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