FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
ENSURING EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN (https://blog.ed.gov/2017/01/ensuring-education-children/…)
For most children, school is their home away from home. There they form friendships, socialize, grow, and learn. Children and their families rely on teachers, principals, and other school staff to nurture and protect them when away from home. And families and educators have a shared responsibility to work together and ensure that schools are safe environments for all, including our youngest and most vulnerable children. We can best meet this responsibility when we have a clear understanding of policies and resources that can support the creation of safe learning environments, and ultimately, children’s development and learning.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) regularly releases resources to help educators, school administrators, and families to protect and ensure equitable access to education for all children, including our most vulnerable student populations. For example, in the past few years, ED has released several documents that address the needs of immigrant children. One example is the Newcomer Toolkit ED released in September that provided a one-stop shop for educators who serve newcomer students. The toolkit both catalogued resources for meeting the unique socio-emotional and academic needs of these students and highlighted the assets that newcomer students bring to the classroom.
In a continuing effort to inform the community of stakeholders who care for our children and to respond to continuing demand from the field, today ED is releasing a new resource guide for early learning educators and families as a follow-up to a 2015 Resource Guide focused on secondary students.
•The resource guide includes two parts:
◦The first half of the resource guide, entitled Resource Guide: Building a Bright Future for All, provides tips for educators in early learning programs and elementary schools as well as schools, districts, and States to (1) facilitate school enrollment by immigrant families; (2) promote healthy child development in the school setting; (3) encourage caregiver engagement in children’s education; and (4) build staff capacity and knowledge about immigrant students and their educational needs.
◦The second half of the guide entitled Handbook for Parents, Guardians, & Families: Building a Bright Future for All provides tips for parents and guardians on how to promote and facilitate children’s education from birth and play an active role in helping to ensure their children’s success in school regardless of their own schooling history or context.
Additionally, to respond to questions from the field, ED is also sharing information today about two Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies that may be of interest to educators, school leaders, and families:
•A “sensitive locations” factsheet” for educators and families provides a user-friendly explanation of how DHS policy defines immigration enforcement activity around “sensitive locations,” including schools and school bus stops, as well as other community spaces and social activities.
•In addition, ED is highlighting for teachers that under DHS policy, young people who are in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody should have timely access to educational materials sent by a local education agency, school, school administrator, or individual teacher. Additionally, consistent with applicable rules, these young people should have the opportunity to complete school work and return it to the local education agency, school, school administrator, or individual teacher. This policy can be found on the DHS website Part 2.5 – Funds ((https://www.ice.gov/…/detention-standards/2011/funds_and_pe…) and Personal Property and questions can be directed to Info@ice.dhs.gov.
Whether at home or at school, as parents or as educators, the foremost issue in our minds is the well-being of our children. By being informed and working together, we can ensure that all children have the educational access they need and deserve to be safe, secure, and happy.
Dana Nerenberg is a Principal Ambassador Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education and Principal of Sitton Elementary School in Portland, and Frances Frost serves as the Family Ambassador, U.S. Department of Education. Find her on Twitter @FamiliesatED.
New Report Shows Increased Need for Federal Investments in Early Learning.
Are there too many federal early learning programs? This question has been contentiously debated and discussed in Washington, DC for years. Are programs that simply permit funding for early learning as a part of a larger initiative, such as Title I or English Language Acquisition grants, considered early learning programs? Should programs that merely mention the importance of early learning – the Appalachian Area Development grants or Donations of Federal Surplus Personal Property program – be considered early learning programs? These issues have emerged from a 2012 Government Accounting Office (GAO) report.
A “too many programs” argument has been frequently cited as evidence of government waste, overlap, and duplication and a reason not to provide any new investments to support our youngest children achieve success in school. However, a recent analysis of federal programs conducted by the Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services (HHS) make it clear that the investments in early learning are not meeting the needs of families across the nation and many eligible families are not receiving services.
At the direction of Congress, ED and HHS considered these issues in a new report: The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education Joint Interdepartmental Review of All Early Learning Programs for Children Less Than 6 Years of Age. In the report (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/gao-report…), ED and HHS reviewed all federal programs identified by GAO and concluded that only eight programs have the primary purpose of promoting early learning for children from birth to age six:
1.Child Care and Development Fund
2.Head Start
3.Early Head Start
4.Preschool Development Grants
5.Department of Defense Child Development Program
6.Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
7.Part B, Section 619 of the IDEA
8.Family and Child Education (FACE)
Each program provides critical services for children and families, and they often work together to help meet the diverse needs of children from birth through age five. For example, programs such as Early Head Start and IDEA Part C serve children birth to age three, whereas Head Start, Preschool Development Grants, and IDEA Part B section 619 serve preschool-aged children. While some federal early learning programs serve a similar age span, they have different purposes and offer different services, such as child care and interventions for children with disabilities. Furthermore, half of these programs, including IDEA, the Bureau of Indian Education’s FACE and the Department of Defense Child Development Program, address the needs of distinct populations – children with special needs, Native American families and children of military parents, respectively. These federal investments in early learning aren’t duplicative but rather synergistic and recognize the diversity of children’s and working families’ needs.
As mentioned above, a number of federal programs may allow funding of early learning at the state or local level, but the use of funds for this purpose is not the primary focus and is optional, competing with other priorities for scarce resources. When early learning has to compete with services for older children, early learning often loses out. For example, at ED, less than three percent of students supported by Title I, Part A funds are enrolled in preschool, and approximately one percent of children ages three through eight are supported by Indian Education Grants to Local Educational Agencies funds.
The report discusses the Administration’s efforts to reduce fragmentation and maximize the current and future investments to increase the quality of and access to early learning for children from birth to kindergarten. It describes how ED and HHS are fostering coordination and collaboration at the Federal, state, and local levels, including through the voluntary Interagency Policy Board (IPB), (https://www2.ed.gov/…/i…/ed/earlylearning/partnerships.html…), to ensure a more effective, efficient, and high-quality system of early learning.
The eight early learning programs discussed in the report receive far less funding than is needed to serve all or even most eligible children or provide the level of resources needed to support and sustain high-quality services to ensure all children have a strong foundation of learning. For example: Only four percent of income-eligible infants and toddlers are receiving Early Head Start services and only 40 percent of income eligible preschool-aged children are enrolled in Head Start.
We hope you will download a copy of this report (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sit…/default/files/…/gao_report.pdf…) and share with policymakers. It helps us all to understand the complexity of the early learning system and the need for expanding services.
Libby Doggett directs the early learning activities at ED and is the primary early education liaison with the White House, the US Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies.
Read, learn, and archive HERE!:
www.ed.gov/early-learning #KingdomMoveme
#ESSA
#ParentCamp
#PRINCIPALSATED
#TeachtoLead
#TeachertoTeacher
#ReachHigher
Posted By: agnes levine
Monday, January 16th 2017 at 12:41PM
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