2019 Symposium on Children Recap
2019 Symposium on Children centers discussion on quality in early childhood learning
The early years of a child’s life matter immensely, and we believe that diving deep into understanding quality in the learning environments during those years is time well spent. That’s why the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy’s sixth annual Symposium for Children dedicated its daylong event to bring researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and community members together, in one room, to discuss Quality in Early Learning Environments.
All told, some 200 people came together to hear from leading researchers of child care quality and to understand the local context from policy makers and practitioners. Thank you to all who attended for your presence and participation as we discussed, explored, and learned from one another to advance the conversation about quality learning for our youngest children!
Read on for the day’s highlights and key takeaways.
Kick off by Dr. Laura Justice, Dean Donald Pope-Davis, and Tanny Crane
RESOURCES: Click here to watch opening remarks by Dr. Laura Justice, Executive Director of Schoenbaum Family Center and Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, Dean Pope-Davis, College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University, and Ms. Tanny Crane, President and Chief Executive Officer of Crane Group.
SUMMARY: Dr. Justice highlighted the challenges of defining and measuring quality of care in early education, given that quality is – at its core – about children’s interactions and relationships (by nature, harder to measure and regulate than other variables in social science). Dean Pope-Davis reminded the group that OSU’s College of Education and Human Ecology has placed early childhood education as a central pillar of the college and challenged participants to build partnerships focused on creating new and different possibilities. Finally, Tanny Crane reflected on the importance of high-quality care and education in the context of Ohio’s future workforce and economy.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
If we miss the opportunity with our children in early education, then they have a herculean task ahead of them.
Dean Pope-Davis
40%: the percentage of children who are ready for kindergarten in Ohio, as defined by the state’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). That figure is 28% among disadvantaged children.
Tanny Crane
Researchers share findings on measuring quality, rethinking performance standards, and ensuring equity in early childhood
Dr. Rachel Gordon: Modernizing Measurement of Early Childhood Classroom Quality
Professor of Sociology; Faculty Fellow of the Honors College; Fellow of the Institute for Health Research and Policy; Faculty of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago
RESOURCES: Click here to see the video of Dr. Gordon at the 2019 Symposium on Children, and click here for her presentation slides.
SUMMARY: From the early 2000s on, the United States has seen an increase in public funding directed at early childhood care and education, resulting in an increased need to measure the quality of these environments. Quality measurements, such as Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS), are often used in high-stakes scenarios to assess classroom quality and, at times, determine funding. Dr. Gordon addressed three considerations in using observational measures in high-stakes arenas. First, there is limited evidence that the observational tools used to measure quality (CLASS and ECER-S) predict large school readiness gains. Second, she addressed that the main concerns with these measures include rater effects, item variation, and standard error of measurement. Finally, Dr. Gordon presented examples of modern measurement strategies that address these areas of concern.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
The big conclusion is not that quality doesn’t matter but that we haven’t measured it well enough to demonstrate how it matters.
Dr. Rachel Gordon
[I appreciated Dr. Gordon’s] emphasis on the importance of aligning and reevaluating current measures to be able to understand the correlation with school readiness [as well as] her emphasis on the importance of really providing teachers with supports to increase activities.
Conference Participant
Dr. Margaret Burchinal: Early Childhood Education: Research and Policy
Senior Research Scientist at the Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Director, Data Management and Analysis Center; Adjunct Professor, Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine
RESOURCES: Click here to see the video of Dr. Burchinal at the 2019 Symposium on Children, and click here to view her presentation slides.
SUMMARY: High-quality early care and education (ECE) is widely regarded as one of the most effective polices for reducing achievement gaps and addressing inequities. Based on research findings of ECE impacts on education, employment and health, the United States and countries around the world are investing in presumably high-quality ECE for children from families in low-income households. Evaluations of these programs suggest smaller impacts that too often fade out during primary school. Growing evidence suggests that part of the issue might be related to how ECE quality is defined and measured. Dr. Burchinal presented two research studies that could imply that we need to re-think our quality performance standards and promote cognitive skills such as math and executive function, as well as social skills in early childhood classrooms.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Children who came in [to kindergarten] with higher math skills, showed larger gains on almost everything. They showed larger gains in language skills, reading skills, in one measure of executive functioning, and in one measure of social skills.
Dr. Margaret Burchinal
[I took away that] a higher focus on self-regulation and inhibitory control may better impact school success, [and we should] focus teacher professional development on complex talk and increasing children’s vocabulary.
Conference Participant
Dr. Iheoma U. Iruka: Quality in Early Learning Environments
Chief Research Innovation Officer and Director of The Center for Early Education Research & Evaluation at HighScope Educational Research Foundation
RESOURCES: Click here to see the video of Dr. Iruka at the 2019 Symposium on Children, and click here to view her presentation slides.
SUMMARY: Dr. Iruka grounded her presentation in data illustrating the enormity of the opportunity and achievement gaps facing Black children in America, and discussed the key differences between equality and equity for all children. She also cautioned that early childhood programming – even when high quality – is not a magic bullet to society’s ills. Advocates and researchers should be careful not to oversell the impacts of early childhood education, based on a few key studies, and would be well served to consider how to align early childhood education with family engagement efforts and the K-12 space. Her presentation also touched on the secondary trauma facing teachers and its impact on quality, and the need to address bias and racism more systemically. Dr. Iruka also shared a framework for thinking about the core needs of young children and argues that an equitable, high-quality early childhood environment is one that provides all children with Protection, Affection, Correction, Connection (PACC).
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
We have a bifurcated early childhood system. We have a system for those who have, and those who have not.
Dr. Iheoma Iruka
[I liked Dr. Iruka’s emphasis on] family engagement as a challenge due to all of the compounding issues outside of child care, [and] teacher stability and stress/trauma.
Conference Participant
Teachers speak about quality
We’d be remiss to spend a day talking about early childhood quality and not hear what educators themselves have to say, so we interviewed preschool and infant/toddler teachers from our partner school, the A. Sophie Rogers School for Early Learning. Hear their insights here or by clicking the image below.
Policy leaders and practitioners discuss quality in a local (Ohio) context
RESOURCES: Go here to view the panel discussion featuring Columbus City Council Member Elizabeth Brown; Dr. Gina Ginn, CEO for Columbus Early Learning Centers; Joy Bivens, Director of Franklin County Jobs and Family Services; and Ohio House Representative (24th district) Allison Russo. The panel was moderated by the City of Columbus’ interim education director Matt Smydo.
SUMMARY: Councilmember Brown highlighted the City of Columbus’s $32 million investment (since 2014) in high-quality early learning, through the Early Start Columbus program. She also spoke about teachers at the most critical “piece of the equation.” The Council has invested in teacher training, in partnership with Action for Children and Columbus State Community College, by funding a CDA program that has served 250 teachers since its inception. They’ve also invested in OSU’s early learning teacher pipeline.
Dr. Ginn shared about her work at Columbus Early Learning Centers, which serves 300 children via four locations throughout the city. She also described CELC’s support of home providers, a very large portion of the childcare sector that tends to be overlooked. Documentation for the state’s quality rating system, she said, is easier in center-based care, whereas home providers may need extra technical assistance. Importantly, she spoke to how difficult it is to maintain a high-quality workforce
Director Bivens described her work at Franklin County Jobs and Family Services – a county agency that oversees not only publicly funded child care but also public assistance services. These programs are interlinked; if residents can’t find child care, they can’t hold down stable employment. She also described the county’s work in helping child care providers gain entry into the state’s quality rating system, Step Up to Quality, made possible through specific investments for outreach and training. She urged the crowd to be careful about placing value judgments on providers that are unrated; this doesn’t mean they aren’t “quality,” just that they haven’t gone through the process to get rated.
Finally, Rep. Russo described her personal interest in high-quality child care and her perspective as a lawmaker. High-quality care, she said, is not only about improving kindergarten and school readiness among children but also a workforce issue. She discussed the bipartisan opportunity here in Ohio, given a focus on early childhood by the governor and current state lawmakers. She expressed concern over needing new state investments in quality child care.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
There is a high level of stress for every parent with a child who is preschool aged – about what they can afford… $9,500 is the average cost of child care across the state.
Councilmember Brown
[What I gained from the discussion was] knowing what the city and state are doing regarding early childhood quality and the need for evidence-based policy decisions.
Conference Participant