PK Inclusion: Getting Serious about a P-16 Education System

Abstract

WITHIN the broad P-16 framework, the transition from high school to college has commanded the bulk of attention from policy makers, think tanks, foundations, and the research community in general. Immediate and long-term concerns about the skills of the American work force and our global competitiveness fuel this focus. Significantly less attention has been paid to the P part, the first years of the P-16 continuum that pertain to young children. We argue here that the years--from prekindergarten through the primary grades--are the cornerstone of any P-16 system. They provide a strong foundation for children's lifelong learning, educational excellence, and eventual competitiveness in the marketplace. From the perspective of P-16 systems, the learning experiences children have during the early childhood years (birth to age 5) should be better integrated and aligned with those they have during the kindergarten and elementary school years. Aligning early childhood education with elementary schools is not a new idea. Since initiatives in the early 1970s to connect Head Start with elementary schools, such as Project Follow Through and Project Developmental Continuity, a few policy makers and educators have tried to bridge the gap between the cultures of early education and K-12 education. They recognized that one or two years of early childhood education would not be sufficient to sustain gains in achievement over the long term. For low-income children, sustaining the gains made as a result of attending high-quality prekindergarten (PK) programs requires continuing to provide them with high-quality learning experiences into the elementary school years. As public investments in PK programs increase, the challenge of sustaining gains from high-quality programs is rising on the policy agenda. And as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) raises expectations for all children's achievement, the challenge of preparing strong and eager learners from the start, rather than remediating them later, is also rising on the policy agenda. To ground the discussion of presented here, we offer brief descriptions of what might look like in policy and practice. These examples are by no means a comprehensive depiction of P-3. At the level of the child, a focus on ensures that children experience continuous learning opportunities that bolster their social, emotional, and cognitive development. (1) These opportunities--including emotional supports, instructional supports, and classroom organization--would be in place whether a child is 3 years old and enrolled in a PK program or 7 years old and in a second-grade classroom. At the school level, a focus on is evident in clear transition policies to help children and families navigate the changes that occur as children move from grade to grade. (2) For example, a school might institute policies and practices that enable PK children and their parents to visit kindergarten classrooms before the start of their kindergarten year, thereby permitting them to get to know the teacher and become familiar with the classroom layout, materials, and schedule. At the district level, a focus on might be evident in the implementation of common professional development requirements for both PK teachers and K-3 teachers. Such professional development would focus on providing staff with the tools and knowledge to provide meaningful learning opportunities to all young children from 3 to 8 years of age. At the state level, a focus on is evident in the creation of common learning standards that are informed by research about the developmental characteristics of children and that are used by all publicly funded programs. These learning standards would be appropriate for children at each grade level and would be aligned from grade to grade. DEFINING THE 'P' PART We ourselves have differing views on how to define and conceptualize the P-3 part of P-16 systems. …