Green urges more private sector support for early childhood education

MINISTER of state in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information Floyd Green is encouraging

more private sector entities to become actively involved in early childhood education.

“We want more companies and NGOs to adopt our institutions. Go in and find out what are their fundamental needs and help them to meet them,” he urged.

The state minister was speaking at the launch of the Sagicor Foundation 2016 Adopt-A-School Programme, held Tuesday at the Courtleigh Hotel and Suites, in New Kingston.

The programme aims to assist needy early childhood institutions with financial, infrastructural development, and other types of support.

Green commended Sagicor for its commitment to improving the early childhood education sector.

“I hope that this will help to foster a culture of service and giving back that we need in Jamaica. I am very happy that Sagicor Foundation has chosen to focus on early childhood institutions, because that is where it starts,” he said.

The state minister emphasised the need for infrastructural development of these institutions and appealed to corporate entities to get involved in improving the educational experience of the children.

“No government can completely fund the needs of our educational system and as such, we must depend on strong corporate support and individuals in general to strengthen our systems, to take an interest in education,” he urged.

This year, the programme will focus on 10 early childhood institutions. It is

anticipated that 1,000 students will be impacted by the programme.

The schools are Plantation Heights, Salmon, Kemps Hill, Sandy Park and Clarion Basic; Fyffes Pen and Dunrobin Early Childhood Institutions; Campden Early Childhood Development Centre; and Allman Town and Central Branch Infant Schools.

For his part, president and chief executive officer of Sagicor Group Jamaica, Richard Byles, said that each school participating in this year’s programme will receive a water tank. He added that the Sagicor health van will be visiting each school to conduct visual, hearing and blood sugar screenings of the children.

“This Adopt-A-School Programme is very important to us and we have had a lot of success with it in the past, and we want to make it even more successful in the future,” he said.

The first set of activities is slated to begin on Labour Day, May 23, with the Sagicor team participating in projects across the island.

The programme will also be launched in western Jamaica today at the Hilton Hotel and Spa, in St James.

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Hillary Clinton Champions In Early Childhood Education

An Education Week headline reads: "Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton Makes Early-Childhood Education Campaign Centerpiece"

Okay, fine, we don't really have a crystal ball here at Politics K-12. And it's an open question whether the former first-lady-turned-senator-turned-secretary-of-state is even running for president. (Plus, you know, we've still got three years of the Obama administration left.) But it's hard to deny that since leaving the Obama administration, Clinton has turned back to a longheld interest of hers: early-childhood education.

The latest effort? Back in June, the Clinton Foundation (a.k.a. the "Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation") announced it was collaborating with Next Generation, a nonpartisan strategic policy and communications organization, to launch "Too Small to Fail," a new initiative to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five. Too Small to Fail is  headed up by Ann O'Leary, a former Clinton White House aide and Clinton legislative director—and the wife of Goodwin Liu, a judge who has some pretty interesting education policy ties of his own.

Hillary Clinton recently wrote an op-ed for Too Small to Fail's website. The letter goes over well-trodden territory, explaining that kids from disadvantaged families begin school already behind their more advantaged peers:

We know that children build their vocabulary by listening to and interacting with their parents and caregivers. But millions of American parents, especially those struggling to make ends meet or without strong support networks, end up talking and reading to their babies much less frequently than in more affluent families. Many parents just don't have time, between multiple jobs and significant economic pressures, or don't realize how important this really is.

Studies have found that by age four, children in middle and upper class families hear 15 million more words than children in working-class families, and 30 million more words than children in families on welfare. This disparity in hearing words from parents and caregivers translates directly into a disparity in learning words. And that puts our children born with the fewest advantages even further behind. Among those born in 2001, only 48 percent of poor children started school ready to learn, compared to 75 percent of children from middle-income families.

The letter doesn't lay out any earth-shattering policy initiatives—instead it focuses on more-targeted, practical solutions. Too Small to Fail will start a public outreach campaign to help parents become more aware of what Clinton calls "the word gap" and push businesses to allow parents to work more flexible schedules.  She doesn't explicitly endorse President Barack Obama's early-childhood expansion plan. Nice analysis of the letter from the Huffington Post's Joy Resmovits.

Early-childhood education isn't a new area of interest for Clinton. Early in her career, she worked at the Children's Defense Fund, which advocates for early-childhood education (among other policies). During her 2008 bid for the White House, Clinton's education platform also put an emphasis on the littlest learners. (She spoke about it when she addressed the National Education Association way back in July of 2007, for instance.)

So what's happening on Obama's early-childhood education plan? Of course, Obama has his own multi-year, multi-billion proposal to expand prekindergarten, as well as programs for younger children (such as expanded home-visiting). But that seems unlikely to go anywhere in a Congress bent on trimming spending.

Still, the plan continues to have its champions: Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate education committee, announced at the Committee for Education Funding's annual gala that expanding preschool is his top priority during his final term in Congress, and that he'll be introducing a bill based on the president's proposal soon. Just a few weeks ago, Harkin told me he was still looking for a GOP lawmaker to co-sponsor the legislation—which could be tough sledding if it truly is similar to the president's plan.

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Greater investment needed in early childhood education

Business leaders, like those of Google, Facebook, Boeing, FedEx and some of the hundreds of Montana companies who attended Sen. Max Baucus’ Montana Economic Development Summit in Butte know the importance of having skilled, educated workers who can master complex tasks and spur innovation.

But to ensure that we have “Montana solutions for Montana jobs” and a strong workforce tomorrow, we need to start teaching children the skills to succeed from day one by making greater investments in early childhood education.

We must do more to make sure that children gain the knowledge and skills necessary to start life off on the right foot. I know firsthand through the efforts of many agencies and organizations that I have worked with across the state that investments in early childhood help cultivate the cognitive and character skills needed to thrive in the 21st century. Those who attend such programs also do better overall in high school, college and careers, and are much more likely to become the kind of skilled employees businesses want.

Such investments could fuel our innovation economy, and yield big returns for Montana. Nobel-prize winning economist James Heckman has found that every dollar invested in high-quality early childhood programs for disadvantaged children returns 7-10 percent per child, per year through better outcomes in education, health, reduced social spending and lifelong productivity.

Early childhood education is our opportunity to make investments into Montana’s future that will grow the economy without adding more debt.

Congress is considering a plan to help states like ours invest in quality early childhood development from birth to age 5. Montana could receive $12.5 million in its first year of participating in such a plan, supporting proven programs in the state such as home visiting, early learning for infants and toddlers and high-quality preschool.

Prioritizing investment in this plan is one of the best things Congress can do to improve outcomes for students, families and the economy.

I urge Sen. Baucus, those who attended the summit and our broader community to further deliberate and express support for this Montana-focused economic solution.

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Important Early childhood education

Important Early childhood education, We may learn more in the first five years than we will during the rest of life, so the education we receive in those formative years is critical to our long-term success.

That was the message educators, public officials and business leaders promoted at an Early Childhood Business Community Forum Friday at Misericordia University.

“Early childhood is an integral, important part of the long-term education of a child,” state Rep. Phyllis Mundy said at the event. “The long-term education of a child doesn’t begin in kindergarten; it doesn’t begin in 1st grade. It begins at birth, when the parent is holding that little baby.”

The program was the third in a series of four events hosted by the United Way focusing on early childhood education in conjunction with the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s annual Week of the Young Child, which begins Sunday and runs through April 28.

Misericordia President Michael A. MacDowell said the topic of Friday’s conference was the effect of the economy on the child, but as an economics professor he liked to think of it the other way round.

“The young child has a tremendous impact on the economy,” MacDowell said. “Especially if you treat them well. The investment is relatively small at the outset and the return is relatively high.”

Statistically, the college-educated earn more and thereby pay more in taxes than their high school-educated peers, who in turn earn more than high school dropouts, and the education a child receives early in life increases his or her likelihood of graduating from college, MacDowell said.

William Grant, owner of preschool chain Hildebrandt Learning Centers, said educators need to inform two important groups about the importance of early childhood education; families, who need to recognize quality early childhood education when they see it, and political and business leaders who can provide funding.

“Early childhood funding is put on the back burner by most politicians at this point due to the fact that young children don’t vote and don’t give money to politicians,” he said.

Statistically, each dollar invested in early childhood education saves up to $16 in remediation and corrections costs later in life, said Lauren Allen, vice president of PNC Bank’s PNC Foundation.

Carl Noto, executive director of Ecumenical Enterprises, Inc., talked about the success his company had in starting a day care at the Meadows Nursing Center. Little Meadows, a Hildebrandt Learning Center, was begun in response to problems with retaining employees who did not have access to affordable or reliable day care for their children. The operation has been so successful the center now welcomes non-employee children as well.

“We know that it cuts down on the absenteeism, it improves our employee morale and it helps improve our bottom line,” Noto said.

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Early childhood

Early childhood,early childhood education,early childhood development,early childhood education jobs,early childhood intervention,early childhood,early childhood education salary,early childhood research quarterly,early childhood special education,early childhood curriculum,early childhood education certificate

Early childhood is a time of remarkable physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. Infants enter the world with a limited range of skills and abilities. Watching a child develop new motor, cognitive, language and social skills is a source of wonder for parents and caregivers.

The study of human development is a rich and varied subject. We all have personal experience with development, but it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly how and why people grow, learn and change. Developmental psychology seeks to understand and explain how people grow and change through the entire lifespan. Researchers study the enormous range of influences including how genetics shape a child's development as well as how experiences play a role.

Let's take a closer look at early childhood development including the basics of physical development and psychological growth.

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Early childhood education

Investing in early childhood education will yield spectacular economic edges — each for kids and taxpayers, per a National Institutes of Health study that followed participants till age twenty six. every greenback spent on Chicago-based, federally funded Child-Parent Centers generates $4 to $11 in come, each as a result of kids finished highschool or faculty, earning quite their peers, and additionally as a result of participants were less probably to be held back, arrested, depressed, concerned with medication or sick, the study says.

That's up to an one hundred and eightieth annual rate of come, says Arthur Reynolds, a professor at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study, printed these days in kid Development.

The program, that has concerned quite 100,000 low-income families since 1967, includes options like serious parental involvement and education, meals, health services and residential visiting, Reynolds says. kids begin preschool at age three and continue through third grade, regarding age nine.

"A comparatively modest investment early will pay massive dividends throughout the lifetime of a toddler," says James Griffin, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institutes of kid Health and Human Development, who wasn't concerned within the study.

Researchers analyzed records for quite one,500 low-income kids born in 1979 or 1980. regarding ninety three of kids were black and seven were Hispanic, the study says.

Without additional attention, several low-income kids fall behind before they even enter kindergarten, Griffin says. youngsters then realize it more durable and more durable to catch up, and are a lot of probably to drop out of faculty, he says. sensible preschool programs will create a powerful early impression, alllowing youngsters to thrive and become assured learners, Griffin says.

"Most 3- and 4-year-olds are needing to learn," Griffin says. "You will either build on that, otherwise you will squash it."

Finding the cash to launch such programs is robust, says Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, who wasn't concerned within the new study. He notes that the Chicago program — that spends quite $8,500 per preschool student — is costlier than similar programs.

And the Child-Parent Centers might not deserve 100 percent of the credit for the children's success, Fuller says.

Fuller notes that folks were able to value more highly to be part of the program. thus it's potential that kids did well a minimum of partly as a result of their folks were committed to their education, not simply because of the program.

The Chicago program's success might return partly from the very fact that it continues through early elementary college, Fuller says.

He notes that a recent study of Head begin, a federally funded preschool program for at-risk youngsters, found that the majority of the program's edges seem to disappear by the time youngsters are in 1st grade.

"We have to be compelled to improve our elementary college education, as well," Fuller says.

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