Pre-K for All was initiated by Mayor de Blasio of New York City which started in January of 2014. During the NYC Mayoral election race of 2013, Bill de Blasio campaigned on a platform of closing the divides of racial and economic inequality. His foremost initiative was to expand access to free, full day, Pre-K to all 4-year-old New York City children under New York’s Universal Pre-K program. His goal was to increase the number of free full day program seats from the 19,287, in 2013-2014, to 53,604 by 2014-2015. (“Mayor de Blasio Announces Over 68,500 Students Enrolled in Pre-K for All”, 2015) The program succeeded at reaching ddeBlasio’s goals and by 2014-2015 school year, 65,563 children were enrolled in Pre-K for All programs. (“Mayor de Blasio Announces Over 68,500 Students Enrolled in Pre-K for All”, 2015)
The almost tripling of the number of enrolled students speaks to the Mayor’s drive to meet this goal. The Mayor, through his actions and his speeches, has shown that he believes the research when it comes to early childhood education and its potential lifetime impact on income and lifestyle. His continuing message throughout the election race was that he wanted to end the “tale of two cities,” bridging divides between haves and have-nots in New York City. (Thomas Kaplan, “De Blasio’s Tale of 2 New Yorks Inspires Liberals beyond City,” New York Times, December 20, 2013),
Pedro Noguera, a phenomenal urban sociologist and a professor at New York University confronts the problems which exist in our nation’s education system in his book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. Noguera describes what he views to be the main problems facing urban education and suggests strategies for improvement. From years of experience as a teacher and school board member, he reflects on what he believes to be the real problems. Noguera blames the school’s failures on students, parents, and teachers which leads to blame local government officials or policymakers. Noguera states in City Schools and the American Dream, “The central argument of this book is that until there is a genuine commitment to address the social context of schooling — to confront the urban condition — it will be impossible to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in urban public schools” (pg.6). Noguera believes that we must address the central problem to make any type of solutions for improvement.
New York City consists of five boroughs, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. The borough that I reside in is Brooklyn. Brooklyn has approximately 2.592 million people inhabiting this district and approximately 23.4 percent of individuals who reside in Brooklyn, NY come from a low-income household or in other words come from poverty. With catholic and private schools being expensive, people have to rely on the education system to provide their children with a good education. In this paper I will be discussing the public school education system ranging solely up to high school in Brooklyn New York and giving a general idea of the New York education system as well.
This is to ensure that capable providers who are able to assist them are serving children and families. The administration supports a newly designed technical assistance program that brings both current and best practice evidence –informed practices for local programs. They also support the local programs working with their local school systems to be educated on the skills that children will need and the gains they will need to achieve by kindergarten in order to achieve a smooth transition into formal schooling. According to the Whitehouse, “We must support families, communities, and schools working in partnership to deliver services and supports that address the full range of needs of Hispanic students” (2011). Through early childhood education programs such as Head Starts, services are not just offered at the school programs but in the home as well. The administration believes that some of the funding that is allocated to these programs should be used in recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers this includes Latino teachers who can overcome the language barrier and help achieve the language gap. To continue these ongoing resolutions, congress recently enacted programs that support various neighborhoods. The implementation of Promise Neighborhoods projects is in the testing stage right now, where
Healy, C. (2015). Who benefits most from head start programs? Chicago Policy Review (Online), Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.durhamtech.idm.oclc.org/
Thesis Statement: Children benefit more from a high quality full-day pre-k program because their daily attendance rate is better than average and have reduced chronic absences, their social-emotional development is better, and their achievement scores in language and math are higher than their peers who attend a half-day or no pre-k program.
Early childhood education is crucial for success in the formalized education system. Many children born into lower income communities do not obtain this advantage. According to Kozol, simply based off accident of birth a child will lead completely different educational lives (2005). For example, a white toddler in an upper middle class neighborhood might attend a prestigious educational preliminary kindergarten. These respected early education schools are often referred to as “baby ivies” (Kozol, 2005). The child participates in pre-numeracy skills along with pre-writing skills. Conversely, a child of minority descent living in an underprivileged neighborhood may not initiate school until they are five years old. In the three previous years a
Statement of Issue: Many minority children and children from low-income families enter kindergarten without the academic skills they need to succeed. Math and reading abilities at kindergarten entry are powerful predictors of later school success. Research shows kids who start school already behind are unlikely to ever get caught up to standards. Hispanic and African American children are anywhere from 7 to 12 months behind in reading and 9 to 10 months behind on math when they enter kindergarten. Access remains extremely low to high-quality early education do to a couple of problems. First, rates of access to early education vary widely as a function of children’s socioeconomic backgrounds. Secondly, the quality of most early education programs is not high enough to substantially improve academic readiness. Considering the tremendous potential for high-quality preschool to improve children’s outcomes, this policy brief will consider how a universal publicly funded pre-kindergarten program in the United States could decrease both disparities in access to early learning and achievement gaps at kindergarten entry.
Schools can’t solve the problem alone,” and” without local initiative, reformers cannot succeed.” The neighborhood is where the children grow up, so some of the small level programs depend on local promote. Third, do not ignore the stupendous gap of income. The achievement gap begins when children are young because some of them have had better medical care and have memorized more vocabulary than others because of highly educational parents. According to what Sean Reardon found, the income achievement gap is growing, and it is two times larger than black-white achievement. Therefore, to mend the schools, to act in concert with local, and not to neglect the large income achievement gap are the points that Diane Ravitch
This summer I worked in New York City at Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), which is a non-profit organization for poverty-stricken children and families in Harlem, providing free support in the forms of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, child-oriented health programs that serve approximately 13,705 children and 13,784 adults. The Harlem Children’s Zone Project has expanded the HCZ’s comprehensive system of programs to nearly 100 blocks of Central Harlem and aims to keep children on track throughout college and into the job market. The organization is made-up of about twenty two programs in total that ensure there are no gaps in-between one phase to the next. For instance if a student needs to take a year off before attending college, HCZ has created programs that will stick with the student during this time frame, in other words providing these students with a strong support group so they are held accountable to attend college in the future. The HCZ is “aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and
On February 12th, 2012, in his State of the Union address, President Obama discussed the long-term benefits a universal preschool would have on today’s society. “In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children…studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own. We know this works. So let’s do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.” (Obama) Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of children, from low-poverty areas, are unable to access high-quality early childhood programs for their preschool aged children. Consequently,
There has to be a way to make the funding equally between head start and per school students, the universal Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) fight will help make this happen. There are people helping the mayor with his vision for universal Pre-K, one of them is the William peen foundation. While reading the article Major Investment in Early Childhood Education Moves Philadelphia Closer to Universal Pre-K, it helped me understand why the Mayor is fighting so hard for universal Pre-K. “Today, the William Penn Foundation (WPF) announced an additional $15 million grant to fund for quality, the local initiative that provides capital and planning services for the expansion of high-quality early childhood education
Early childhood education has many benefits and there is the potential for many significant outcomes if universal preschools were put into place. Some feel that children who start kindergarten without previously attended preschool sometimes lack certain skills such as social and communication skills and an inability to follow routines. There were also studies done that found attending preschool could help to close the achievement gap in the grade school years. A child’s first few years of life are most important, and they absorb the most during those years. By providing universal preschool, all children would be benefiting, especially those who are in at-risk families or part of the lower class. As a society, we have a responsibility to help the children in our communities and provide them with the education they need in order to help them succeed in life.
In 2010, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs introduced the Free Pre-School Year in Early Childhood Care and Education Programme. Before this, it was only children in disadvantaged areas
Everyone has his or her own first day of kindergarten experiences. Some might have been more memorable while others still trying to forget. Mine was merely an observance and evaluation period. After I gave my mother a kiss goodbye, and placed my belongings in the cubbyhole I was ready to learn, but unfortunately the majority of the other students were not. Considering one can not get too accomplished over many loud high-pitched cries, I was forced to be patient and suffer silently from boredom.
Early childhood education is one of the most important policy topics out there. Research has proven that the early years in childhood is a critical period for opportunity to develop a child’s full potential; as well as form academic, social, and cognitive skills that determine not only success in school but also their entire life (The White House). The right to a free, public education is guaranteed to all children in the United States. Early education is voluntary, and therefore some children are not given the opportunity to reach their full potential.