Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Obama's Plan for PK

Do you know what your candidate's plan for PK is?

Barack Obama has a full plan for the education system that includes PK-12. Although I am an advocate for Obama, I am more an advocate for everyone to ensure they really get to know the candidates before they make their own decision. Research the candidates and what their own plans are. If you are interested, below you will find Barack Obama's memo/plan for Early Childhood (PK) and a link to his full education plan (PK-12).

"Expand Early Childhood Education: Research shows that many low-income children do not enter kindergarten ready to learn. In fact, half of low-income children start school up to two years behind their peers in preschool skills, and these early achievement gaps continue throughout elementary school. Barack Obama supports increasing funding for the Head Start program to provide preschool children with critically important learning skills, and supports the necessary role of parental involvement in the success of Head Start."

http://obama.3cdn.net/a8dfc36246b3dcc3cb_iem6bxpgh.pdf

Saturday, December 8, 2007

It's official!

Technorati Profile

EC Smart has made it on Tecnorati.com for easy search and review.

The ABC's of DAP (Developmentally Appropriate Practice)

Over the next few months I will be working on some support documents focusing on what the EC field calls--Developmentally Appropriate Practice.

For families and teachers alike, DAP is a hot topic and one that has been for quite some time since its formal conception by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in the 1980s. It is a standard used by teachers, administrators and families may have heard this term used in reference to the quality of programming and/or curricula being used in their child's early childhood classroom.

DAP is often misinterpreted and misunderstood and I'd like to create some support documents summarizing and analyzing the research and information on this topic for future discussions.

If you have any comments or would like to suggest a discussion on one aspect of Developmentally Appropriate Practice, please let me know!