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From Building Blocks to Books is
available online, in the full report or as separate briefings
on each program. Printed copies are available by calling Pennsylvania
Partnerships for Children at 1-800-257-2030 or e-mailing a
request, with name and mailing address, to info@papartnerships.org
From Building Blocks to Books
(full report)
Briefings:
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From Building Blocks to Books: Learning for
Children from Birth through 8 in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's gubernatorial and legislative candidates should
"make kids the issue of the year" by developing strategies
that help all young children learn to their full abilities, Pennsylvania
Partnerships for Children President and CEO Joan L. Benso said while
releasing From Building Blocks to Books: Learning for Children
from Birth through 8 in Pennsylvania.
Funded by the Howard Heinz Endowment, the report presents the community-wide
benefits of helping young children build a strong educational foundation
through seven programs and systems: child care, Early Intervention,
reading readiness and success, kindergarten, first through third
grades, and educational enrichment through after-school programs
and tutoring. However, it also shows that Pennsylvania has yet to
coordinate its efforts into a comprehensive, fully effective approach.
"From birth to 8, children learn to read. After that, they
read to learn," Benso said. "So, a firm foundation of
learning and literacy, from birth through third grade, sets the
stage for all the learning that follows. This state has invested
a lot of money and effort in raising school achievement, but have
we really looked at the whole picture? Have we examined what goes
on outside the classroom, and before children enter kindergarten,
and how it all intersects?
"This focus on early learning gives a new twist to education
reform. Our efforts should be driven by standards and measured by
assessments, but also anchored in a state's commitment to strong
beginning for kids before school and adequate and equitable funding
once students are in school. We need to ask: If we make children
ready for schools, have we also made schools ready for children?"
For every opportunity lost to enhance early learning, Benso said,
the state hobbles another child's ability to learn to his or her
full ability throughout the school years. Grades and achievement
test scores won't rise in proportion to the enormous money and effort
Pennsylvania has injected into school reforms. The "wake-up
call," Benso noted, is the failure of one fifth-grade student
in four to achieve basic proficiency on the 2001 standardized reading
test - a warning that 25 percent of the students now completing
elementary school may already be marked for failure long before
they finish high school.
Despite some excellent local programs offering early learning opportunities,
the state "has no vision for the wonders of learning that we
can instill in more young children," Benso said. "Our
efforts are scattershot." Noting that Pennsylvania falls short
in national tests of its success in meeting children's needs - ranking
only 17th among states in a child well-being accounting and rating
a D-minus in the equity of its school funding system in an education
magazine - Benso called on gubernatorial candidates Mike Fisher
and Ed Rendell to "commit to an agenda of children's well-being,
to improve Pennsylvania's standing, and more importantly, to make
life better for children."
From Building Blocks to Books is a resource for that effort,
Benso said, offering some overarching principles of policy:
- Invest up front to save money later and, more importantly,
help assure children's educational success.
- Partner with parents, to enhance their natural teaching abilities,educate
them about their children's developmental needs, and help them
be their children's most effective teachers.
- Target government resources first to children whose educational
prospects may be hampered by a lack of learning opportunities.
- Grow to scale. "Failure to fully implement the most effective
early learning approaches creates about as much impact as pouring
a teacup of water into the ocean," Benso said.
- Implement research-based practices, so tax dollars go to methods
that have been proven to work. As they're implemented, study
their effectiveness, so the money is well spent.
- More formally connect elementary schools to services for at-risk
children, giving students a continuum of learning and addressing
their individual needs.
- Avoid overlap
and fill holes by better coordinating early learning programs
among state agencies, communities, schools, and other service
providers.
"To tie it up neatly, Pennsylvania's early learning approach
should invest where it counts, in programs that have been shown
to work and that actually do what they're supposed to do,"
Benso said. "To us, it's good government. To a young child,
it's an entry to a world filled with learning. To Pennsylvania's
policy leaders and to Mike Fisher and Ed Rendell - because one of
them is our future governor - it's an opportunity to make our state
a leader in building a strong foundation of learning for every child."
This Page Last Modified
August 11, 2003
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Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children
116 Pine Street, Suite 430
Harrisburg, PA 17101
717-236-5680 / 800-257-2030
Fax: 717-236-7745
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