Early Ed Watch

Today, President Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services announced long-awaited changes to Head Start, the nation’s largest federally funded preschool program. New rules require all Head Start programs to be funded through 5-year grants, and those that are performing poorly will have to compete against other organizations that run preschool programs for continued funding.

Two years ago, when Jacqueline Jones was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as his senior advisor for early learning – a first-of-its-kind position –  the early childhood community celebrated. Recognition of the early years as educational years was long overdue, and Jones was an excellent choice given her work in New Jersey to create a high-quality system of early learning, beginning at age 3 and continuing up through 3^rd grade.

Then, of course, reality set in.

Once again we get a reminder of the poor state of American students’ abilities in reading and math: Only 34 percent of 4^th grade students scored at or above “proficient” (i.e. grade level) and 33 percent of students didn’t even meet the mark for having “basic” reading skills, according to data released yesterday by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

Two-hundred thirty-four organizations applied for this year’s Promise Neighborhoods competitive grant program, according to information released this month by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services. The applicants are competing for 14 to 16 grants that will draw from a pool of $30 million in fiscal year 2011 funding.