I'm a gigantic advocate for E-Learning, though I am disheartened by how many people in my field see them as "lesser degrees" with a bit too much harshness. Perception is changing, though.
In connection with the continued recognized integrity of E-Learning degrees. I learned earlier this year that Walden University's Early Childhood Master of Arts Teaching (MAT) degree program was one of the five programs to be nationally recognized by NCATE. This is a FIRST step, though, for the main goal is for the entire School of Education to be recognized as NCATE-accredited.
NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) is the top standard professional-wise for a School of Education to achieve. Like most accrediting agency, you have to have faith in the process allowing "my colleagues" in education to evaluate how well "me and my colleagues at my school" are preparing teachers for "our field." Few better authorities can best assess quality than those people who are also practicing in the field doing the same thing you do...if you have faith that their system of evaluation is solid. For the record, I am putting forth that NCATE has a solid peer-evaluation process.
With that being said, Walden U's School of Education has been successful in partially putting their "Education Unit" (as NCATE calls it) on equal ground with places like the University of Wisconsin-Maidson, University of South Carolina, and thousands of other "brick and mortar" schools of education. That first step is getting one's degree programs nationally recognized by the recognized specialized professional association (SPA).
Just about every specific sub-field of education is known as having a nationally recognized organization of associated professionals in that field. Early childhood education, of course, has this in the form of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (Naeyc). NCATE works with Naeyc as it does with other SPAs in allowing them to first review a School of Education's Early Childhood Degree Programs (BA/BS or MAT's that prepare teachers for initial certification and M.Eds/Ed.S/Ph.D./Ed.D that prepare teachers for advanced early childhood education competencies...but not certification). NAEYC has established a set of standards that (if met) qualifies an early childhood degree program as sufficiently preparing an early childhood teacher for the field. If NAEYC (through its own chosen early childhood expert volunteer reviewers and comparable processes) recognizes a degree program as upholding its standards, then NCATE most likely will recognizes it, too. This gives the degree program the designation of being "nationally recognized."
In NCATE accreditation's highest level of quality, a School of Education itself can be "NCATE accredited" (through a more general process) or the school itself can be "NCATE accredited" with all of its degree programs being "nationally recognized." For many Schools of Education, either one or both approaches can be made if the State's Department of Education designates so. Many states only require the School of Education to be "NCATE accredited" with no rock-solid requirement for haivng it to have nationally recognized programs. On the other hand, states like SC require all of its Education Unit's degree programs to be nationally recognized before it will be allowed to recognize "NCATE accreditation" as a satisfactory standard for ensuring that these schools can prepare teachers to be state licensed teachers. This is a bit higher on the scale of quality than for a school to just get by being generally "NCATE accredited." There is some wiggle room in between done on the state level, but we will stay focused on NCATE accreditation.
Since Walden U's early childhood program is nationally recognized, it actually is on the standard of quality as any other brick and mortar early childhood program according to NCATE. Here's the rub: why attend a brick and mortar school when you can just attend places like Walden U from the comfort of your own home and community elementary/primary school that are supposed to now be recognized as having the highest quality early childhood prep program that the field can endorse?
Well...E-Learning and NCATE accreditation (nationally recognized programs or not) are not quite on the same level of respect as "brick and mortar" and NCATE accrediation (even those without nationally recognized programs). Is there some hypocrisy here? Is there some academic prejudice here?
Interesting discussion over a nice steak dinner:)
Monday, August 08, 2011
Budget Crunch Should Not Affect These Children At Crucial Age
As a former prekindergarten teacher, I find this article troubling. It does not surprise me, though. When I taught 4K (not CD-4 which has a different philosophy) in my local elementary school, I never had any money available to me really. There were three preK classrooms, but only one was funded mostly by the local school district. The other two (including mine) were funded largely by local funds.
Let me make it clear: many school districts have no line item money budgeted for preK because little money is available for those areas since a lot of it nowadays is connected to unapproved or underfunded federal fundstreams (like the Early Learing Challenge Funds)(Electronic Education Report, 2009). That means that if you were to look at the budget, there would be a fixed catetory for "First Grade," "Second Grade," even "Kindergarten,"...but no preK. This is not because district administrators do not care about preK. Many of them not only have children (or grandchildren) in such programs, but also they were products of preK themselves. No, it all boils down to priority. Investing line-item wise in early childhood's youngest years has not always been something that the powers that be have put the confidence in even today (Kelleher, 2011). What determines how a school is viewed concerning its ability to provide quality education? What determines where school-wise some essential federal and state go? What often influences the value of real estate around a school? You can put it in three words: HIGH STAKES TESTING.
There is no high stakes testing in public school preK even though there is much pressure on them to accelerate learning to prepare for it (Persellin, 2007). The issue is fraught with hypocrisy and contradiction. High stakes testing begins in Grade 3 and the often unsettling compromise between early childhood professionals and other stake holders is to see Kindergarten (namely 5-K in many areas)as Stage One in prepping children for the high stakes (Miller and Almon, 2009) testing that will assault them beginning in third grade.
Here's the irony, though. thirty years after the ground breaking Perry Preschool, Carolina Abecedarian, and Chicago Longitudinal Study, many school districts still do not get it: (1) preparing a child educationally begins before Kindergarten even before PreK, (2) preparing a child educationally does not happen automatically when you plop a child in an educational setting whether it's infant/toddler care, PreK or what have you; it depends on whether the teacher is basing his/her practice on integrity-based research....and (3) THIS COSTS LOTS MONEY!!!
I think this last point relates best to the article I posted. You cannot educate children on "exceptions." I hear too much blather about "teachers should not work for money." "Teaching should be more about the money." This is hogwash, folks. Every industry thrives on investment. For those of us who are Christians, please refer to Matthew 25:14-30. You cannot reap success unless you take chances, sow and invest. The same goes pretty much with education. It's not a direct proportion--nothing is in social science. We cannot, however, expect our children to prosper unless we are willing to invest in our teachers. We must advocate much more social investment welfare principles into early childhood (Conley, 2010).
As painful as it is for me to say this: you reap what you sow in education...and we are not reaping as much as we should :( If you invest to pay teachers only about $30K a year (which is ridiculous to live on when you have to pay for a car, housing, and other daily amenities), then you will gain many medicore teachers and medicore educational results. The exemplary high school/soon to be college students will continue to go to more lucrative fields like medicine, law, and engineering. Now, if teachers started off making $40-45K, then education (as cliche as it sounds) will reap better raw product (more blue chip scholars) to innovate the field and catalyze more difference-making in the classroom as the standard...not the expection.
Again, this is all affected when you invest smallar and smaller amounts into early childhood education. The less you invest per young child, the less money eventually teachers will be paid. The less money you invest per teacher, the less attractive the job will be (when you add in the hard work that goes along with the job). A less attractive job will attract relatively less blue chip teachers. The top teachers go to other states/districts with higher paying jobs while these low paying districts must scramble with the "leftovers" hoping they will will be able to find a "diamond in the rough"....or an "exceptional teacher" for a budget price.
What's the result? Inconsistent education during the early years. Inconsisten, inefficient teaching because of poorly trained teachers exacerbate children to be less prepared overall when they approach high stakes testing years. Seeing children who are on the whole behind, districts have to scramble to sure up student performance in an unorthodox/budget-minded (READ: often against best practices) way which would have been automatically neutralized if the district had invested the lion's share of their money hiring the best of the best infant/toddler, preK, and primary school teachers from the get-go.
As an early childhood professional, I may see more in this article than most people. It's a sad state of affairs that I pray gets better. I think it may get worst, though, before it gets better. Just ask some of student teachers from the last three years. Several of them still can't find jobs:(
Let me make it clear: many school districts have no line item money budgeted for preK because little money is available for those areas since a lot of it nowadays is connected to unapproved or underfunded federal fundstreams (like the Early Learing Challenge Funds)(Electronic Education Report, 2009). That means that if you were to look at the budget, there would be a fixed catetory for "First Grade," "Second Grade," even "Kindergarten,"...but no preK. This is not because district administrators do not care about preK. Many of them not only have children (or grandchildren) in such programs, but also they were products of preK themselves. No, it all boils down to priority. Investing line-item wise in early childhood's youngest years has not always been something that the powers that be have put the confidence in even today (Kelleher, 2011). What determines how a school is viewed concerning its ability to provide quality education? What determines where school-wise some essential federal and state go? What often influences the value of real estate around a school? You can put it in three words: HIGH STAKES TESTING.
There is no high stakes testing in public school preK even though there is much pressure on them to accelerate learning to prepare for it (Persellin, 2007). The issue is fraught with hypocrisy and contradiction. High stakes testing begins in Grade 3 and the often unsettling compromise between early childhood professionals and other stake holders is to see Kindergarten (namely 5-K in many areas)as Stage One in prepping children for the high stakes (Miller and Almon, 2009) testing that will assault them beginning in third grade.
Here's the irony, though. thirty years after the ground breaking Perry Preschool, Carolina Abecedarian, and Chicago Longitudinal Study, many school districts still do not get it: (1) preparing a child educationally begins before Kindergarten even before PreK, (2) preparing a child educationally does not happen automatically when you plop a child in an educational setting whether it's infant/toddler care, PreK or what have you; it depends on whether the teacher is basing his/her practice on integrity-based research....and (3) THIS COSTS LOTS MONEY!!!
I think this last point relates best to the article I posted. You cannot educate children on "exceptions." I hear too much blather about "teachers should not work for money." "Teaching should be more about the money." This is hogwash, folks. Every industry thrives on investment. For those of us who are Christians, please refer to Matthew 25:14-30. You cannot reap success unless you take chances, sow and invest. The same goes pretty much with education. It's not a direct proportion--nothing is in social science. We cannot, however, expect our children to prosper unless we are willing to invest in our teachers. We must advocate much more social investment welfare principles into early childhood (Conley, 2010).
As painful as it is for me to say this: you reap what you sow in education...and we are not reaping as much as we should :( If you invest to pay teachers only about $30K a year (which is ridiculous to live on when you have to pay for a car, housing, and other daily amenities), then you will gain many medicore teachers and medicore educational results. The exemplary high school/soon to be college students will continue to go to more lucrative fields like medicine, law, and engineering. Now, if teachers started off making $40-45K, then education (as cliche as it sounds) will reap better raw product (more blue chip scholars) to innovate the field and catalyze more difference-making in the classroom as the standard...not the expection.
Again, this is all affected when you invest smallar and smaller amounts into early childhood education. The less you invest per young child, the less money eventually teachers will be paid. The less money you invest per teacher, the less attractive the job will be (when you add in the hard work that goes along with the job). A less attractive job will attract relatively less blue chip teachers. The top teachers go to other states/districts with higher paying jobs while these low paying districts must scramble with the "leftovers" hoping they will will be able to find a "diamond in the rough"....or an "exceptional teacher" for a budget price.
What's the result? Inconsistent education during the early years. Inconsisten, inefficient teaching because of poorly trained teachers exacerbate children to be less prepared overall when they approach high stakes testing years. Seeing children who are on the whole behind, districts have to scramble to sure up student performance in an unorthodox/budget-minded (READ: often against best practices) way which would have been automatically neutralized if the district had invested the lion's share of their money hiring the best of the best infant/toddler, preK, and primary school teachers from the get-go.
As an early childhood professional, I may see more in this article than most people. It's a sad state of affairs that I pray gets better. I think it may get worst, though, before it gets better. Just ask some of student teachers from the last three years. Several of them still can't find jobs:(
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