Can a quality preschool experience help to narrow the achievement gaps that plagues our society? This question has been a subject of contention between researchers and policymakers for over five decades. The Institute began its work in early childhood by trying to help answer this question, working to bridge the historic divide among early childhood researchers, advocates, and practitioners, on the one hand, and their counterparts in K-12 education on the other.
In February 2001, we convened a successful off-the-record seminar for leaders in the early childhood and public school communities about their common interest in supporting a dramatic expansion and improvement of educational opportunities in early childhood. A central topic was whether advocates of early childhood care and early childhood education could be brought together around a few key principles, framed by advances in cognitive research.This was soon followed by an Institute-sponsored study trip to France to examine that country’s universal system of crèches and ecole maternelles, or government nurseries and public preschools, which serve children from the ages of 3 months to 3 years, respectively.
Since that time, the Institute has hosted many more meetings and seminars, sponsored research and publications, and worked to develop resources and tranings to help support the important work of early childhood educators.
In general, there are two ways for social policy to affect educational outcomes for preschool-aged children who live in poverty: the first is to improve the social and economic condition of their families; the second is to use a preschool or daycare setting to compensate for these conditions. While the first option would be more direct -- and many would argue more effective and long lasting -- it is also more difficult and unlikely. Thus, the Institute's continuing work is to focus on the national consensus in favor of equal educational opportunity to ensure that all children are able to begin school on a more equal footing.
-
Let’s Talk: Professional Development Modules
The highest rate of vocabulary development (and corresponding acquisition of background knowledge) occurs during the preschool years. This makes preschool a crucial time for effective, content-rich instruction. Accordingly, the Institute has developed a series of Common Core State Standards (CCSS)-aligned modules, which are designed to strengthen the ability of early childhood educators to impart rich, academic content in fun, developmentally appropriate ways. The modules cover the academic domains of oral language development, early literacy, early science, and early mathematics.
-
Measuring School Settings: The Preschool Educational Environment Rating System
The Preschool Educational Environment Rating System (PEERS) is a measure designed to examine the quality of instruction in preschool settings. Unlike other rating scales, it not only measures the environment, it also examines both how teachers construct their classroom for instruction and the quality of the enactment of instruction.
-
Positive Behavior in the Early Years
This new program investigates what may be driving high rates of suspensions of poor children of color in early childhood classrooms. Our prelimnary work suggests that, aside from the important issue of unconscious bias, some problems arise from children’s lack of experience in using language to mediate behavior and the failure to provide teachers with alternatives to suspension.
-
Let's Talk - Overview
Young children’s oral language development has long-term implications for their academic success; but there are profound differences in word learning and content knowledge between children living in poverty and those from more economically advantaged homes. By the time they enter school, children of middle class families may know as many as 15,000 more words than their less advantaged peers.
-
Implementing Large-Scale Change in a Midsize Urban District
This program helped in the development of a high-quality, districtwide professional development plan for pre-K oral language development in St. Louis Public Schools, building on a unique labor-management partnership and a joint commitment to increasing both the quantity and quality of pre-K classrooms in this midsized urban school system.
-
Learning About the French Early Childhood System
In 2001, the Institute organized a study trip to France, designed to enable participants to get an intensive look at the French preschool system, which has gained international attention for being both universal and of high quality.
Countering Misinformation in the Classroom: A Media Literacy Discussion with Randi Weingarten and NewsGuard
In this Q & A style session, AFT President Randi Weingarten and Steven Brill discussed the misinformation trends NewsGuard’s analysts are encountering in the field, and the tactics educators can employ in their classrooms to counter these trends.
Literacy: Systems Matter. An Infrastructure Approach To Reading Achievement
Watch a discussion highlighting the importance of a reading infrastructure to create the conditions for effective, science-based reading instruction.
Strike for Common Good Book Discussion
Strike for the Common Good Book Discussion with editor Rebecca Givans and Joe McCartin, Georgetown University. Monday, January 25, 2021, 5:00 pm ET.
"Slaying Goliath" Discussion and Reception with Diane Ravitch and Randi Weingarten
In “Slaying Goliath…,” Diane Ravitch writes an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, activists--citizens--are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are privatizing America's public schools.
Zombie Education Reform
Economists talk of “zombie reforms”—policies that continue to live on in the political realm despite a paucity of evidence that they can accomplish their stated objectives. Education is not immune to this phenomenon.
Early Childhood Education: The Word Gap & the Common Core
Given states’ difficulties in implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) thoughtfully, many early childhood educators have begun to worry about what the NAEYC refers to as “a downward pressure of increased academic focus and more narrowed instructional approaches.”
Teaching: Art, Craft, or Science?
In the modern era, the debates over teaching have increasingly focused on views that have seen teaching as an art, a craft or a science – different ways of conceiving of the intersection of knowledge and practice.
The 2018 Elections: What Do They Mean for American Education?
What are the implications of the results of the 2018 election for American education, in Washington D.C,. in state capitols and in the nation’s schools and classrooms?
Puerto Rico: The Road to Recovery and Reconstruction
With the future of Puerto Rico hanging in the balance, this national conference focused on what needs to be done to rebuild the Puerto Rican economy and its educational system in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.
Deborah Meier Book Event and Reception
These Schools Belong to You and Me - Why We Can't Afford to Abandon Our Public Schools
-
Valuing Teachers’ Voices on World Teachers’ Day—and Every Day
Our guest author is Julie Vogtman, Senior Director of Job Quality, National Women’s Law Center.
Did you know that Saturday, October 5th was World Teachers’ Day? According to Unesco, one of the day’s convenors, this year’s theme is “Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education,” which is meant to “underscor[e] the urgency of calling for and attending to teachers’ voices to address their challenges” and “most importantly, to acknowledge and benefit from the expert knowledge and input that they bring to education.”
This is a vital mission—one that merits far more than a day to honor. And it’s particularly important in this moment, when teachers in many U.S. school districts feel that the “expert knowledge and input that they bring to education” is being disregarded more than ever. When at least 18 states have enacted laws restricting K-12 public school teachers' instruction on topics related to race, gender, sexuality, and other so-called “divisive concepts”—and PEN America has documented more than 10,000 instances of book bans in the 2023-24 school year alone—many teachers across the country lack the autonomy and respect for their profession that they want and deserve.
-
What are Third Spaces and Why Do They Matter?
When I was 10 years old, my mom and dad dropped me off at our local YMCA skatepark, hoping I would make friends. Over a decade later, I am still skateboarding. But, more importantly, I can confidently say that at the YMCA skatepark, I was transformed into the woman, scholar, and advocate that I am today.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg first introduced the concept of “third spaces” in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. Oldenburg advocates that to live a balanced, happy life, people need engagement in three realms – at home, work, and in third spaces. Third spaces act as a core setting for informal public life, offering connection, community, and sociability (Oldenburg, 1989). For adults, examples include cafes, parks, gyms, and other places centered around a common interest that fosters community and civic engagement. Very simply, third spaces can be thought of as societal glue. They bind people together to construct communities (Low, 2020).
For children, third spaces are places they regularly frequent outside of their home and school environments that are child-centered, such as after-school programs, extracurricular activities, sports, public libraries, clubs, and my personal favorite, skateparks. As is the case for adults, children’s third spaces provide the same sense of community. They help children develop a sense of self and consciousness of the greater world, allowing them to appreciate life and be enriched by its diversity (Oldenburg, 1989).
-
The Threat of Technology to Students' Reading Brains
As Maryland’s state leaders join their peers across the country to push forward with policy reforms grounded in the science of reading, we asked ourselves: by focusing primarily on instruction, are we addressing the full scope of challenges that impact reading proficiency? While improving the teaching of reading with evidence-based practices is critical, a significant issue remains underexplored: the impact of our digital culture on children’s ability to develop and maintain the capacity for sustained, focused, and reflective reading.
Some might question whether this type of reading is feasible in today’s fast-paced, distraction-filled digital world. However, as Maryanne Wolf persuasively argues, this level of deep engagement is both attainable and essential for developing critical thinking, empathy, and insight. Wolf describes deep reading as a journey into the "innermost sanctuary" of our hearts and minds. In that space, we don't just comprehend or absorb the author's words; we actively reflect on their ideas, going beyond them to develop our own. Deep reading nurtures the intellectual and emotional capacities that make us human. So, why is this form of reading most at risk today?
Reading science has shown that learning to read is not a natural process; it requires explicit, systematic instruction and practice (also here and here). Unlike spoken language, which humans instinctively acquire through exposure and interaction, reading is a skill that our brains are not biologically wired for. In other words, humans do not learn to read simply by being exposed to books or observing others reading. Therefore, the reading brain must be intentionally built repurposing and connecting areas of the brain; science of reading policy aims to ensure that all children receive the best instruction to achieve this goal. Yet, we are learning that structured literacy instruction in elementary school is not a one and done. To sustain and grow our reading capacity, we must actively nurture, use, and protect this magnificent infrastructure that is the reading brain. Because, as Wolf argues, the brain's plasticity is its greatest strength but also its Achilles' heel; what is built can be unbuilt. And that’s what our digital culture might be doing.
-
Help Students Start the School Year with Confidence in Reading
Summer may be over, but efforts to build strong summer reading programs are just beginning. Now is the time to evaluate which programs were offered—or lacking—for our students in the past few months. In addition, September and October are when states plan and budget for next summer, and lawmakers consider bills for upcoming legislative sessions. Early planning secures funding and ensures readiness by June, making this the ideal time to focus on summer programming.
Learning to read requires explicit instruction and ample practice, making it important to consider how out-of-school time can support beginner readers. Yet, every June many 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds transition to camps or other forms of childcare that often provide limited opportunities for academic engagement. While this may be fine for many children, it is also during this time when others experience the so-called summer slide, a regression in academic proficiency due to summer break. Among these children, some are on track to becoming competent readers, while others are at or slightly below grade level. A third group of children is well behind their peers at the end of the school year, potentially due to reading difficulties, whether formally identified or not.
-
New Hampshire’s Divisive Concepts Law Was Ruled Unconstitutional, Sending a Message to the Nation
Our guest author is Deb Howes, President of AFT-NH. A version of the article originally appeared in the Concord Monitor on June 14, 2024.
A funny thing happened on New Hampshire’s way to threatening to fire teachers for teaching so-called divisive concepts involving gender, race, history and identity. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro ruled late in May that the law was so unconstitutionally vague that teachers would be “incentivized to steer well clear of anything that could be construed as violating” the law, thus inhibiting them from doing their best work—exactly the kind of work public school students deserve to help them learn and succeed—and forcing students “to bear the costs” of the law’s ambiguity.
The federal judge’s ruling sends a strong message to other states, such as Florida, Georgia, Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and South Dakota, that have passed variations of diversity, equity and inclusion laws restricting instruction on aspects of American history, sexual orientation, gender identity, race or racism.
-
Reading Science: Staying the Course Amidst the Noise
Critical perspectives on the Science of Reading (SoR) have always been present and are justifiably part of the ongoing discourse. At the Shanker Institute, we have been constructively critical, maintaining that reading reforms are not a silver bullet and that aspects of SoR, such as the role of knowledge-building and of infrastructure in reading improvement, need to be better understood and integrated into our discourse, policies, and practices. These contributions can strengthen the movement, bringing us closer to better teaching and learning. However, I worry that other forms of criticism may ultimately divert us from these goals and lead us astray.
At the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest research conference in the field of education, I witnessed the spread of serious misinformation about reading research and related reforms. In this post, I aim to address four particularly troubling ideas I encountered. For each, I will not only provide factual corrections but also contextual clarifications, highlighting any bits of truth or valid criticisms that may exist within these misconceptions.
-
From the Classroom to the Capitol: Teachers Can Make A Difference
Our guest authors José Luis Vilson and Dan Kliber are accomplished National Board Certified Teachers and activists.
The battle over the federal budget has dire consequences for schools across the country, particularly for those most in need of funding. Recently, some federal legislators have proposed extremely draconian cuts. The last education funding proposal from the U.S. House of Representatives would have slashed federal support for education by 30%, including an 80% reduction to Title I, which supports low-income schools. Had this proposal passed, public education as we know it could have been completely dismantled, putting over 200K teachers out of a job.
-
Comprehensive Reading Curricula and Teacher Expertise: We Don’t Have to Choose
Our guest author is Kata Solow, Executive Director of the Goyen Foundation where she led its multi-year transformation process and created the Goyen Literacy Fellowship to recognize exceptional reading teachers. She is a former classroom educator, school administrator and field organizer.
Call it the Curriculum Champions vs. the Teacher Defenders.
Over the last four years, forty-six states have passed laws about reading instruction. While much of the mainstream coverage of these laws has focused on phonics, the actual legislation is much broader in scope.
As states have gotten more involved in reading instruction—even mandating certain reading curricula in some places—I’ve started to see a new battlefront open in the so-called “Reading Wars.” It's all about curriculum.
-
Celebrate Family Engagement All Year Round
Our guest author is Sarah Johnson, a practicing public school educator in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has taught in elementary classrooms, coached new teachers as a Peer Assistance and Review consulting teacher, served as an Academic Content Coach, led professional development on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and helped launch the Parent Teacher Home Visit project in Saint Paul Public Schools.
It’s October. For some that means apple orchards, leaf viewing, and pumpkin spice. For educators, it also brings Parent Teacher conferences . . and a dread of all the candy and unbridled enthusiasm for that last day of the month, but that’s a different blog. Over the years I’ve seen educators approach conferences with a variety of perspectives and approaches: some excited to update families on the new learning, some worried about how families might respond to a concern, and some exhausted from the preparation and longs days. Thankfully, it’s quite rare that some take Ted Lasso’s view, shared when he met Rebecca’s mom, “Boy, I love meeting people’s moms. It’s like reading an instruction manual as to why they’re nuts.”
During my 29 years as an educator in various roles in Saint Paul Public Schools, the approach I have learned is that meaningful family partnerships* are integral to student success. Cory Jones, one of the founding teachers of Parent Teacher Home Visits explains it like this, “With a great curriculum, with a great teacher, if you leave out the home the results for that individual student will be lower.” He’s right, families and schools need to be on the same team. This October, I’d like to encourage educators to take this parent-teacher season and challenge themselves to create opportunities for meaningful family engagement year-round. If you’re an educator leading a system instead of leading a classroom, then I challenge you to find ways of supporting and structuring these opportunities year-round as well.
-
Reading Reform on the Ground: How SoR Policy is Showing Up in Schools
On International Literacy Day, we publish a guest post by educator, researcher, and author Callie Lowenstein who shares her incredible perspective of the in-depth thinking teachers offer to their practice and how sincerely teachers want to meet the needs of students.
One thing about teachers: we want to get our instruction right.
After decades of mixed messages and misinformation in our professional development (PD), teacher training programs, and curricular materials, many classroom educators are eager to get on top of the science, to ensure that our efforts and hours, our lesson planning and detailed feedback and materials prep and book purchases and deep care for our students, are not being wasted.
Indeed, after a major balanced-literacy leader published an unapologetic deflection of the science of reading movement last year, a group of teachers from across the country wrote our own open letter, collecting over 650 teacher signatures in a matter of days, attesting to the ways we, teachers, wished we had done better by our students.
As authors Susan B. Neuman, Esther Quintero, and Kayla Reist so expertly and carefully highlighted in the Shanker Institute’s Reading Reform Across America report, it’s not just us.
-
How Relationships Matter In Educational Improvement
This short presentation explains some shortcomings of mainstream education reform and offers an alternative framework to advance educational progress.
-
Let's Talk Video
This video is part of the Let’s Talk initiative, a program aimed at raising community awareness and expertise in how a child’s knowledge and language develop in tandem, forming the foundation for all subsequent learning.
-
The Early Language Gap is About More Than Words
The vocabulary gap between rich and poor children develops very early and it is about more than just words. In fact, words are the tip of the iceberg. So what lies underneath? Find out by watching this three-minute video.
-
Early Childhood Education: The Word Gap & The Common Core
Given states’ difficulties in implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) thoughtfully, many early childhood educators have begun to worry about what the NAEYC refers to as “a downward pressure of increased academic focus and more narrowed instructional approaches.” But, as the NAEYC’s statement on the CCSS also observed, that “threat also provides an opportunity” for early education to exert more positive, “upward pressure” on the K–12 system.