Social-Emotional Development

Last week, amidst the release of multiple reauthorization bills for No Child Left Behind, key members of the Senate produced a draft bill for reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, including Democratic Senators Mikulski (MD) and Harkin (IA) and Republican Senators Burr (NC) and Alexander (TN), S. 1086 is somewhat more prescriptive than the last version of CCDBG, and a lot more focused on quality.

Since February 2012, we’ve been tracking (and live-tweeting) the PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group’s series of webinars on reducing the achievement gap by fourth grade. Today  the work group, of which New America is a part, released a four-page brief with webinar highlights. The group's site also includes PDFs of press coverage from Ed Daily, which reported on each session.

This month the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services released proposed changes to future Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge competitions, which would be limited to states that have not already received a RTT-ELC grant.

For the most part, the requirements proposed by ED and HHS are identical to previous rounds. But there are five main changes, two of which have to do with the competition’s priorities.

The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) has released new policy proposals to better recruit, prepare and build the capacity of effective principals. One of these new proposals is to strengthen elementary principals’ knowledge about early childhood development, which is an important step in helping principals know what to expect when they walk into kindergarten through third grade classrooms.

The holiday season can lead parents to fixate on finding the perfect toy. But it's worth thinking not only about the toy, but about the environment around it. In a piece for TIME's Ideas column this week, I write about research on background television's impact on how 1-, 2- and 3-year-old children play with toys.

Anyone who has grappled with questions of what to do with data from child assessments – whether based on observations of children's development over months or simple snapshots of early literacy learning – will want to tune in to the next webinar coming from the PreK-3rd Grade National Work Group.

Last week the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) released its 2013 guide to preschool and K-5 social and emotional learning programs. The guide is an update of the group’s 2003 report, Safe and Sound: An Education Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs.