By Texas\u2019 own estimation, almost half of its children entering kindergarten are not ready for school.<\/p>\n
Kindergartners\u00a0stream into their elementary schools from all sorts of backgrounds. Some\u00a0previously\u00a0spent the day at home with a parent or guardian. Others were enrolled in a\u00a0public pre-kindergarten or\u00a0a private\u00a0preschool\u00a0or daycare.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s\u00a0a patchwork of systems that apply to some\u00a0early learning\u00a0providers\u00a0but not others that might give us a snapshot of the quality.\u00a0But by and large, it\u2019s\u00a0hard for\u00a0everyone\u00a0from parents to policymakers\u00a0to\u00a0gauge\u00a0the\u00a0success\u00a0of early\u00a0childhood\u00a0programs\u00a0because there\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0a uniform tracking system to\u00a0evaluate\u00a0how well they\u00a0prepare\u00a0children for school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A continuous improvement system is one of 10 benchmarks for quality pre-K\u00a0programs, according to\u00a0Rutgers University\u2019s\u00a0National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER.\u00a0Texas\u00a0fell short on\u00a0that benchmark and seven others<\/a>, per a recent report by the think tank.<\/p>\n To us, the lack of a\u00a0transparent\u00a0and uniform accountability system for state-funded pre-K is the biggest deficiency. Data show that Texas students who entered school ready for kindergarten standards were more likely to be proficient in reading by the time they were in third grade, according to the Commit Partnership, a North Texas nonprofit that advocates for better education outcomes. Early childhood programs are critical to laying the foundation for academic success, and we need better tools to tell us whether pre-K programs are\u00a0delivering.<\/p>\n Texas has a spaghetti bowl of a regulatory scheme for early learning programs. Health and Human Services issues licensing to childcare providers based on health, safety and operational requirements. Public school\u00a0pre-K programs have to meet certain standards under state law, such as limits on class size. They also assess students during the year and report their results to the Texas Education Agency.<\/p>\n But state-funded early childhood programs go beyond public\u00a0school. The Texas Workforce Commission provides\u00a0childcare\u00a0scholarships to certain low-income families.\u00a0Providers that accept subsidies\u00a0are required to\u00a0participate\u00a0in the commission\u2019s Texas Rising Star rating system.\u00a0Through the program, providers receive coaching and other\u00a0assistance.<\/p>\n However, that kind of\u00a0feedback\u00a0system\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0exist\u00a0across all early learning programs, though some school districts\u00a0adopt their own.\u00a0NIEER has previously recognized Dallas ISD for having its own pre-K quality improvement system.<\/p>\n We are proud to have\u00a0vision and\u00a0accountability\u00a0in our backyard.\u00a0But every Texas\u00a0family that enrolls their\u00a0child\u00a0in a state-funded pre-K should feel confident that their student will get a quality education.<\/p>\n Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s task force on early\u00a0childhood governance is charged with\u00a0figuring out how to improve the quality and oversight of Texas programs.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a tall order, given the complexities involved, but\u00a0neighbors including Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia have figured it out. We can, too.<\/p>\n Have\u00a0thoughts\u00a0about this?\u00a0Send a letter to the editor\u00a0using our letters form<\/a>\u00a0or email\u00a0letters@dallasnews.com<\/a>. Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Texas\u2019 own estimation, almost half of its children entering kindergarten are not ready for school. Kindergartners\u00a0stream into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28,89512,89205,92238],"class_list":["post-282499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-dallas-isd","tag-tp-early-childhood-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}