Early Ed Watch

Each year, Dr. Seuss's birthday gives us a reason not only to celebrate reading, but to be wonderfully silly about it. Today, in schools around the country, teachers and young students are cooking up green eggs, making a goofy red-and-white hats, and tromping around in their pajamas for "bedtime" stories in honor of "Read Across America" Day.

And children are not only imbibing in literacy lunacy during school. Surely many are also reading ... on a train. Or in the rain. Or in a box, and with a fox. They are reading here and there. They are reading anywhere.

Dr. Seuss's genius makes us yearn for more moments of play in literacy instruction. Experts on reading have been writing about the connection between play and reading for years (often citing Dr. Seuss), but sometimes we can get so caught up in the demands of de-coding that we take the fun out of it.

Consider an education program so effective that its impact can be measured 19 years later, so well-studied that it can be backed up with decades of scientific evidence on children's improved skills in math and reading, and so impressive to policymakers that it continues to be championed around the country 40 years after its launch.

February 17: All Eyes on Illinois…
February 19: Duncan’s Record in Chicago
February 23: Q-and-A with Barbara Bowman
Today: What’s been cut

These are the superlatives that come with Chicago's Child Parent Centers. So you might figure they're flourishing as part of the Chicago Public Schools' early childhood programs, right? Not so. Their numbers are dwindling. In the mid-1980s, there were at least 25 CPCs serving more than 1,500 children. By 2006, there were 13. Today, 11 are still open, according to the Promising Practices Network. Enrollment in 2009, as reported by the Chicago Public Schools, is down to 670, less than half of what it once was. It now represents just 2 percent of the system's total preschool enrollment.

The distressing story of the CPCs needs to be told. In this series, we have examined Illinois's early childhood framework and its Preschool for All program, as well as U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's record in Chicago. Both offer helpful lessons for structuring and funding early childhood programs. But the CPCs offer some of the strongest lessons of all, and their closures send a warning about how difficult it can be to sustain the programs that have been shown to do the most good. It's a shame that even in an environment brimming with early childhood advocates, the CPCs haven't been able to gain ground. And it begs the question: If Chicago can't make this happen, who can?

Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) enlisted the help of his mother, Joci, to stump for increased pre-k funding in Texas. Bonus cuteness from the pre-k students in this video.

When Arne Duncan was tapped to become the new U.S. Secretary of Education, early-education advocates praised the choice. (We, too, were pleased.) Media reports and interviews with Duncan's colleagues, not to mention Duncan's own words, have signaled his strong grasp of the importance of early education. Now everyone wants to know: How will this translate at the federal level?

Previous: All Eyes on Illinois…
Today: Duncan’s Record in Chicago
Next week: Q-and-A with Barbara Bowman
Next week: What’s been cut

On Tuesday we showed how Illinois's state-wide approach provides a potential framework for increased federal involvement. Today we look at Chicago, where Duncan was chief executive officer of the city's public school system from 2001 to 2008. Continuing the work of his predecessors, Duncan baked early education into the public school system, and the number of children enrolled in publicly funded programs for 3- to 5-year-olds increased by several thousand over the past several years to more than 30,000 as of last month. (The number rises to nearly 39,000 if you count infants and toddlers.)

But Duncan didn't make these cookies from scratch. He started with a ready-to-mix box of ingredients and many batches already in the oven. He was blessed with the support of a mayor and governor who believed in early childhood funding; a new state-wide funding stream called Preschool for All; a band of fiercely devoted advocates for early childhood with national reputations; an internationally renowned research center for early childhood -- the Erikson Institute -- in his own backyard; and decades of vetted research showing the effectiveness of Chicago's Child-Parent Centers.