Week 5 Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 2

This week I have listened to various podcasts which focus on the status and future of early childhood education. The two podcasts I enjoyed the most were “Early Childhood Education: The Road Ahead” and “How Federal Policies Affect Early Childhood.”

In the “Early Childhood Education: The Road Ahead,” the presenter spoke with early childhood professionals from the state of New York, Florida, Ohio and Texas on the state of the early childhood education in each state. New York, at this time, has a large risk for early childhood education because the funding for Pre-K has decreased. The decrease has occurred because of the federal funding being cut which of course ends up with the state cutting their funding. In Ohio, the state won Share of the Race monies. This policy will allow the early childhood education in Ohio to team up with the public school programs to offer stronger measures in teaching. In Florida, most of the policy changes toward early childhood education are that every program is affected negatively from the cuts but the for-profit businesses are hurting the worst. If the bill passes, monies will be eliminated for afterschool programs after the age of five. This will negatively hurt the children in poverty because parents cannot pay the costs; therefore, they do not obtain the guidance needed as well as the monies from payroll lost because of this. The state of Texas is actually one of the top states for early childhood. According to the state representative for early childhood education in Texas, one reason the state’s programs are growing because the growth rate in this age group is twice the national average. One thing the state obtained that helped the growth of this program was from the Teach Scholarships. (Pica, Tice, Gellens, Carrara, and Kerr, 2012)

In the “How Federal Policies Affect Early Childhood,” the presenter talks about the economy and how the policies passed by Congress will affect the early childhood and education facilities. For example, most programs, such as Head Start, are funded by federal funds. If the federal funds are decreased, then the greatest threats are to the low-income programs that help parents pay for child care. Most federal funding being cut is to the birth to five year olds state assistance programs. Thus, resulting in a long debate about our economy and economist are also weighing in on how the effects will be the greatest to our future generation (Daniel, Pica, and Robinson, n.d.).

The other portion of the blog was to review the website; the Global Children’s Initiative.

Unfortunately, I had not heard about the Global Children’s Initiative, launched by the Center on the Developing Child by Harvard University, until this assignment. I was very intrigued and one of the first statements I read was “Founded in 2006 on the belief that the vitality and sustainability of any society depend on the extent to which it expands opportunities early in life for all children to achieve their full potential and engage in responsible and productive citizenship (Global Child’s Initiative, n.a., par 1); hence the Global Child’s Initiative.

Another area of the website was the National Scientific Council on the developing child. The science of Early Childhood discourse is present of course along with working papers that you can read. One of the main things I gathered from this portion of the website is the extended research on how the science of Early Childhood. Some of the working papers included, “Persistent Fear and Anxiety Can Affect Young Children’s Learning and Development,” “Early Experience Can Alter Gene Expression and Affect Long-Term Development,” and “Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function (Global Children’s Initiative, n.a.).”

The information on the website about meta-analytic database was very interesting. “The National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, a multi-university team is creating a meta-analytic database that synthesizes four decades of program evaluation research relevant to children from the prenatal period to age five (National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, n.d., par 1).” Previous research has helped the scope of understanding the early childhood years and how intervention is central to helping our young children to succeed.

Daniel, J., Pica, R. and Robinson, A. (2012). How Federal Policies Affect Early Childhood. Retrieved from http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=585:jackstreet54&catid=49:naeyc-radio-channel&Itemid=81

Global Children’s Initiative. (n.d.). Center on the Developing Child Harvard University. Retrieved from  file:///C:/Users/shelley/Downloads/Global%20Childrens%20Initiative%20-%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs. (n.d.). Meta-Analytic Database. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/forum/meta_analytic_database/

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/council/

Pica, R., Tice, K., Gellens, S. and Kerr, K. (2011). Early Childhood Education: The Road Ahead. Retrieved from http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=49&Itemid=81