eNotes
May 27, 2016In this Issue:
- New! National Collaboration to Set Professional Guidelines for All Early Childhood Educators Source: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) - May 25, 2016
- School Readiness Findings from the Chicago Pay for Success (PFS) Project Source: Institute for Child Success and SRI International - May 23, 2016
- OSEP Policy Letter Regarding the Extended Part C Option of the IDEA Source: Office of Special Education Programs - May 9, 2016
- Journal of Early Intervention Abstract Available Online Source: DEC's Journal of Early Intervention, Online First - May 23, 2016
- Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education Source: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation - May 24, 2016
- The Condition of Education 2016 Source: National Center for Education Statistics - May 26, 2016
1. New! National Collaboration to Set Professional Guidelines for All Early Childhood Educators
NAEYC recently announced a new collaboration, Power to the Profession, to define professional guidelines for early childhood educators across all states and settings. The initiative is being launched in response to the 2015 report by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8, which found that a fragmented early childhood workforce is one of the major contributors to the varying levels of access to and quality of early childhood education programs across the country. The initiative will be led by a national task force of organizations that represent and engage large groups of early childhood professionals. To learn more, go to http://www.naeyc.org/NAEYC-Announces-New-National-Collaboration
2. School Readiness Findings from the Chicago Pay for Success (PFS) Project
A recent evaluation of the Chicago Pay for Success (PFS) project, which expands the city's Child Parent Center (CPC) early education model, found that the first cohort of participating children met the initiative's goals for improved kindergarten readiness. Future evaluations will report on whether special education placement is reduced and whether there is an increase in third-grade literacy for participating children. A blog post from the Institute for Child Success, Chicago in Context: Considering Pay for Success to Improve Special Education, discusses the findings in more detail and addresses concerns that exist about using reduced special education placement as an outcome metric for PFS projects. For the complete evaluation report, see Evaluation of Kindergarten Readiness in Five Child-Parent Centers: Report for 2014-15 (April 2016).
3. OSEP Policy Letter Regarding the Extended Part C Option of the IDEA
The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has published a new policy letter (May 9, 2016) regarding the option to make Part C early intervention services available to children aged three and older under Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and clarifying that there is nothing in the IDEA or its implementing regulations that addresses whether an individualized education program (IEP) must be developed before a parent chooses Part C early intervention services or chooses Part B services for their child beyond the age of three.
Additional OSEP Memos, Dear Colleague Letters and Policy Letters are also publicly available online. A subset of OSEP guidance documents related to the early childhood provisions of the IDEA (Part C and Part B, Section 619) can be accessed on the ECTA Center Web site.
4. Journal of Early Intervention Abstract Available Online
An abstract of the following new forthcoming article is now available at http://jei.sagepub.com/content/early/recent.
What Equivocal Data From Single Case Comparison Studies Reveal About Evidence-Based Practices in Early Childhood Special Education
Jennifer R. Ledford, Erin E. Barton, Jessica K. Hardy, Katie Elam, Jordan Seabolt, Meredith Shanks, M. L. Hemmeter, and Ann Kaiser
The Journal of Early Intervention (JEI) is an official publication of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children and SAGE Publications. It offers articles related to research and practice in early intervention for infants and young children with special needs and their families. Freely available Podcasts of interviews with JEI authors can be accessed online.
5. Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education
The U.S. Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) has published a new report entitled Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education: A Review of the Literature (2016). The report summarizes findings of a literature review and research syntheses in three areas - implementation science, early care and education quality, and costs. The goal was to create a draft conceptual framework to guide development of measures for the implementation and costs of early care and education in center-based settings that serve children from birth to age 5.
6. The Condition of Education 2016
The National Center for Education Statistics has published The Condition of Education 2016 online. This congressionally mandated annual report summarizes important trends in education using the latest available statistics. The 2016 report includes the following sections related specifically to early childhood education: