Educare Preschools Aim to Close Academic Gaps

Kemia Edwards, a teacher's aide at the newly opened Educare early-childhood facility in the District of Columbia, pushes 3- and 4-year olds on a swing. Interest is growing in the Educate model, which features public-private funding, parent education, and teachers who stay with their pupils for several years to promote a sense of security.
Kemia Edwards, a teacher's aide at the newly opened Educare early-childhood facility in the District of Columbia, pushes 3- and 4-year olds on a swing. Interest is growing in the Educare model, which features public-private funding, parent education, and teachers who stay with their pupils for several years to promote a sense of security.
—Lexey Swall for Education Week

Public-private model generates interest

By Julie Rasicot
Washington

As teachers rock babies in their arms, a sense of calm settles over a classroom in a bright, modern building on a side street in the northeastern quadrant of this city, in one of its poorest neighborhoods.

Here at Educare, a $16 million early-childhood school that opened in July with the goal of closing the achievement gap for local children living in poverty, building that sense of security and familiarity is a major component of the program. These infants will spend three years with the same teachers. At age 3, they'll move to a new teacher who will stay with them for two more years.

Funded by Head Start and public and private partnerships, this school is the newest addition to the growing Educare Learning Network's 17 schools in communities across the country, a program that its proponents hope will become a national model for comprehensive early-childhood education. Since 2000, the Chicago-based nonprofit has been combining public and private money to provide early intervention for children deemed educationally and socially at risk and to help build strong bonds between the children, their parents, and teachers. The goal is to ensure that the children start school ready to learn, on par with...

This article is available to subscribers only.

To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or start a 2-week FREE trial.

Already have an account? Please login.

Subscribe to Education Week

You Save 20% or More!

Premium Online + Print

20 issues + Online Access
$39

You Save 20%

SUBSCRIBE NOW

(See details.)

Premium Online

6 Months Online Access
$29

You Save 22%

SUBSCRIBE NOW

(See details.)

Correction: 
An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the location of the Educare facility in Washington. It's in the northeastern quadrant of the city.

Most Popular Stories

Viewed

Emailed

Recommended

Commented

Sponsored Whitepapers

• Improving Student Outcomes with Advanced Analytics

• Best Practices in Information Management, Reporting and Analytics for Education

• Four Key Factors of Effective School Leadership

• Smart infrastructure report to get your district ready for future IT needs.

• Applying Motivational Research to Math Instruction

• Great Books Programs: The Cure for the Common Core

• Building Your Digital District with Ease

• Integrating Social and Emotional RTI to Improve Student Performance

• Taming the wild west: How America’s third largest school district manages PCs, Macs, and iPads

• Overcoming the Odds: Getting Every Student to College YES Prep Shares Its Success Story

• Most Effective Way to Transition to the Common Core

MORE EDUCATION JOBS >>
Post a Job >>