Category: Early Learning

DEL Presence at Young Child Expo in Spokane

The Young Child Expo in Spokane was another opportunity to meet more of the participants in the wildly diverse early learning field in Washington. Also a great opportunity to practice speaking extemporaneously, which is what happens when you show up and the sponsors of an event have you on the agenda without you knowing it…

Last week, DEL licensing and members of the ECEAP team represented DEL at the Young Child Expo in Spokane. The table received a lot of attention and exhibitors feel it was a great success. Photographed left to right is Director, Ross Hunter, Liliya Aleksandrov (Regional Administrative Assistant-Spokane), and Nicole Lor (ECEAP Pre-K Specialist).

Other helpers at the expo include Sonya Stevens, Kim O’Brian, Lisa Hall, Judy Davis, Karen Cole, Susan Nelson and Karen Christiansen (Spokane Licensing team members).

Tennessee study on preschool – interesting?

Vanderbilt University just released a large study on the pre-school program in Tennessee. It’s an interesting study and I scrambled to find out enough about Tennessee’s program to respond intelligently to press inquiries on it.
My conclusion – Tennessee has focused on access over quality and they are showing some improvements in outcomes for kids (cutting the rate of repeating kindergarten in half, compared to kids not getting the pre-school program) but are not showing large results, nor are they retaining the results through elementary school.
This is different than the results we’re seeing from our program (ECEAP) in Washington, which shows strong results and is retaining those results through 5th grade. (WSIPP study results here.)We can do significantly better with targeted improvements to the system.
The Seattle Times: Latest results from major study shows preschool isn’t always beneficial
“It’s not a universal finding — a 2014 study of Washington state’s preschool program for low-income children found that gains persisted through fifth grade.

Preschoolmatters.org: An Early Look at Early Education in Tennessee

There are important lessons for Tennessee and the nation here.  If Tennessee is to get value for its pre-K dollar, it must ensure that programs are of sufficient quality.  An accountability and continuous improvement system is a prerequisite for quality, as is adequate funding for those being held accountable.

Nice article about my new gig on Thrive’s website

Thrive LogoThrive Washington is a public-private partnership focusing on ensuring very young children in Washington get the best start possible. Their web site is a great resource.

They wrote a nice article about my new job as the Director of Washington’s Department of Early Learning.