It’s been a fun ride writing about early childhood for Education Week, but it’s time for me to move on to new challenges. Early Years will be on hold until a new blogger takes over.
At the same time Early Years makes a temporary downshift, early childhood is on the threshold of some big changes. Soon we’ll know who won the federal Early Learning Challenge, and the winners will begin bringing to life their ambitious plans for early care and education from birth to five. My money’s on Colorado and Pennsylvania to be among the winners, and I’d add Hawaii as a state to watch--whether it wins or not, the state is rapidly accelerating its political and financial investment in early learning.
There’s also the increasing push to tie preK more closely to K-12 education through efforts like the Campaign for Grade Level Reading. I expect we’ll be seeing more training for elementary principals to work with pre-K programs and build stronger bridges between pre-K and the early elementary grades.
If you’re interested in issues particular to Latino preschoolers, you can keep up with my work on Latino Ed Beat, a project of the Education Writers Association. Happy holidays and best wishes to all Early Years readers in 2012!