This week I chose to look at the media videos contained on
the website for the Pre-K Now Project. I
love how at the beginning of the video, Wendy Kopp, talked about how they want
ALL children to have access to quality and transformative preschool no matter
their socio economic background. Wendy
Kopp is the Teach for America CEO and founder.
I was happy to hear this because I feel that ALL children should have
the opportunity to receive quality early childhood education. Many times we focus very strongly on
disadvantages children, which I totally understand, but I also believe there
are children who live in what some people may call a “privileged” home but
still do not receive quality early childhood education. It would be ideal to be able to reach ALL children. Next came Randi Weingarten, President of the
American Federation of Teachers. She
stated she would like to see America feel that early childhood programs are as
essential as any other grade. I believe
in this because even though I teach preschool in a school district, I am
actually paid through Title 1 money and other grant money. Every year there is a chance that we will not
have the funds to have preschool. I wish
we would just have a pre-k through 12th grade district with
preschools in all of our elementary schools.
Hopefully this is something I will see in my future career of
teaching.
Another important point brought up in the video is how they
worked to mobilize advocates to get their Pre-K Now project going and
successful. Their goals were to change
how people thought about pre-k and to get a handful of states committed to
putting the policy in place. Law
enforcement officials joined forces for early childhood education programs
because early education helps fight crime.
A group of business executives called Ready for School launched an
initiative to allocate $40 million dollars for early childhood education. The U.S. Education Secretary and other
politicians came on board to help advocate for quality early childhood
programs. Through this program state
funding for pre-k more than doubled in 10 years, quality of programs improved
and over a million children were receiving the benefits from this project. Pre-K Now was a huge step forward for early
childhood education and hopefully our country will continue to see the
importance of early childhood education and work to make it accessible for all
children.
Reference
The PEW Charitable Trusts: Archived Project Pre-K Now.
(2011). Pre-K Now: Marking a Decade of Pre-K Milestones. Retrieved from