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December 01, 2005
Austin
Wednesday was fascinating in that I spent over three hours with Cami Jones, Director of Early Childhood Programs, in the Texas Education Agency http://www.tea.state.tx.us/. For those of us in California, that’s their state department of education. It was a real opportunity to ask questions from a state perspective on implementation of NCLB as well as what was happening in Texas in the world of preschool. California is looking at Universal Preschool for 4-year-olds and I want to know how well they’ve done in a state that already has preschool as an option.
I learned a great deal. Cami had been in her position for over 19 years so she was well-versed in the changes occurring in Texas education over time. She along with a number of the superintendents I talked with mentioned they’d been in the business of testing and accountability for over 20 years so the requirements of NCLB were not really as new to them as some of the rest of us. They had to modify somewhat because of subgroups and state vs. federal systems, but they were at least a jump ahead.
This whole week, however, has been overlade with a court case that just came out. I heard about it Monday and it was a topic of Cami’s as we met. It seems that a portion of the financing for Texas school budgeting has been struck down by the court. She indicated that their state was in pretty severe financial states in their funding of education and they were having to relook at it. It sounded a lot like home, but their budget burdens were somewhat overriding their curriculum needs. The state department had been cutting staff for quite a while and with this turn of events, who knew what would be next for both the department and the schools. Hm, still sounds like home.
On the preschool side, we talked about how their system of support worked. It’s different than what’s being proposed in California. In Texas there’s an eligibility criteria for entrance into the preschool program. Eligibility includes low income, homeless, or English learners. It’s a half day program although there are some grants available for districts to apply for to make the program into a full day program.
I guess no program goes without it’s discussions around curriculum including preschool. It seems that after two approving votes by the state board to approve the continuance of a “hands-on” type learning system, the board reversed it’s decision and is combining its curriculum with the 1-5th grade materials in a more text/workbook format. For preschool and kindergarten teachers that’s going to be a hard one to understand. If you’ve ever had the privilege of being in a preschool you know it’s all motion and energy. Curtailing that energy to a seat with a workbook may be a challenge in anyone’s book.
After leaving Cami’s office I had the rare pleasure of visiting with a friend in Austin and got to see the very same little people we are talking about. My friend Danielle has 3-year-old twins, a boy, Omar, and a girl, Nadia. Now that was energy and shear fun. They did color in a coloring book for, oh maybe 15 seconds. They could hardly wait to get to the park and go down the slides and chase the birds. Wonder if our legislators or board members, from whatever state, have visited with any preschoolers lately?
Posted by Dr Joni at December 1, 2005 06:29 PM