Below are resources for early childhood professionals and those serving the early childhood community.
Report: 1 in 4 Illinois children ready to enter kindergarten Just one in four children in Illinois was fully prepared to enter kindergarten in the most recent school year, and substantial gaps in readiness exist between children of different socio-economic groups, according to a new State Board of Education report. The Kindergarten Individual Survey report, released this week, shows 26 percent of more than 115,000 kindergarteners were ready in three areas: social and emotional development, language and literacy development and math, up slightly from a year earlier when 24 percent of kindergartners demonstrated full readiness. This year, 39% of the students weren’t ready in any of the three areas, while 18 percent were equipped in just one. (Associated Press, June 27)
School District 69 And The Infant Welfare Society of Evanston Celebrate First Anniversary Of Partnership To Build Strong Foundations For Young Learners In July of 2018, the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston (IWSE) and School District 69 partnered to create Ready For Success (RFS), an innovative national model for early childhood education. Ultimately RFS will provide District 69’s youngest children and their families with resources and services essential during the critical periods of child development and lay the foundation for their continued success and a bright future. RFS serves Skokie and Morton Grove, Illinois, communities that are economically, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse. Using a two-generation approach, RFS provides a range of supports designed for both children and their families.
Child Care Assistance Program Policy Updates – Good News! As of July 1, 2019, the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) made policy changes that will help families start and continue to receive financial help for quality childcare programs! CCAP is a childcare subsidy program for income-eligible families with children under the age of 13. Currently, Illinois has the 8th-most expensive infant and toddler care in the nation.
Supporting STEM Education From Preschool to Workforce The United States is experiencing a supply and demand mismatch in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with roughly 3 million more open jobs than there were trained professionals to fill them in 2016. To address this issue, we are embarking on a new project to support education policymakers in their efforts to fill these STEM jobs by focusing on the preschool-through-third-grade years. For years, state policymakers have been grappling with how to prepare students in STEM, from developing new STEM standards to creating STEM centers and councils to lead local and state efforts. Yet, despite these efforts, the U.S. continues to fall behind in international math and science rankings. On the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment, U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 39th (of 70 comparable countries) in math and 25th in science.
