The 2013 Early Learning Challenge Flyer is a document describing the details of discretionary grant program by ‘Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge’ (Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). The program is for states in their struggle for assuring early learning and development for children with high needs in their pre-kindergarten age. The flyer is a summary of the program itself, as well as its grantees’ plans, and investment areas. The document also enumerates the American states and territories, which have applied for the grant in three phases – from 2011 to 2013.
This flyer could be helpful for those potential and present grantees in means of defining the most important points of interest and directions for future work. Further, the document is statistically interesting since it shows the number of states participating in the program in the time span of three years. At the state and organizational level, this is an instruction to follow; and at the national level, it is a summary to consider plans and prospects as well as amounts of funding and the number of states participating in the program.
The second document under discussion is the ACF’s Head Start Program Performance Standards Final Rule (2016). It summarizes the main focal points of performance standards of the Head Start program as for September 2016. The article mentions the new standards for Head Start classrooms. These are requirements for organization of educational process, learning time organization and expansion, assuring family engagement, effective management as well as health and safety for all children in the Head Start programs.
The article is informative in means of offering detailed description of newly developed standards for the Head Start program participants, to examine and implement in the upcoming years. It tells also about the process of the new rules development, in means of requirements and funding policies. In the document, it is stressed that not only educational process for young learners and its organization matter. However, new standards for healthy development, family engagement, and special attention to health and safety mirror a more holistic approach to education and development in early learners.
This article is useful for those teachers and educators who work in organizations participating in the Head Start program. They get to know how to manage, conduct and improve the educational process under the new standards. Executives that rule the organizations participating in the Head Start program find out about the ways of funding and setting up the educational programs to make them the most effective, in means of informational onslaught as well as scheduling to assure the best results and maximum exposure.
The third article under discussion is a part of the 2015 ITCA Tipping Points. Namely, it is Part C considering the implementation of requirements as well as states’ challenges and responses (IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association, 2015). This document reflects survey responses on the questions regarding challenges and actions taken by the organization’s members in 49 states (that have responded to the survey). The questions in the survey concern the participation in the ITCA program of infant and toddler development, and view topics from participation issues to organization of educational process for infants and toddlers from state to state, to funding, to future perspectives of program participation, to deciding on eligibility of young children for participation in the programs.
Readers could obtain the following information from the reading. A lot of difficulties and challenges for educational organizations participating in ITCA programs are connected with the state funding. Among other issues are plans for educational agencies connected with state participation in the first place, with defining eligibility measures for supported families in programs, with organizing educational process and service delivery. Finally, partnerships and co-operation with contractors – providers of educational and other services is discussed among the challenges. It appears that the system of early education for infants and toddlers is quite complicated. It requires many aspects to be taken into consideration to make it work from state to state, especially in means of funding, for some of the participants acknowledge the possibility of dropping out of the program for the reason of lack of state funding and support.
This particular report could be useful for future program participants who would like to engage in the field of early infant and toddler education. They may obtain information about the challenges and ways of solving the possible issues. In addition, the Administration, state officials and stakeholders might be interested in such surveys and their outcomes. For them, the survey responses offer the broad picture of state of things in the field, with the possibility of deciding on the roots of challenges and offering possible solutions for them or at least facilitation and support.
References:
Administration for Children and Families. (2016). Head Start program performance standards final rule: General fact sheet. Retrieved from: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/hs/docs/hs-prog-pstandards-final-rule-factsheet.pdf
IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association. (2015). 2015 ITCA tipping points part C: implementation. Retrieved from: http://www.ideainfanttoddler.org/pdf/2015-ITCA-State-Challenges-Report.pdf
