Head Start

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Early Ed Watch podcast!

For a year now, the Early Education Initiative has been featuring education experts from across the country in our bi-weekly podcast. Making the podcasts has been informative and entertaining-- and we hope our listeners enjoy listening to the podcasts as much as we enjoy making them.

In the old world, children’s media – namely television – was usually something to be passively absorbed at home.  But today children are gaining access to media that encourages – no, requires – some interaction on their part. Couldn’t that interaction bring with it the potential for harnessing that media to enrich children’s learning in many promising ways, in and out of school?

“Everybody has been in some kind of a foot race where one group, by reason of a handicap, is given a head start,” Sargent Shriver said in 1990.* Those words capture much of the philosophy behind Head Start, a program Shriver founded in 1965 with hopes of creating a fairer race for children in poverty.

Shriver passed away yesterday at the age of 95.  

A continuation of our predictions of big issues for 2011...

Will this be the year that policymakers make some true progress in reforming the tax code? President Obama has said that he wants to push for reform, and progressives and conservatives are saying they do too.

A continuation of our predictions of big issues for 2011...

In the next few months, the U.S. Department of Education will officially open its Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy competition. States will be able to apply for awards worth up to $30 million.

A continuation of our predictions of big issues for 2011...

Don’t expect the debates on teaching quality to end anytime soon. We suspect that data from test scores (a la the Los Angeles Times series of 2010) will continue to be used to determine a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom.

A continuation of our predictions of big issues for 2011...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will issue final rules for “re-competition” this year. (Comments were due on December 21 after the department issued a proposal in the Federal Register.) The re-competition program – officially known as the Designation Renewal System – may require 25 percent of Head Start programs to re-apply for funding that, until now, was nearly guaranteed (with the exception of instances of real financial problems).

A continuation of our predictions of big issues for 2011...

Each year we ask the same question: Will Congress reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, aka No Child Left Behind? And each year, hopes have been dashed. There’s plenty of room for doubt this year too, but it’s not inconceivable.

Congress has decided not to finalize fiscal year 2011 spending levels until next year. Until it finalizes funding, Congress has temporarily funded most federal programs at the 2010 level.

What this means is that the next Congress, which will be sworn-in in early January, will ultimately determine the final fiscal year 2011 spending levels.

On December 8, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution (CR) to maintain funding levels through the end of the fiscal year, which ends September 30.

Before we close for the holidays, it’s time to take stock of what transpired in 2010 and look back on the many issues we’ve covered. We can’t tie it all up with a bow, but consider this click-and-find list our gift to you. Happy New Year!