Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

       The new newsletter I received on Tuesday July 22.  This newsletter spoke about the safety of children.  In Australia they draft a report that contains information regarding professional that work with young children are only doing it because they love children.  They have an issue of staff turn over every two years.  The state of ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) says, “There is a need for high wages for all professional taking care of our children.”  This is reported to the Federal Government it increase wages for professional so that they can afford to take care of themselves and keep doing the job they love. I found that an interesting insight to know that Australia has the same issue we have about such low wages for the professionals working with our children and doing it because of their love for the children.  (Big Steps in Childcare, 2011)

       The issue of equity and excellence that I discovered from Australia is that Australia reports that it is failing its children.  (MacDonald, 2011)  They want to do as much as possible to give the children the excellence they deserve.  However, there are factors that are in the way such as developing a national framework to ensure the rights of children are in the policy and they fail to appoint a national children’s commissioner.  (MacDonald, 2011)  Without proper policy and a commissioner, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have high mortality rates (children in poverty, the numbers of children in out of home care has increased without reason why the children are placed in care ( children in foster homes), and children of asylum-seekers remain in detention facilities without proper education.  All of this has cause many young children committing suicide or imprison.  Australian government wants this change to occur immediately, however first they must appoint a child commissioner before changes can occur.  (MacDonald, 2011)

References:

Big Steps in Childcare, (2011, July) Increased wages for childcare professional needed to ensure continued quality care.  Retrieved from http://bigsteps.org.au/news/media/increased-wages-for-childcare-professionals-needed-to-ensure-continued-quality-care-30-06-2011

MacDonald, E. (2011, July) Australia failing its children: report.  The Canberra Times.  Retrieved from http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/australia-failing-its-children-report/2217299.aspx

Sharing Web Resources

My website that I am exploring is the National Head Start
Association Newsletter: http://www.nhsa.org/news_and_advocacy/advocacy/legislative_eupdate.  The Newsletter for June 27, 2011 spoke about the Senate Subcommittee that holds a hearing on quality early education.  I found the information relevant to my current professional development because quality childcare is the key to the future for our economy.  I am a firm believer in quality education for our young children.

In the newsletter, I found the Obama Administration announcing their new $500 million, Race to the top Early Learning Challenge fund Competition to be very interesting.  They plan to use the funds for major competition in which states will have to apply for federal funds to develop comprehensive state plans and raise the quality of early learning programs in states.  This information is relevant to improve the quality of care in childcare centers in America.  (NHSA, 2011)  I feel this issue is very important to the change in childcare systems across the country.  As an educator who seeks to become a professor for early childhood, I intend to teach about the importance of quality in childcare centers.  Teachers need information about what quality is, therefore they can implement it in the centers they work for to gain improvement if needed.

Listening to the Senate Subcommittee hearing, they spoke about the production of the economy and the information of neuroscientists.  Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, MD spoke on the “Bang for the Buck.”  How can early childhood get a bang for the buck? (U.S. Senate Subcommittee, 2011)  Currently head start invest one dollar in head start for every child and receive back 16 dollars per child.  This gives the federal government a chance to make progress for the funding.  Her question is how this can expand to other childcare centers besides Head Start.  The research has shown that children from high quality education have experienced high cognitive, academic achievement, completed high school, and went on to college.  Title 21 is money funding has improper usage due to quality of care such as safety, health, and education.  Joan Lombardi, PhD is the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Inter-departmental Liaison for Early Childhood Education spoke on the brain theory that children ages zero to eight grows rapidly during these years.  The goal is to make sure children are happy and healthy before entering school.  Every Head Start is providing quality to all children.  Any Head start not providing high quality of care then they would have to compete for funding in order to stay.  The congressional representatives from each state was present in the subcommittee hearing and they agree with the idea of children from ages zero to five is where the funding is place to change the future of poverty.  This hearing is very interesting and if anyone gets the opportunity to listen to it see the website below.  It speaks about making extreme changes to childcare systems.  (U.S. Senate Subcommittee, 2011)

I gained information to help programs meet quality for early childhood education.  It is very interesting to know that the government is acknowledging the issue of quality and to try to change to poverty trend in America.  In addition, I learned more about congress and the liaisons to early childhood education, senator Barbara A. Mikulski, MD is the liaison for early childhood education to take the information back to President Obama.

References:

NHSA. (2011). National Head Start Association Newsletter. Retrieved from  http://www.nhsa.org/news_and_advocacy/advocacy/legislative_eupdate )

U.S. Senate Committee.  (2011). Subcommittee hearing- Getting the most bang for the buck: quality early education and care.  Retrieved from http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=4fd57df5-5056-9502-5d58-05502741ee44

                                            

Sharing Web Resources

My website that I am exploring is the National Head Start
Association Newsletter: http://www.nhsa.org/news_and_advocacy/advocacy/legislative_eupdate.  The Newsletter for June 27, 2011 spoke about the Senate Subcommittee that holds a hearing on quality early education.  I found the information relevant to my current professional development because quality childcare is the key to the future for our economy.  I am a firm believer in quality education for our young children.

In the newsletter, I found the Obama Administration announcing their new $500 million, Race to the top Early Learning Challenge fund Competition to be very interesting.  They plan to use the funds for major competition in which states will have to apply for federal funds to develop comprehensive state plans and raise the quality of early learning programs in states.  This information is relevant to improve the quality of care in childcare centers in America.  (NHSA, 2011)  I feel this issue is very important to the change in childcare systems across the country.  As an educator who seeks to become a professor for early childhood, I intend to teach about the importance of quality in childcare centers.  Teachers need information about what quality is, therefore they can implement it in the centers they work for to gain improvement if needed.

Listening to the Senate Subcommittee hearing, they spoke about the production of the economy and the information of neuroscientists.  Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, MD spoke on the “Bang for the Buck.”  How can early childhood get a bang for the buck? (U.S. Senate Subcommittee, 2011)  Currently head start invest one dollar in head start for every child and receive back 16 dollars per child.  This gives the federal government a chance to make progress for the funding.  Her question is how this can expand to other childcare centers besides Head Start.  The research has shown that children from high quality education have experienced high cognitive, academic achievement, completed high school, and went on to college.  Title 21 is money funding has improper usage due to quality of care such as safety, health, and education.  Joan Lombardi, PhD is the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Inter-departmental Liaison for Early Childhood Education spoke on the brain theory that children ages zero to eight grows rapidly during these years.  The goal is to make sure children are happy and healthy before entering school.  Every Head Start is providing quality to all children.  Any Head start not providing high quality of care then they would have to compete for funding in order to stay.  The congressional representatives from each state was present in the subcommittee hearing and they agree with the idea of children from ages zero to five is where the funding is place to change the future of poverty.  This hearing is very interesting and if anyone gets the opportunity to listen to it see the website below.  It speaks about making extreme changes to childcare systems.  (U.S. Senate Subcommittee, 2011)

I gained information to help programs meet quality for early childhood education.  It is very interesting to know that the government is acknowledging the issue of quality and to try to change to poverty trend in America.  In addition, I learned more about congress and the liaisons to early childhood education, senator Barbara A. Mikulski, MD is the liaison for early childhood education to take the information back to President Obama.

References:

NHSA. (2011). National Head Start Association Newsletter. Retrieved from  http://www.nhsa.org/news_and_advocacy/advocacy/legislative_eupdate )

U.S. Senate Committee.  (2011). Subcommittee hearing- Getting the most bang for the buck: quality early education and care.  Retrieved from http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=4fd57df5-5056-9502-5d58-05502741ee44

                                            

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

I have not heard anything from my conversation partners; therefore, I went on to the World Forum and listen to one of the podcast.  The podcast participant is Bonnie Neugebauer.  She spoke about the pain that she bare when visiting different countries across the world.  She went to different countries to see their education plan for early childhood.  In some of the countries that she visited, she found that it hurts to learn that it is a dream to feed children.  It hurts that no families are there to care about some of the children.  It hurts to see little or no materials for children to use to learn and it hurts to see children with no homes to go to, to lay their heads at night.  Bonnie presents an activity of using a band-aid to place on others in the audience to feel the reality of hurt the children go through daily.  The band-aids represent how important it is to put children first before statistics, objects, and so forth.  Children are struggling in poverty and we, as educators need to see them as individuals.  If educators would look back, describe a story of a particular child in poverty, and challenge themselves to see children as individuals we would have a better understanding of our children and give them equal opportunity to learn.

I learn to take more time and care with our children because every child that walks in our doors for education, we have no idea what pain they have gone through or going through. 

When Bonnie spoke about all the places, she visit such as, China, Kenya, Australia and so forth, to hear that children in those countries live in such poor conditions with little or no education, hurts.  Poverty is a very big issue around the world.  Whereas we may think, it happens only in America, but to hear that poverty is worldwide, makes an educator feel a lot of pain in your heart.  It makes me feel what is it can I do to improve the poverty in the world not just American children.

References:

•  Neugebauer, B. (2009). Convention on the rights of the Child.  World Forum Foundation. Retrieved from: http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child                    

Sharing Web Resources

I subscribed to the NHSA's Government Affairs Update is a bi-weekly electronic publication providing comprehensive, timely, and insightful information on legislative issues facing Head Start.  The focus in the electronic publication is on different issues concerning Head Start, such as funding, congress changes in policies, family’s needs, investments, parent’s trainings, workshops, and celebrating 45 years of Head Start.

I chose to study the policies and what I have learned is that head starts must have 10 percent of disabilities children in the program to receive full funding.  This is an upgrade to the performance standards for Early Head Start and Head Start.  I know that our program has found it difficult to find children with disabilities in the Early Head Start program due to most children have no diagnostics with a certain disabilities until they reach the age of three.  However, there are exceptions and those exceptions have kept us well funded.

The international website I chose is from Australia: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/early_childhood_news/

This website has news related to same thing we experience in America is the high quality of education for families who cannot afford.  The issue it speaks about is how to help the children, families, and communities as a whole to provide them with High quality and affordable childcare.

Neither the newsletter nor the website offered any information regarding the demographic or diversity issue topic for this week.  However, in the national head start association newsletter it speaks about helping families overcomes the communication gap of dual language learners.  Even though, the website in Australia focused on the children in poverty.

Resources:

Early Childhood Australia: The Australian Early Childhood Advocacy Organization.  Retrieved from               
http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ 

 National Head Start Association 2011 Policy Agenda.  Retrieved from http://www.nhsa.org/files/static_page_files/E24F990F-1D09-3519-AD519E268A0F72F1/NHSA_2011_Policy_Agenda_020111.pdf

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1
I have tried to make contact with Spain through the OMEP Comite Nactiona Espanol
Word Association of Early Childhood Educators. The reason I chose Spain was to be able to share insight about their learning techniques and in comparison to what we use in America along with any issues or trends they are willing to share with me as we make contact. Although so far I have not received any contact. I also tried to contact Nairobi for information regarding the issues and trends in Africa, again not very successful at receiving any correspondence. I will try again this week to send a new email and hope to receive contact if no contact I will then go to the alternative method of the World Forum Radio Broadcast.

Part 2
I choose the National Head Start Association, www.nhsa.org website to explore. The reason I chose this website is due to the awesome issues in place in head start regarding funding and research. I have been an employee of head start for 21 years and it is the best organization that has ever been founded to support the education of children in poverty.