Below are resources for early childhood professionals and those serving the early childhood community.

Low-Income Kindergartners Are Closing the Achievement Gap, Reversing a Decades-Old Trend. Low-income kindergartners are entering school with stronger math and reading skills, narrowing the academic gap with their affluent peers and reversing a decades-old trend, according to research released Friday. (Washington Post, Aug. 26)

Head Start Gets Sweeping Overhaul:
The Obama administration released a sweeping overhaul to the federal Head Start program Thursday, significantly reducing duplicative and burdensome requirements while also expanding the program to a full day and school year and increasing services for children with disabilities and those who don’t speak English. (U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 1)

NATIONAL P-3 MAP: The National P-3 Map identifies states, school districts, communities, and organizations across the United States that are working to create a well-aligned, coherent, high-quality continuum of learning from birth through third grade. Because there exists a wide variety of approaches to “doing P-3,” the Map provides a visual way to understand the focus areas of each approach. 

SRI and the McKnight Foundation released an evaluation report that looks at the past five years’ efforts to improve children’s success in literacy across the PreK-3rd grade continuum in six schools across the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota) metro area. This work represents a robust, thoughtful, collaborative, mixed-methods approach to both implementing and evaluating a comprehensive P-3 approach. Most importantly, SRI and McKnight highlight a number of insights and recommendations from which we can all learn. The report includes an intro blog authored by Kristie Kauerz, director of the National P-3 Center.