LPI Blog

The long-term rewards of quality early education continue to collect an impressive basket of evidence. An overwhelming majority of voters continue to call out the importance of quality preschool, even if the issue has not yet gotten much airtime in the 2016 presidential election. But how do parents know whether a preschool is of high quality?

By Roberta Furger and David Robertson | School districts and county offices of education estimate they will need to hire about 22,000 new teachers for the 2016–17 school year. These projections, part of a multiyear rebuilding of the state’s teaching force, are a good sign. There’s just one problem: California is not preparing enough new teachers to meet the projected need. Even with re-entrants and an increase in out-of-state recruits, districts are experiencing shortfalls they cannot easily address.

As California embarks on an ambitious journey to raise standards for student learning and rethink nearly every aspect of its educational system, one of the state’s most pressing challenges is hiring and retaining well-prepared, high-quality teachers who can teach the challenging new skills our society demands. This is especially true as the state faces emerging teacher shortages.

In 2013, Bill de Blasio campaigned for mayor on a promise of universal pre-K. Two years later, New York City enrolls more children in full-day pre-K than the total number of students in San Francisco or Boston. New York City’s experience instituting a high-quality program so quickly provides valuable lessons for pre-K efforts across the country.

A quarter-century ago, Newark and nearby Union City epitomized the failure of American urban school systems. Students, mostly poor minority and immigrant children, performed abysmally. Graduation rates were low. Plagued by corruption and cronyism, both districts had a revolving door of superintendents. Today, Union City, which opted for homegrown gradualism, is regarded as a poster child for good urban education. Newark, despite huge infusions of money and outside talent, has struggled by comparison.

Renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was once considered a long shot, but in December 2015, the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law. Will federal regulators encourage states to take advantage of the new flexibility provided by ESSA to move teaching and learning purposefully into the 21st century? And will states assure these opportunities are made available to all students, rather than an elite few?

While more than two-thirds of high school graduates enroll in college, nearly two-thirds of these students arrive on campus unprepared for college-level rigor. Instead of trying to solve this problem together, high schools and colleges typically operate in silos. The situation is entirely different in Long Beach, CA, where collaboration, from pre-k through college, is the watchword. 

By Linda Darling-Hammond and Patricia Gandara | How we can create 21st century learning opportunities for all students? In this op-ed, authors argue that a wide range of structural inequalities contribute to ongoing learning and achievement gaps. They identify three high-leverage policy areas to promote equity and deeper learning: adequate and flexible K-12 funding based on pupil needs, educator standards that focus preparation programs on deeper learning, and more supports and fewer constraints to enable innovative instruction and assessment.

Does preschool work? Although early education has been widely praised as the magic bullet that can transport poor kids into the education mainstream, a major new study raises serious doubts. A closer analysis, however, underscores the importance of quality if preschool is to have a positive long-term impact on children’s lives.

A recent California Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning noted that nationally, fewer than half of eligible young people ages 18-24 voted in the 2012 elections, and that the U.S. recently ranked 139th of 172 democracies around the world in voter participation. Is the standard approach to teaching civics failing to prepare students for their future roles as voters, jurors, and civic leaders?