Early Childhood Changes

Panel recommendations on early education changes
The Associated Press
Associated Press

The School Readiness Solutions Group, convened by the State Board of Education to study care and learning for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, recommended:

_Requiring all school districts to offer full-day kindergarten by 2015.

_Establishing a new teacher license for birth through kindergarten, and providing professional development to preschool teachers.

_Establishing a Board of Early Education and Care to govern early learning programs and services from birth to age 5.

_Creating a central location for licensing early learning centers that receive state funding, and helping them promote school readiness.

_Establishing a system for money to flow to learning services beginning at birth, rather than at age 5.

_Placing major early learning funding streams under a single state agency.

_Having a legislative task force identify ways to dovetail the state's many early childhood offerings.

_Planning and promoting more parent and family involvement in early learning.

SOURCE: School Readiness Solutions Group

Comment: I am supposing that this is a response to what teachers are seeing more and more of in the classroom - namely a neglect of more and more children who come from poor homes. With special needs programs becoming more and more visible, we wonder why. Neglect at this precious age is the culprit. There are parents who think that early childhood is nothing more than a pop tart and a TV show. When the child can barely talk and has nothing to say and finds his or her way into school, the difference between the neglected child and the child whose parents have educated him or her is so significant that he or she has developed a special needs problem.