The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) website contains vast amounts of information that focus on many different aspects of early care and education from assessments to economics and finance. One of the specific sections that is most relevant to me is that of Quality and Curriculum. Since I work almost exclusively with infants and toddler, I was interested in the policy brief Does Preschool Education Policy Impact Infant/Toddler Care?. I often feel that infants and toddlers are overlooked when discussing issues of care and education and so was interested to find out more about this topic.
One of the articles that I found on the website that made me think about an issue in a new way was an interview that appeared in National Institute for Early Education Research publication Preschool Matters (2011) with General Norman Seip. I had not considered how education and specifically early education might influence national security. General Seip is a leader of Mission: Readiness, which advocates for improving the quality of and access to preschool education. Mission: Readiness came about as a way to address the issue of finding qualified individuals to staff the military. Currently, 75 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for service in the Armed Forces due to lack of education or the inability to pass required reading and math exams. Mission: Readiness advocates for improving the quality of and access to preschool education as a way to combat the eligibility issues currently faced by the military.
The NIEER website many briefs, publications, presentations and articles that focus specifically on the economics, politics and research aspects of early care and education. One of the articles that I found on the website that gave me a better understanding of how politicians support early education was How Policymakers Should Deal with the Delayed Benefits of Early Childhood Programs. I found that the information in the working paper helped me have a better understanding of the perspective of policymakers and possible strategies for gaining their support for early care and education.
Bartick (2009) attempts to answer the question of how to get policymakers to adopt programs that are socially beneficial but politically unattractive because their benefits are delayed. Bartik (2009) looks at options such as program cost and increasing the awareness of short-term benefits.
By exploring the NIEER website, I was reminded of just how many issues and perspectives exist with regards to the field of early education. The broad range of information available at this website shows how complex the issues are as well as how much research is now available that can be used for a number of purposes.
References
Ackerman, D. J., & Barnett, W. S. (2009, March) Does preschool education policy impact infant/toddler care? Issue 20. Retrieved from
Bartik, T. J. (2009). How policymakers should deal with the delayed benefits
of early childhood programs. Upjohn Institute Staff Working Paper 09-150. Retrieved from http://www.upjohninstitute
National Institute for Early Education Research. (2011, March/April). Retired Air Force General Norman R. Seip: Expanding High-Quality Pre-K is a Matter of National Security. Preschool Matters. 9(1).
Retrieved from http://nieer.org
Geralyn,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how you focused on infants and toddlers in part of your website research this week. In many situations I have seen infants and toddlers overlooked when providing an educational program, even within early childhood communities. It is so important to begin teaching at such a young age through reading, play, and more. I love how you have emphasized the importance of teaching infants and toddlers as well.
Thanks for sharing!
-Erika
Hi Geralyn,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the summary of the article you chose which appeared in the NIEER publication "Preschool Matters" I found the connection between education and national security to be rather interesting, with education having an influence in national security. The statistics that 75% of 17-24 year olds are ineligible to serve in the Armed Forces due to lack of education or inability to pass required test. This information brings the importance of early childhood education into perspective in viewing its effects on the country as a whole.
I had never imagined that the military would want to influence early childhood education. I also never knew that there were such standards in joining the military. It is interesting to see though how inadequate graduates lead to this Mission: Readiness. It gives credit to the military to know that they had to fix the problem in the early years and not in the high schools.
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