 | PreK - Grade 3 Leadership
 | | MESPA Executive Director P. Fred Storti |
September 2011 --
Report from MESPA Executive Director P. Fred Storti
PreK-Grade 3 Leadership
On August 8
MESPA, with collaboration and support from the MN Department of Education, the
MN Initiative Foundations, TIES, Target, Greater Twin Cities United Way,
McKnight Foundation, and Ready 4 K, presented our first MN PreK-Grade 3 Alignment Summit. About 800 early childhood
providers and K-12 educators met across the state, onsite in St. Paul and via Web
streaming at eight sites in greater MN, to learn, discuss, reflect, and plan
for greater collaboration and alignment in our communities between the PreK and
K-12 worlds.
Linda
Sullivan-Dudzic and Donna Gearns from Bremerton, WA presented what worked for
them in a “bottom up” approach to aligning the PreK and K-12 systems. At the
Summit they presented from their book Making
a Difference: 10 Essential Steps to Building a PreK-3 System. The steps
are:
- Establish
need and common interests.
- Locate
and connect with your early childhood learning environments.
- Develop
a leadership group.
- Build
high-quality professional development.
- Connect
and align quality PreK to Kindergarten.
- Maximize
the benefits of full-day Kindergarten.
- Align
and connect a strong full-day Kindergarten with grades 1-3.
- Conquer
the fade-out.
- Create
a sustainable system of support.
- Review,
revise, and extend.
The impact of
high-quality early learning experiences is well established, particularly for
children at risk for underachievement. Yet by and large, communities, states,
and their counties have made marginal strides in creating and supporting an
infrastructure that provides all children and families with access to the crucial
learning opportunities that are vital to our state and nations’ education,
civic, and economic prosperity.
I was fortunate
to serve on a NAESP Foundation task force last year with the purpose of
developing a vision for an aligned system of PreK-Grade 3 learning. To achieve
their vision, the task force recommends the following 10 action steps for
policy makers and other stakeholders.
- Better integrate and align federal policy,
regulation, and funding to enable states and communities to build a coherent
system of early learning from PreK-grade 3.
- Coordinate and streamline state and local
governance.
- Expand funding for pre-K through grade 3 learning
to ensure all children, particularly the most at-risk children, have access to
high-quality, full-day learning experiences.
- Ensure that funding for the full continuum of
PreK-grade 3 learning is directed to programs of high quality.
- Leverage and integrate private funding with public
resources.
- Create an aligned continuum of research-based,
age-appropriate standards for young children that include a focus on social,
emotional, cognitive, language, physical development, and creative learning, as
well as school-related skills.
- Develop and support an effective, well-compensated
workforce with high-quality teacher and administrator preparation programs,
professional development, and continuing education. These educators should be
versed in the full continuum of early childhood education.
- Develop and administer age-appropriate assessments
that include both formative and summative evaluations to help guide teaching
and learning and to inform program effectiveness.
- Develop state and local longitudinal data systems
that include PreK students and program information.
- Evaluate models of early learning integration and
alignment through research.
Never before has
there been such a strong understanding of the interconnection among the “systems”
that support early childhood development, school readiness, and success in the
early school years.
We, as
instructional leaders, need to take the lead and urge policy makers and
stakeholders to unite in an effort to break down the silos and build a
comprehensive, cohesive PreK- grade 3 system that our children need and
deserve. We can begin by building relationships and connecting to the PreK programs in our communities. Have a great start to the school year!
Contact
Fred at pfstorti@mespa.net.
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