An in-depth exploration of education in the 21st century South.
Nashville pre-K classrooms have become laboratories in the effort to improve discipline for the youngest students – with signs a more positive approach could cut down the surprisingly high number of suspensions.
For the second year in a row, nearly 40,000 Mississippi kindergartners took a state assessment known as the STAR Early Literacy Exam. It tests whether a student understands the building blocks of reading, do they know the alphabet, that you read left to right on the page, is this a story for fun or for learning and so on and so forth.
Children who attend certain federally subsidized Pre-K programs achieve better academic results according to a key research group. The Family and Children Research Unit of the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University conducted a study that’s showing children who went to Pre-K will more than likely be more academically successful than ones who did not.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Our Alabama reporter Dan Carsen recently appeared as a guest journalist on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” a highly regarded program analyzing the week’s significant stories. Among other things, Dan discusses the controversial Alabama Accountability Act, which will be a subject of debate in the final session of the state legislature today as lawmakers address Governor Robert Bentley’s call to delay establishing tax credits for families sending students to private schools.
While President Obama is pushing for universal pre-K, Southern states–who have been ahead of the curve in offering state-run pre-school programs–are now reconsidering their value.
Most education researchers and even many economists think high-quality Pre-K benefits children and the communities where they live. But the effects are limited when programs just don’t reach many kids. Even in states such as Alabama, which have highly regarded programs, these services reach only a fraction of eligible children.
At first glance, research on preschool may appear conflicting. A Vanderbilt University shows preschool students are 80-percent better prepared for school than their peers – especially in literacy and math. But a recent study of Head Start finds by third grade, their lead has all but disappeared completely. How should this data be interpreted?
Undeterred by adverse court rulings, the Louisiana Department of Education is forging ahead with overhauls approved by the state Legislature last spring – including a plan for funding pre-K programs.
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