Looking for insights on how to improve K-12 education? Consider the lessons offered by the early childhood education field, Joan Wasser Gish advises in a recently published Education Week commentary called “Four Lessons from Early Education.”
Wasser Gish is a member of the Board of the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care as well as the principal at Policy Progress, a public-policy consulting firm based in Newton, Mass. And from 2005 to 2006, she was Strategies for Children’s director of policy and research.
There are “four lessons that elementary and secondary education could draw from the early-childhood sector as leaders seek to build P-16 systems and re-imagine schools capable of helping all children attain the skills they need to succeed in the 21st-century economy and society,” Wasser Gish writes. These lessons are:
1. Expand the mission by engaging families.
“In high-quality early-childhood-education settings, the mission is to serve children and their families. This mission takes different forms in each community, but the federal Head Start program, which serves low-income, at-risk children across the nation, is illustrative: Head Start emphasizes developing relationships with families to support parents as their child’s first teacher and promote positive parent-child interactions.”
“Critically, this approach emphasizes strengthening rather than substituting for families. It shifts away from schools’ assuming core family functions to helping parents and guardians be effective family members, teachers, advocates, and role models for their children whenever possible. Similar engagement efforts in K-12, tailored to the needs of older children and their families, could yield important results.”
2. Facilitate access to comprehensive services and other resources.
“In some states, every early-childhood program, whether in the public or private sector, is connected to resources and supports that are critical to the healthy development of children and their families.”
Wasser Gish uses Massachusetts as an example, pointing to this state’s “network of Coordinated Family and Community Engagement grantees that help connect families to local educational, social, health, and mental health resources.
3. Cultivate all domains of child development.
“Educating the ‘whole child’ is the linchpin of early-childhood pedagogy and refers to fostering growth across five domains of human development: cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical. As a result, early-childhood teachers are overt about their role in developing character skills. Imbedded concepts like ‘wait your turn,’ ‘use your words,’ or ‘try again’ are the precursors of delayed gratification, effective communication, and grit — all traits linked to positive academic and social outcomes.”
“The National Governors Association has convened six states to create and pilot assessments across the birth-to-3rd-grade continuum that reflect a whole-child approach. Assessments in K-12 could eventually embrace a more holistic and engaging approach to education for all children.”
4. Incentivize and support educational quality.
“States are providing incentives for improving the quality of early-childhood programs and supporting capacity-building at the program and classroom levels, where it matters most.”
Wasser Gish adds: “ It may seem counterintuitive that early childhood has anything to teach K-12 about teacher quality. Only 35 percent of center-based educators have earned four-year college degrees. But in early childhood, unlike K-12, state policymakers have required current and aspiring teachers to attain higher levels of academic achievement and taken the lead to identify and support research-based professional development and practice through coordinated statewide delivery systems.”
Wasser Gish concludes: “As education reformers confront the opportunities and limitations of the standards and accountability era of education reform and think anew about what more is needed to close the achievement gaps, early-childhood education may offer guidance that educators and policymakers across the P-16 continuum can use to better develop the potential of every child.”