Read on to see another Bush appointee take it to the house.
I liked Wade Horn for one reason: his leadership with the Fatherhood Initiative which is a program that I have the utmost respect for.
Wade was a clinical psychologist, but look at the guy that will keep the seat warm for a while. Is this guy qualified to bat for children and familes?
Thursday, May 03, 2007
TTFN NHSRS: House Shuts Down Controversial Head Start Standardized System
Early today, the House of Representatives voted to end the National Head Start Reporting System. As an early childhood professional, I see this as a blessed outcome because the NHSRS stood as an abysmal example of developmentally inappropriate assessment. For me, those who developed and lobbied for this system know next to nothing about child development and early childhood education.
Let me quickly relay the history of Head Start to you. During the later part of the 1950’s the Federal Government had seen a sharp increase in poor children and families. They sought to discover why the increase occurred and how to reverse the tide. Reversing the tide, however, became the focus. Lyndon B. Johnson came into office in 1963, and was advised that families in poverty stemmed from deficient preschool education. In 1964, he asked a group of political heavyweights to come up with a program that could meet the needs of these children and what needs they were to meet. The group settled on the most obvious idea: getting kids as ready for first grade (i.e. “a head start”). Consequently, the program began in the summer of 1965 with about 560,000 4 year olds in 2,500 child development centers chosen across the nation. Now, there are about 909,000 children served by 20,000 child development centers. Between 1965 and 1999, Head Start had expanded its services to be more comprehensive. Its scope included fostering good health, social skills, and parental involvement as well as academic preparedness. It takes approximately $7,222 per child each year for a child to participate in a minimal (not high quality) Head Start program.
Today, Head Start is the direction of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Department of Health and Human Services. The Federal Head Start director is Channell Wilkins, a Republican.
Previously I spoke of Head Start funding and the HOR’s vote to increase funding significantly for the first time since 2000. President Bush chose Head Start as a rung in his ladder to successfully execute his No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and Good Start, Grow Smart early childhood initiative in his first administration. In 2002, the Republican-controlled congress voted to implement two controversial policies for Head Start: (1) the National Head Start Reporting System (NHSRS) that I spoke of above and (2) a set of national performance standards. First let’s talk about the second policy.
The performance standards are intended to ensure that all 20,000 or so Head Start centers are supplying similar quality in terms of educational experiences. Not only does it cover the above expanded comprehensive services but also it seeks to monitor program governance, program management, and staff Head Start professional development. Here’s the catch: the federal government gives the money, but the local agencies (often Community Action Centers funded by state and local/county subsidies) are to be the performance standard enforcers. That’s all find and dandy…if the officials in charge know something about early childhood education. MOST PLACES DO NOT…or at least were that way in the early 2000s. Remember, however, that this is the theory. It somewhat flies in the face of allowing Head Start programs to have local autonomy and freedom to structure their programs to meet THEIR community’s children’s unique needs. That’s when President Bush unveiled the NHSRS.
Why is the NHSRS so controversial? Because it promotes an entire shift in scope. It calls for a decrease in social and emotional development—key domains for a developmentally appropriate curriculum—and an increase (almost singular increase) in focus on literacy and math skills. Even though he never outright states it, the President foresaw Head Start as a way for him to prepare children better for the accountability of NCLB that would face in grade school. Additionally, it is a method for tracking the investment of Federal dollars. In its original inception, Head Start centers were to test their students using the NHSRS in the fall and spring. The test is composed of five areas: spoken language comprehension, vocab, letter-naming, Phoneme deletion (whatever that is), and early math (whatever that is). All of this testing data would be placed in a database to track progress. Those that move kids up get more $$$. Guess what happens to those programs that do not advance kids? Lol….
In it’s very essence this wouldn’t be so bad…if the test was developmentally appropriate. It’s far from it. Sure it is composed of 20 minutes worth of “mini-tasks” that are SUPPOSE to be readily accessible to four and five year olds…but can they really be expected to do well on a standardized test? These kids need hands out, real life activities!
The main danger I find with the NHSRS is the fact that it narrows the focus on just the academics. That’s BAD, BAD, BAD for young children. Holistic education (physical, academic, EMOTIONAL, and SOCIAL) is ripe for engagement between infancy and third grade.
Bush implemented the policy in 2002 and expected Head Start centers to comply in 2003, but it faced a firestorm of criticism to a point where the Head Start Office threatened rogue centers who fought against complying. Eventually, the Feds were convinced to compromise and wait about a year for early childhood experts to intensely study this test system using large scale, reputable qualitative and quantitative research methods. Once the results came back in 2004-2005 finding that the NHSRS was quite inappropriate for 4s and 5s, things were put on hold, threats were made to Head Start centers, and the Head of Head Start (lol…) switched hands.
Now for the best part: THE DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED CONGRESS VOTED TO SHUT DOWN THIS RIDICULOUS SYSTEM. Bravo!
Back to the work of educating our children.
Let me quickly relay the history of Head Start to you. During the later part of the 1950’s the Federal Government had seen a sharp increase in poor children and families. They sought to discover why the increase occurred and how to reverse the tide. Reversing the tide, however, became the focus. Lyndon B. Johnson came into office in 1963, and was advised that families in poverty stemmed from deficient preschool education. In 1964, he asked a group of political heavyweights to come up with a program that could meet the needs of these children and what needs they were to meet. The group settled on the most obvious idea: getting kids as ready for first grade (i.e. “a head start”). Consequently, the program began in the summer of 1965 with about 560,000 4 year olds in 2,500 child development centers chosen across the nation. Now, there are about 909,000 children served by 20,000 child development centers. Between 1965 and 1999, Head Start had expanded its services to be more comprehensive. Its scope included fostering good health, social skills, and parental involvement as well as academic preparedness. It takes approximately $7,222 per child each year for a child to participate in a minimal (not high quality) Head Start program.
Today, Head Start is the direction of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Department of Health and Human Services. The Federal Head Start director is Channell Wilkins, a Republican.
Previously I spoke of Head Start funding and the HOR’s vote to increase funding significantly for the first time since 2000. President Bush chose Head Start as a rung in his ladder to successfully execute his No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and Good Start, Grow Smart early childhood initiative in his first administration. In 2002, the Republican-controlled congress voted to implement two controversial policies for Head Start: (1) the National Head Start Reporting System (NHSRS) that I spoke of above and (2) a set of national performance standards. First let’s talk about the second policy.
The performance standards are intended to ensure that all 20,000 or so Head Start centers are supplying similar quality in terms of educational experiences. Not only does it cover the above expanded comprehensive services but also it seeks to monitor program governance, program management, and staff Head Start professional development. Here’s the catch: the federal government gives the money, but the local agencies (often Community Action Centers funded by state and local/county subsidies) are to be the performance standard enforcers. That’s all find and dandy…if the officials in charge know something about early childhood education. MOST PLACES DO NOT…or at least were that way in the early 2000s. Remember, however, that this is the theory. It somewhat flies in the face of allowing Head Start programs to have local autonomy and freedom to structure their programs to meet THEIR community’s children’s unique needs. That’s when President Bush unveiled the NHSRS.
Why is the NHSRS so controversial? Because it promotes an entire shift in scope. It calls for a decrease in social and emotional development—key domains for a developmentally appropriate curriculum—and an increase (almost singular increase) in focus on literacy and math skills. Even though he never outright states it, the President foresaw Head Start as a way for him to prepare children better for the accountability of NCLB that would face in grade school. Additionally, it is a method for tracking the investment of Federal dollars. In its original inception, Head Start centers were to test their students using the NHSRS in the fall and spring. The test is composed of five areas: spoken language comprehension, vocab, letter-naming, Phoneme deletion (whatever that is), and early math (whatever that is). All of this testing data would be placed in a database to track progress. Those that move kids up get more $$$. Guess what happens to those programs that do not advance kids? Lol….
In it’s very essence this wouldn’t be so bad…if the test was developmentally appropriate. It’s far from it. Sure it is composed of 20 minutes worth of “mini-tasks” that are SUPPOSE to be readily accessible to four and five year olds…but can they really be expected to do well on a standardized test? These kids need hands out, real life activities!
The main danger I find with the NHSRS is the fact that it narrows the focus on just the academics. That’s BAD, BAD, BAD for young children. Holistic education (physical, academic, EMOTIONAL, and SOCIAL) is ripe for engagement between infancy and third grade.
Bush implemented the policy in 2002 and expected Head Start centers to comply in 2003, but it faced a firestorm of criticism to a point where the Head Start Office threatened rogue centers who fought against complying. Eventually, the Feds were convinced to compromise and wait about a year for early childhood experts to intensely study this test system using large scale, reputable qualitative and quantitative research methods. Once the results came back in 2004-2005 finding that the NHSRS was quite inappropriate for 4s and 5s, things were put on hold, threats were made to Head Start centers, and the Head of Head Start (lol…) switched hands.
Now for the best part: THE DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED CONGRESS VOTED TO SHUT DOWN THIS RIDICULOUS SYSTEM. Bravo!
Back to the work of educating our children.
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