The nation's elementary school principals lack access to the focused professional development to help them meet the higher expectations of modern early-childhood education, experts and advocates say.
In a bid to stamp out the achievement gaps that often plague poor and minority children before they
start school, groups in early-childhood education and school leadership are emphasizing the need for principals to be poised to lead good practices for pupils in prekindergarten to grade 3.
"The primary motivator for us in addressing this particular area is the reality that children who come into elementary schools behind their peers tend to stay behind their peers, and those gaps grow wider as they continue in the early years and result in serious consequences," said Gail Connelly, the executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Association of Elementary School Principals.
"We believe through the right kind of focused, targeted professional development for principals," she said, "we can level that playing field and close that gap for more of those children."
Programs that give principals expertise are in "rare supply," Ms. Connelly said, which is why her organization has produced early-childhood standards and is lobbying hard on this issue.
And with the budget cutbacks forced by the economic downturn, professional-development spending, especially for administrators, has been cut significantly in school districts nationwide.
Some federal help may be on the way. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., introduced a NAESP-affiliated bill last month that would create a grant program to support mentoring and professional learning for principals to help boost their knowledge of early-childhood education.
The federal government already provides nearly $3 billion annually through Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for principal and teacher professional development, but experts say relatively few of those dollars are ever spent on principal training.
Supporters hope to have the grant program sponsored by Sen. Udall included in the reauthorization of the ESEA.
Changing Times
Having principals who understand how, for example, expectations have changed for kindergartners is critical, said Barbara Chester, a Portland, Ore., elementary school principal and the president of the NAESP.
"When we all went to kindergarten, it was very different from what it is now. Our kindergarten [now] is very academic--we are all about reading, writing, and arithmetic from the beginning," she said. "When kids come to kindergarten unprepared, they struggle and continue to struggle."
Akimi Gibson, the deputy executive director for strategy and content integration at the Washington-based National Association for the Education of Young Children, said helping leaders understand their role is vital.... (This article only a summary, to get the full text please contact admin web, use the contact form)
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