A reader comments on the discussion of Common Core’s effect on pre-K and K:

Thanks, Diane, for making room on your blog for this critical topic.

Karen states that the “overacademization of kindergarten and preschool classrooms” is not a new trend. That may be true, though without a doubt the problem has intensified. The Alliance for Childhood report The Crisis in Early Education A Research-Based Case for More Play and Less Pressure (Miller and Almond, November 2011) states that “the pushing down of the elementary school early childhood has reached a new peak with the adoption by almost every state of the so called common core standards.” That report also looks at the high rate of preschool expulsions of late. Preschoolers and kindergarteners are now being expelled at three times the rate of K-12 children. How can that be okay? Peter Gray has documented the decline of play and the increase of childhood problems over recent decades in his article “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescence” (The American Journal of Play, volume 3, number 4; Spring 2011). The increase in the number of young children attending overly-academic preschools and kindergartens is most assuredly part of the problem. An increase in childhood depression and anxiety are some of the results. When our mission should be, at the very least, to do no harm, clearly the children are being harmed. We cannot toss them in the trash like a cake with too much salt or a recipe gone awry (to further Karen’s analogy above). They are human beings, for goodness sake.

Finding ways to stay developmentally appropriate, when many of the tests and assessments are not, is becoming increasingly difficult. And looking critically at the how, what, when and why of testing and assessments which have increased with RTTT, is important work for the early childhood community. If ever there was a time in the USA for early childhood educators to be looking closely at policy and debating the direction of early childhood education, now is the time. As the leading organization of early childhood educators, NAEYC should be at the forefront of advocating for young children – and speaking out against policies that aren’t grounded in what decades of research has proven: that children develop best — socially, emotionally and cognitively — when they have educational experiences that promote creativity, thinking and problem solving skills, and engage in meaningful activities geared to their developmental levels and needs.

Nancy Carlsson-Paige is not alone in her assessment of the situation. A national coalition of early childhood educators met earlier this year regarding their concerns about the current education policy trends and their negative effects. You can read more about that in an op-ed piece titled “How ed policy is hurting early childhood education” published in Valerie Strauss’ The Answer Sheet at The Washington Post. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-ed-policy-is-hurting-early-childhood-education/2012/05/24/gJQAm0jZoU_blog.html)

Geralyn Bywarter McLaughlin
Director, Defending the Early Years
deyproject.org

A reader writes in response to Deborah Meier’s post:

It is easy to say that standards are just standards but when the staff developers for the NYC DOE have mandated PD for pre-k teachers and make us sit through an entire day of a scripted power point and remind us that our students are failing and we must embrace the common core and provide performance assessments for each child in both math and ELA twice a year, it is difficult to believe that the Common Core is just a set of standards for teachers to use as guidelines.
I am not opposed to rote learning for some things. I still remember to run the little song about how many days of the month are in each month. I still recite the alphabet in my head when I’m trying to file middle letters in my files. I still remember the parts of the grasshopper’s leg because my high school science teacher had us sing it. There is no way to get a good handle on the alphabet or numbers in sequence without memorizing. This should not be confused with actual learning. Memorizing number facts and the letters of the alphabet in sequence is just a tool to enhance actual learning.
Children and adults learn by doing. A medical student can memorize many facts. But in the end, she must practice on a person. She must learn how deep to make an incision and what pneumonia sounds like when you listen to someone’s lungs.
No one can learn to play tennis just reading about it and memorizing the rules and steps in playing. You have to play and notice the work “play” We play tennis to improve our game. Again, notice the word “game”
Adults spent untold amounts of money in play for enjoyment, to learn a new skill, and to release stress but we deny play to children.
I don’t know if it’s our Puritan foundations that prevent people from understanding the importance of play or various hidden agendas.
What I know for myself is that after the first half hour of those 6 hours of power point PD’s I am no longer listening. Based on conversations after these sessions I know that I am not alone.
I think some people think if learning is enjoyable it can’t possibility learning.. I also believe that some people who secretly have low expectations of some populations believe that they are capable only of low level, rote learning.
If those in charge believe that rote learning and absence of play (art, music, dance, etc.) must be removed from schools in order to have 120 minute blocks of literacy and math, why do their own children not attend the same schools that they want for other people’s children?
There is a serious disconnect between what those in power profess to be the best education and the education they provide for their own children.

Watching the discussion on this blog about how the Common Core Standards might affect the pre-school years (pre-K and K), veteran educator Deborah Meier sent the following comment to me:

If counting to a hundred by ones and tens are appropriate skills for all 5 year olds, and children should read by sounding out words before they enter kindergarten, then Karen Nemeth might be right.  

But to say that such standards do not prevent teachers from responding creatively is…nonsense.  The most efficient way to do it is by repeated forms of rote learning, which interferes with both a solid mathematical education rather than furthering it and consumes the time otherwise spent in more appropriate activities–art, music, dance, science, block building, water play, planting, caring for animals, story telling,  learning about one’s surrounding neighborhood, and on and on.

Furthermore we know that children learn to read in many ways (some by “mere” extensive exposure). We’d be wise to pay attention to one of the best studies of reading I know of–Inquiry Into Meaning: An Investigation of Learning to Read by Edward Chittenden et al.  (Teachers College Press.)  The authors (researchers at ETS)  document the range of ways in which children learned to read–regardless of how they were taught.  We don’t have to settle on one way, but can provide opportunities to best match each child’s approach–which can be done easily under the right circumstances.   Apparently delaying any form of direct reading instruction until children are 7 hasn’t hurt the schools and nations who follow such a course.   But the Common Core prescribes a different developmental path.  

This letter from Karen Nemeth came in response to a post by Nancy Carlsson-Paige about the detrimental impact of the Common Core Standards on the early years.

As an early childhood educator for more than 25 years and author of 5 books, including Many Languages, One Classroom and Basics of Supporting Dual Language Learners, and numerous articles on the subject, I would like to clear up some inaccuracies that have been posted here and contribute some accurate information that is called for by your topic.

The Core Curriculum State Standards were written for K-12. http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts Several states have chosen to adopt them and some have added their own guidance for preschool. The federal government has in no way established requirements for what must be taught in preschool. Standards do not equate to a curriculum. As I often tell my audiences, standards are like ingredients, but each classroom still needs its own recipe for how to use those ingredients. A curriculum is more like a recipe. Ten people might buy the same ingredients and make ten very different cakes. If you burn your cake or put more salt than sugar into it, it will not be successful – but you can’t blame the grocery store that sold you those ingredients. Anyone who has concerns about how the core curriculum standards are affecting preschool programs is going to have to look state by state by state, and program by program, and classroom by classroom to see how they are described, recommended and then implemented. I appreciate that Sheila and Anne took that approach here.

Aligning with the standards gives states, programs and teachers something to work toward without dictating how they have to get there. New Jersey is one state that put their own developmentally appropriate spin on the standards and has provided developmentally appropriate guidance for both preschool and kindergarten http://www.state.nj.us/education/ece/guide/

For another approach to establishing learning goals for preschool, I suggest that readers visit this site to learn more about the Office of Head Start’s School Readiness initiatives and supports: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/sr/approach/cdelf

While I agree with Nancy that early childhood educators need to be concerned about the overacademization of kindergarten and preschool classrooms, this concern has plagued us for many years and is not a new trend that appeared with the standards or RTTT. 25 years ago my first daughter started kindergarten, and when I saw the door directly onto the playground during my classroom visit, I asked how much time the children spent outdoors. The teacher told us they NEVER would go outside because their academic reading curriculum took up too much time. My mom, who was the most DAP preschool teacher I’ve ever known, also encountered pressure from parents to give her students more ‘homework’ in the 1970s.

I agree with Nancy that testing and assessment are issues of major concern in our field right now. That is a separate, and important, topic to discuss. I do believe it is possible to address the preschool skills and knowledge that lead up to what is expected in K and 1st in a hands-on, creative, project-based, child centered way. We just need to make sure we do what needs to be done to prepare preschool teachers AND the administrators who supervise and support them.

I do take exception to the odd addition of complaints about the National Association for the Education of Young Children included here by Nancy. As a member of the largest professional association for preschool educators in the country for more than 25 years, and as the daughter and mother of a member, and as a NAEYC author, speaker and volunteer, I want to make it clear that nearly 90,000 educators pay a membership fee to support this organization every year. A small handful of people who are not happy with the organization do not represent anything close to “much of that membership.” NAEYC did not write, promote, or implement the Core Curriculum State Standards and there really does not seem to be any value in complaining about one’s personal grievances in this context or of promoting an unrelated facebook page of a small local chapter. The fact is that NAEYC literally ‘wrote the book’ on developmentally appropriate practice for early childhood education and more information about that leadership can be found here: http://www.naeyc.org/DAP

Karen Nemeth