Tying Early Childhood Education More Closely to Schooling: Promise,Perils and Practical Problems

Abstract

Background

Over the past decade or so, the idea of joining early childhood education (ECE) and schooling has gained currency in the educational reform arena. Numerous education reform proposals and plans include ECE as a component. Scores of school districts around the country have added preschool classrooms to at least some of their elementary schools. National organizations representing governors, chief state school officers, school boards, and principals have all called for public school systems to include and integrate ECE into plans for school improvement.

Purpose/Objective

One specific framework for bringing ECE and schooling closer together is “prek-3rd.” The broad goal of prek-3rd is to encapsulate formal learning experiences in the 3–8 years age period and create a distinct, coherent whole out of them. In this article, I use prek-3rd as a vehicle for exploring the implications of more closely linking ECE and schooling, focusing especially on philosophical and practical issues raised by this objective. I will examine the reasoning of proponents and raise questions about their assumptions.

Research Design

Analytic essay.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The example of prek-3rd suggests that there are many positive aspects to the idea of bringing ECE and early schooling closer together. These include an extended time frame for holding on to a developmental orientation; a complex view of the child, and sensitivity to individual differences; the longitudinal perspective on learning and mastery; the balance in attention to teaching and learning; and the broadened time frame for considering the transition to school. Yet, at least in the American context, it is not such a good idea to bring ECE and schooling closer together. Initiatives like prek-3rd will provide one more opening for downward pressures on early childhood providers. The schools (as a whole) have a history of failing to respect the integrity of other institutions that join them in efforts to better meet children's needs. Thus far, all that has been accomplished by tying ECE more closely to schools making ECE less early-childhood-like. The needs of schools are just too powerful and end up overwhelming the identity of institutional partners. Ultimately, the risk in binding ECE and schooling more closely together derives from a set of related cultural problems. The first can best be described as losing the present to the future—the very problem with school readiness as the central goal of ECE. The second problem is a misunderstanding of the processes at the heart of child development. Children are not raw human capital to be carefully developed through schooling to meet the demands of a globalized labor force. Americans urgently have to rethink how they wish to account for children, the virtues that are important to nurture, and the role of adult institutions in the process. There is a clear risk in extending the line that already connects schooling to global competitiveness down into early childhood, asking ECE to address not only the achievement gap but the global achievement gap as well.

If the school for young children has to be preparatory and provide continuity with the elementary school, then we as educators are already prisoners of a model that ends up as a funnel … It's [the funnel's] purpose to narrow down what is big into what is small.

— Loris Malaguzzi, interview with Carolyn Pope Edwards (cited in Drummond, 2007, p. 211).

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Barton

, & Coley

(2008). Windows on achievement and inequality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Beatty

(1995). Preschool education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Bodrova

(2008). Make believe play versus academic skills: A Vygotskian approach to today's dilemma in early childhood education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 16, 357–369.

Bogard

, & Takanishi

(2005). PK-3: An aligned and coordinated approach for children 3 to 8 years old. SRCD Policy Report, Washington, DC.

Brown

(2007). Unpacking standards in early childhood education. Teachers College Record, 109, 635–668.

Brown

(2009). Pivoting a prekindergarten program off the child or the standard? Elementary School Journal, 110, 2, 202–227.

Burkam

, & Lee

(2002). Inequality at the starting gate. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

Clifford

, & Crawford

(Eds.). (2009). Beginning school: U.S. policies in international perspective. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Dombkowski

(2001). Will the real kindergarten please stand up? Defining and redefining the twentieth century U.S. kindergarten. History of Education, 30(6), 527–545.

10.

Drummond

(2007). Review of “A vision for universal preschool education.” Journal of Early Childhood Research, 5(2), 208–211.

11.

Engel

(2010). Putting the child back into the school. Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 15956

12.

Entwisle

, & Alexander

(1998). Facilitating the transition to first grade: The nature of the transition and research on factors affecting it. Elementary School Journal, 98(4), 351–364.

13.

Goldstein

(2007). Beyond the DAP versus standards dilemma: Examining the unforgiving complexity of kindergarten teaching in the United States. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22, 39–54.

14.

Goldstein

(2008). Teaching the standards is developmentally appropriate practice. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36, 253–260.

15.

Guernsey

, & Mead

(2010). A next social contract for the primary years of education. Washington, DC: New America Foundation, Education Policy Program.

16.

Halpern

(1993). Poverty and infant development. In Zeanah

(Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health (pp. 73–85). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

17.

Halpern

(2003). Making play work: The promise of after-school programs serving low-income children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

18.

Halpern

, & Amendola

(2008). Formative evaluation of the Erikson Institute New Schools Project (Final Report). Chicago, IL: Erikson Institute.

19.

Hamre

, & Pianta

(2007). Learning opportunities in preschool and early elementary classrooms. In Pianta

, Cox

, & Snow

(Eds.), School readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of accountability (pp. 49–83). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

20.

Heckman

(2008, August 25). The growing polarization of American society and its implications for productivity: Schools, skills and synapses. CEPR Policy Research VOX Report.

21.

Heckman

, & Montera

(2009). School reform: The flatworm in a flat world. Teachers College Record, 111(5), 1321–1358.

22.

Hursh

(2007). Assessing No Child left Behind and the rise of neoliberal education policies. American Educational Research Journal, 44(3), 493–518.

23.

Kagan

(2009). Linking ready kids to ready schools: Next steps for policy change. Kellogg Foundation Policy Briefing. Battle Creek, MI: Kellogg Foundation.

24.

Kaiser

, & Delaney

(1996). The effects of poverty on parenting young children. Peabody Journal of Education, 71(4), 66–85.

25.

Katz

, Corlyon

, La Placa

, & Hunter

(2007). The relationship between parenting and poverty. York, England: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

26.

Kauerz

(2007). Making the case for P-3 (Issue paper). Education Commission of the States, Denver, CO.

27.

Leadership to Integrate the Learning Continuum. (2009). Building a seamless learning continuum. Normal: Illinois State University.

28.

Maeroff

(2006). Building blocks: Making children successful in the early years of school. New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.

29.

Margetts

(2002). Transition to school—complexity and diversity. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 10(2), 103–114.

30.

Maxwell

, Ritchie

, Bredekamp

, & Zimmerman

(n.d.). Using developmental science to transform children's early school experiences. Issues in prek-3rd education No. 4. Chapel Hill, NC: Frank Porter Graham/UNC.

31.

McNeil

(2011, August 31). Rating systems key to Early Learning Grant bids. Education Week, pp. 17–18.

32.

Meisels

(1999). Assessing readiness. In Pianta

& Cox

(Eds.), The transition to kindergarten (pp. 39–61). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

33.

Neuman

(2006, October). N is for nonsensical. Educational Leadership, pp. 28–31.

34.

Nicolopoulou

(2010). The alarming disappearance of play from early childhood education. Human Development, 53, 1–4.

35.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011). National action agenda. Washington, DC: Author.

36.

Peters

(2000, September). Multiple perspectives on continuity in early learning and the transition to school. Paper presented at annual conference of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association, London, England.

37.

Petriwskyj

, Thorpe

, & Taylor

. (2005). Trends in construction of transition to school in three Western regions, 1990–2004. International Journal of Early Years Education, 13(1), 55–69.

38.

Pianta

(2005). Commentary: A new elementary school for American children. In Bogard

& Takanishi

, PK-3: An aligned and coordinated approach for children 3 to 8 years old (p. 4). SRCD Policy Report, Ann Arbor, MI.

39.

Pianta

(2007). Early education in transition. In Pianta

, Cox

, & Snow

(Eds.), School readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of accountability (pp. 3–10). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

40.

Ray

, & Smith

(2010). The kindergarten child: What teachers and administrators need to know to promote academic success in all children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 38, 5–18.

41.

Reynolds

, Magnuson

, & Oh

(2006). PK-3 education: Programs and practices that work in children's first decade (Working paper). New York, NY: Foundation for Child Development.

42.

Rice

(2007). Building strong rungs to build sturdy ladders: The status of preschool-third grade systems in New Jersey. Unpublished report, Association for Children of New Jersey, Newark.

43.

Rogers

, & Evans

. (2007). Re-thinking role play in the reception class. Educational Research, 49(2), 153–167.

44.

Rose

(2010). The promise of preschool. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

45.

Scott

(2011). A nation at risk to win the future: The state of public education in the U.S. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 9(1), 267–316.

46.

Shore

(2009). The case for investing in prek-3rd education. New York, NY: Foundation for Child Development.

47.

Wesley

, & Buysee

(2003). Making meaning of school readiness in schools and communities. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 18, 351–375.

48.

Wien

(2004). Negotiating standards in the primary classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.