Facts In Action

While many are familiar with early childhood program standards, early learning standards are a new addition to the debate around standards and accountability. As research continues to increase our understanding of how to foster children’s development and the demand for accountability increases, states are starting to specify what children in early childhood education programs should be learning and capable of doing. To learn more about the development of early learning standards across the states, a group of researchers from Teachers College and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro looked at which states have adopted these standards, how they are being implemented, and what kinds of support are being offered for early childhood programs and professionals. As the stakes increase it is important for early childhood education professionals to understand the different components of the standards debate and how they and their programs could be affected.

In general, education standards cover a broad range of topics. The importance of this research study is its focus on early learning standards. While program standards describe structural features such as adult:child ratios, group sizes or curriculum, early learning standards express expectations for children’s growth and development. Early learning standards serve a number of purposes. They can:

• identify clear expectations of what programs should be teaching,
• establish a common set of goals for child outcomes, and
• highlight and prioritize important aspects of children’s growth and development.

Researchers began by identifying those states that are developing or have developed standards for children’s learning and development prior to kindergarten entry:

• 19 states have officially adopted or endorsed early learning standards, and an additional 8 states have developed standards not yet officially endorsed
• 13 states are in the process of developing standards
• 18 sets of standards have been finalized since 2000.

Next, researchers explored what these standards cover. The National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education have stressed four important elements that standards should encompass:

• incorporation of all developmental domains
• emphasis on content shown to be important for children’s learning and development
• grounding in knowledge of the process by which children develop in the early years
• inclusion of cultural, community, linguistic and individual perspectives

This translates into having standards in each of the following categories: physical health, cognition, approaches to learning, social-emotional and language. Seven states have standards in each of these five domains: Arkansas, California, Florida, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Vermont. Further, researchers found that language is the most common domain to be covered, followed by cognition and then physical health.

Researchers also examined how the states intend the standards to be used and how they relate to assessments and accountability measures. All of the states reported that early learning standards were intended to “inform curriculum and instruction.” Other main reasons offered were to “improve program quality,” “improve school readiness” and “provide a basis for instructional assessments.” Four states — California, Maine, New Mexico and Washington — indicated that they would use the standards as a basis for a data collection system, thus creating accountability links for programs between standards and assessment. However, several states specifically included language in their standards clarifying that individual children were not to be held accountable, and assessment data could not be used in this way.

The effectiveness of the early learning standards will depend on the level of support offered to the early childhood programs, professionals, and families for interpreting and implementing the standards. While more attention and resources have focused on the development stage, several states are initiating various forms of support for implementation. These supportive efforts have included short-term initiatives, such as conference presentations or workshops, as well as efforts to integrate standards into teacher preparation programs. In addition, technical support is provided to help people and programs clarify specific questions.

Researchers concluded by providing several recommendations for states’ future actions, including:

• States work towards including all developmental domains - particularly social-emotional development.
• States allocate resources for studying the relationship between universal standards and unique populations, such as children with disabilities and English-language learners.
• States organize systematic evaluation of the implementation and use of standards, emphasizing connections between standards, assessment and curriculum.
• States provide training and ongoing support to frontline staff to ensure that the standards are understood and implemented effectively.

Massachusetts has officially adopted a set of early learning standards. They are currently for children ages 3-5 and pre-K/Kindergarten-entry and cover the domains of cognition and language. Explicitly in Massachusetts, the intended purposes of the standards are to inform curriculum and instruction and improve program quality. Early childhood educators should expect to see continued discussion about this topic in the state.

Given the recent activity around early learning standards, advocates and practitioners around the country should be aware of developments in their states. Many states are implementing accountability measures that are linked to their early learning standards. While in early childhood education the push is being made not to link accountability to individual student’s performance (as it is in the higher grades) the data will likely be used to evaluate programs’ performances. Further, funding or curricula decisions may become linked to these accountability measures. These plans raise important questions, which early educators and advocates should consider as more and more states move towards developing and implementing early learning standards.

Source: C. Scott-Little, S.L. Kagan, V. Stebbins Frelow. Creating the Conditions for Success with Early Learning Standards Early Childhood Research & Practice http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v5n2/little.html

Facts in Action, March 2004