Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten

The New School Foundation aspires for every child to achieve their full potential.  This goal is nearly impossible to attain when students begin kindergarten with enormous variations in school readiness.  Differences in vocabulary, problem solving skills, self-management, and number sense among five-year-olds tend to persist, and even grow, in most American schools – in other words, kids who start school behind tend to stay behind.  By the time they reach 12th grade, African-American and Hispanic students in our country are reading, on average, somewhat below the level of white and Asian eighth graders, according to results of a national reading test (the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress) – these enormous differences are unacceptable. 

Fortunately, there is one intervention that has proven incredibly potent at minimizing the Kindergarten readiness gap:  high quality pre-kindergarten.  High quality pre-k, especially when it is followed by full-day kindergarten and excellent early elementary education, has been shown in multiple research studies to increase academic achievement, reduce special education placements, increase high school graduation rates, and decrease criminality.  High quality Pre-K is an outstanding investment.

The value of high quality Pre-K is no secret.  The vast majority of four-year-olds are enrolled in preschool, but quality varies, many needy kids don’t find or get into the best programs, and they cannot afford them if they do. 

The New School Foundation hopes that high quality Pre-K will be universally available to all children in our state in the near future.  In the meantime, our partner schools begin at age 4 with a full-school-day, full-school-year outstanding Pre-Kindergarten year, followed by full-day Kindergarten.  The Pre-Kindergarten is aligned and linked to the Kindergarten and early elementary grades, and the students and families are full members of the school community.

To learn more, click on pre [k] now


High/Scope Framework

The New School Foundation supports a model that brings four-year-olds to school for full-day, year-round pre-kindergarten taught by certificated teachers trained in the High/Scope approach. The same approach is continued in kindergarten. More than 40 years of research demonstrates that this approach to preschool education produces lasting benefits for children, families and society.

The program does more than give its four-, five-, and six-year-old participants a head start in school. The New School Foundation selected the High/Scope educational approach to early learning in 1997 because it casts a net way beyond the children to include parents, teachers, school staff and other caregivers.  Through family nights, teacher-family communication, and training opportunities available to all New School staff and partners, the High/Scope approach to adult-child interaction and problem solving influences all relationships with children at the New School.

High/Scope sets the stage for active learning: students have direct, hands-on experiences with people, objects, events and ideas. The children’s interests and choices are the heart of High/Scope programs, and a daily plan-do-review sequence provides the structure.

Four teachers and two instructional assistants have completed the rigorous course work to become High/Scope certified. A goal of the Foundation is to grow our own expertise and to share this resource with other teachers and schools interested in this approach.

To learn more, click on High/Scope

 

Parent Child Home Program

Students enroll at our partner schools at age 4, but the New School Foundation recognizes that critical child development begins before that time, even before birth.  To begin to support children before they arrive at the New School, the Foundation helped to secure a grant from the Washington Women’s Foundation so that Atlantic Street Center could start the first Parent Child Home Program (PCHP) in Seattle in September 2004. The PCHP was included in Seattle’s Family and Education levy, passed by voters in 2006.  These dollars, along with grants from the Business Partnership for Early Learning have sustained and expanded the program throughout the city.

PCHP is a proven home-based early literacy and school readiness program based at the Rainier Beach Family Center.  Home Visitors meet with families with two and three-year-old children twice a week for two years. Each week the home visitor brings a new book or toy, which the family keeps. In each session, the Home Visitors encourage verbal interaction activities that develop language and early literacy skills. They model, for the parent and child together, using conceptually rich language while reading from and playing with the carefully selected books and toys.

Decades of longitudinal research demonstrates that participation in the program substantially improves children’s school success rates. Children who have participated in the PCHP enter school ready to learn. They perform significantly better than their socio-economic peers and as well as or better than the overall population on school readiness measures in kindergarten and first grade. They score at or above national norms on standardized reading and math achievement tests throughout elementary school. And PCHP participants graduate from high school at rates equal to those of middle class students, and more than 20 percent higher than similarly situated low-income students.

The PCHP increases parents’ verbal interaction with their children, strengthens parenting skills, and develops the parents’ confidence and self-esteem. Parents who participate in the program often return to school, get their GED, and/or find employment, in some cases as Home Visitors for the PCHP. The parents also increase their involvement in their children’s education - meeting with teachers, helping with homework, and emphasizing the importance of academic success.

To learn more click on Parent Child Home Program

 

PK-3

Everyone wants a silver bullet, a way to do one great thing for children that will forever protect them from harm.  But there is no such thing, and as valuable as pre-k is, it is no exception.  Research demonstrates that when preschool, even very high quality preschool, is isolated from early elementary grades and especially if a child graduates from preschool into a low quality elementary school, the benefits of preschool erode rather quickly.

For this reason, the New School Foundation supports strong alignment between its pre-kindergarten experience and the K-3 experiences that follow.  Pre-K is fully integrated in our partner schools, taught by regular school district certificated teachers who are full members of the school faculty.  Regular meetings among early elementary and PK teachers assure that the curriculum through those grades is aligned and continuous and that teaching styles and approaches are consistent.

To learn more click on Foundation for Child Development

 

Step Ahead

The City of Seattle has awarded "Step Ahead" grants to both T.T. Minor and The New School, as part of the Families and Education Levy.  These grants will total between $70,000 and $90,000 per school and provide partial support for seventeen Pre-K seats in each school beginning in Fall 2006.  

The City believes in the importance of Pre-K as an effective way to give low-income children a solid beginning to their academic career, preparing them for success throughout school.  The grant will help assure continuation of the Pre-K programs, and it will improve program quality through networking with other high quality providers and enhanced teacher training.

Media Coverage regarding PreK

The Pre-K programs at T.T. Minor and The New School have been highlighted in a variety of national publications, including:

New America Foundation  Early Education Initiative Issue Brief #1:  "Building a 21st Century Economy:  The Case for Investing in Early Education Reform" by Shelley Waters Boots, December 2005.