kindergarten classrooms so all school districts can offer full-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds.
Add 200,000 slots for full-day, full-year state-subsidized preschool for all low-income 4-year-olds, over the next three years. Parents of those children would no longer have to be employed or enrolled in higher education to access the full-day program.
Build or expand child care facilities and provide professional development for child care providers.
Provide child savings accounts for every entering kindergartner.
Develop a long-term plan to improve access and quality of subsidized child care and to provide universal preschool to all 4-year-olds, regardless of family income.
Develop a plan to provide more paid family leave, allowing parents to care for newborns for the first six months.

Early childhood advocates applauded the governor for investing in a full range of programs to help children and families beginning at birth.

Read more at EdSource

Or, listen to an in-depth discussion of Gov. Newsom's plans for early education, and advocate reactions, on EdSource's podcast,

" This Week in California Education."

What California can learn from universal preschool in other states

There are only a handful of states that have aggressively moved to provide high-quality preschool to all 4-year-olds. Here are some of the lessons California could learn from those that have:

Lesson # 1: Emphasize quality even if it slows down implementation

California must ensure that it does not sacrifice quality in a rush to expand preschool programs.

"If you don't set quality high from the start, thinking you're just going to roll it out first and then raise quality, the experience is that raising quality doesn't happen," said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).

Lesson #2: Support professional development for teaching staff

Part of the reason for the success of the preschool programs in states such as Oklahoma, West Virginia and New Jersey is that the states have provided pathways for existing preschool teachers to get bachelor's degrees or early childhood credentials. "If you do that and you promise adequate pay at the end of that, they will be highly motivated," Barnett said. "This is a job they want to do well. If you give them a path to professionalize, they will take it."

Lesson #3: Fully integrate existing programs into any new preschool initiative

It's crucial to incorporate all the different kinds of programs already serving children. In West Virginia, for example, after the Legislature passed a universal preschool bill, school districts were required to develop their own programs in collaboration with existing Head Start programs, child care centers and state preschools.

Lesson #4: Place an emphasis on research, data and tracking progress from the outset

It's essential to track what's working and what isn't working from the very beginning. Gathering data has been essential to programs' ability both to improve and to convince legislatures that programs are working and they should continue to fund them.

Lesson # 5: No one size fits all

There are many ways to go about expanding preschool and no one size fits all.

Alabama's pre-K program is open to all children the year before kindergarten, but because there is not enough space available for all, the state draws randomly to ensure some socioeconomic diversity. The state is expanding the number of slots every year.
In New Jersey, preschool is free to all 3- and 4-year-olds living in communities with large numbers of low-income families.
Denver and Seattle have sliding scale programs, where families pay different amounts based on their household income.

"I think the best solutions are home-grown and they reflect the state's philosophy and the state's infrastructure," said William Gormley, professor of public policy and co-director of the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. at Georgetown University. "It's going to be up to Californians to make those logistical and structural decisions."

Excerpt from a Dec. 13 story by Zaidee Stavely of EdSource.

Go here to read more.

Restorative justice reduces suspensions in elementary grades, study shows

The use of restorative justice, an approach to discipline focused less on punishment and more on righting wrongs and building healthy relationships within the school, leads to significantly fewer suspensions in elementary school. It also narrows the suspension gap between black and white students and improves perceptions of school climates among teachers, according to findings from a new study by the RAND Corporation.

Many educators have embraced restorative justice and say it has transformed school environments. Others, meanwhile, say the pendulum has swung too far away from traditional discipline and that the practices don't do enough to hold students accountable.