Imagine its 7 a.m. and you’ve got a two-year old to dress, feed and change all before you get ready and leave for work. Sound like the start of a long day? It is for most new parents. Now imagine, on top of that, you’re also a student trying to finish high school or an associate’s degree. Your responsibilities have nearly doubled because, technically, you’re responsible for two students: yourself and the early learning of your child.

While many parents struggle to decide between early learning programs, the choice is even more difficult for low-income and single student parents. According to Thrive by Five, there are 2,107 child care centers in Washington state and only 144 are accredited as safe and effective environments. In low-come communities, however, there are only 26 accredited programs.

Thankfully, a program at Everett Community College has begun to address this problem amongst its students by offering parents a high-quality early learning option.

The Everett Community College Early Learning Center offers small play groups, lots of conversation and creative learning activities, quality toys, nutritious food, attentive teachers, and a culturally diverse staff. But perhaps most importantly, it’s accredited through the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

According to the Everett Herald, “Operating as part of the family life and early childhood education departments of the college, the Early Learning Center offers affordable child care and preschool programs for about 70 student families each quarter. Support for the center comes through funding from the college, student activity fees and payments by families, who pay around $1,500 a quarter for full-time child care.”

As many of the parents in the program have limited incomes, state grants offer the program free to 16 families enrolled in the center.

It seems nearly every education forum these days cites quality early learning as one of the most crucial elements for future success in school. If children are not placed in environments that cultivate learning at an early age, study after study tells us, many are not prepared to learn when they enter classroom. It’s great to see that Everett is offering student-parents a chance to advance their education and the opportunity to ensure their children are on track to learn in the future, as well.

To learn more about the Everett Community College Early Learning Center visit http://www.everettcc.edu/resources/elc/. To find out more about early learning, visit the Early Learning section of our website.

Just how did you spend your high school experience?



I recently spent almost three months working in Shanghai, China. Touring several universities and high schools, as well as tutoring a Chinese middle-schooler, I discovered Chinese students not only spend significantly more time (daily and yearly) in school, they view education as the most important thing in their lives. Many of these students dreamed of studying in the U.S. and I was astonished at what they thought they had to learn to get there:

Calculus by 16. Engineering planning, computer science and advanced calculus by 18. All while learning English to “no-accent” fluency—many also learn several other languages—and study a musical instrument. These students, often from incredibly adverse, poverty-stricken environments, do it all without batting an eye. No wonder policymakers are worried about the U.S. losing its competitive edge.

That’s why I was excited to find this exact issue featured in the documentary “Two Million Minutes.” As you can see from the trailer above, the film compares the high school experience of six individuals from three different countries. Check out the stark difference in attitude between the American students who believe their success in the world is assured, and the other students who hunger to use every minute to their advantage.

We’ve been talking about global competitiveness and the U.S. falling behind for years. But hopefully this will be a real wake-up call for those who still haven’t gotten the message.

I’m curious to know what you thought of the individuals presented in the trailer. Do you think American students are aware of the global competition taking place around them?

To learn more about the film “Two Million Minutes” visit http://www.2mminutes.com.

The word “wiki” always sounded to me like a bizarre technoterm, possibly derived from some obscure, and now defunct, acronym. That is until recently, when a co-worker from Hawaii informed me that “wiki-wiki” means “quick” in Hawaiian and refers to an airport shuttle in the islands that takes travelers to and from the gates.

Of course, by now, most of us know that wiki refers to a website that quickly allows users to edit or add content, track those who make changes and allow revisions to previous versions. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine what life was like before Wikipedia.

What I didn’t know, however, was how useful internet wikis can be in spreading information and best practices in teaching, specifically in the realm of science. According Education Week, in the last three years, there has been an enormous increase of wiki use in K-12 education, which is now allowing teachers to synchronize their lesson plans and offer suggestions.

“It’s about communicating with science teachers,” says Michael Horton, a science coordinator in Riverside, Calif. “I was training some teachers talking about professional learning communities, and a person said, ‘I wish there was a blog where we could discuss that.’ Thirty seconds later, I had created a place on my wiki to do that.”

Horton’s wiki offers science teachers access to free classroom materials and he insists that you don’t have to be a tech wiz to create your own using free-for-teachers technology like Wikispaces.

What I found most exciting about the use of wikis in the classroom was the added ability for teachers to monitor and ensure that all students participate in class projects.

“Wikis … allow you to get 100 percent participation,” says Vicki Davis, a computer sciences teacher and information-technology director in Camilla, Ga. “Your team may have created the greatest wiki in the world, but if your user ID hasn’t contributed, then you get a zero. It eliminates the bottom-feeders of projects—the student who kicks back and lets all the other kids do the work.” Thank goodness!

Some Washington educators already have begun to use wikis in their training and work and many courses at the University of Washington now require students to use wikis on collaborative projects. Looks like “wiki” has long ceased to be a term reserved for Hawaiians or the tech community. This technology breakthrough is here to stay.

If it takes a village to raise a child, then community resources and organizations help raise parents.

Not only can community organizations provide parents with the tools to ensure their child’s success in early learning, but serve as a source of support throughout a child’s education and development.

Thankfully, through the Washington State Department of Early Learning (DEL), community-based organizations serving local parents are eligible for up to $15,000 in funding for innovative parent education programming.

Parent education and support that meets the interests and needs of parents is vital to healthy family development and helping all children arrive at school ready to learn.

Funding is available to any private non-profit agency, government entity, tribal organization, or faith-based community

Know a strong community organization that has helped you or parents in your area ensure children hit the ground running for success in learning? Direct them to the DEL website for more information and submit all funding application questions to Shannon Blood at shannon.blood@del.wa.gov.

Visit Get Educated for more resources on early learning.

Exhibit A: More than 130 forensics programs are being taught at colleges and universities across the US.

As this article points out, forensic science is one of the hottest new majors of college campuses. Thanks in part to the popularity of shows like CSI and televised trials like the infamous O.J. Simpson case, the study of forensic science has taken off like a rocket. In Washington State, Eastern Washington University offers forensic science as a major.

Exhibit B: The field is increasingly dominated by women.

At Indiana U-Purdue U Indianapolis, 90% of forensic science students are female. And at Metropolitan State College in Denver, 13 of 15 students are women.

“I don’t know why,” says Charles Tindall, who directs Metropolitan’s forensic science program. “When you ask them, they say: ‘I’ve always wanted to do this.’ Like they were born to it. None of them will say they watch CSI.”

The Verdict: Science can be fun and interesting! As we continue to struggle with math and science education in our country, stories like this make me think that there’s hope for us yet. Although these programs tend to have a high drop-out rate (most likely due to the overly glamorous facade of the field as portrayed by the entertainment industry), at least it’s inspiring more students to try science!

Maybe so, according to this article. Battelle, Washington State University Tri-Cities and the Kennewick, Pasco and Richland school districts have teamed up to explore the creation of a public high school focused on math and science education.

Interesting idea and apparently Washington State isn’t the first to think of it. Thanks to good ‘ole google, I found that there are established high schools with a math and/or science focus all over the country. There’s even one, Stuyvesant High School in NY, that’s been around since 1904!

Still, it’s a good idea and the joint school board agrees.

“These types of ideas are what I think will make our education system competitive globally,” said Rick Jansons, president of Richland’s school board.

It could take from six months to two years to determine whether the school will actually happen. Should they go the 6-month route, that means the school could open in the Tri-Cities as early as next year.

Kudos to the Battelle, WSU, Tri-Cities team for trying to help Washington State take education to the next level!

On my first day at the Transition Math Project’s (TMP) Summer Institute, I sat in on a session where TMP members (many of whom are teachers) explored strategies to help students engage in and understand math concepts. Each table was given math problems to solve. For example:

Tasty Oats has 12g of protein in 100g of cereal
How many grams of Tasty Oats cereal will give you 9 grams of protein?

I started to have 7th grade flashbacks. My first instinct was to cross multiply to find the value of x. But why? Frankly, it’s just because that’s the algorithm I was told to use back in the day. But no one ever bothered to explain to me why it worked. I just knew that it did, so it never occurred to me to ask.

As it turns out, there are many ways to solve the problem, which was clear when we shared answers around the table. Each person at my table solved the problem in a different way! With algebra, simple proportions, percentages. But what was most interesting wasn’t just that we solved it differently, but that each of us reached for the way that made the most sense in terms of how we learn. And it made me think…if adults (and teachers no less!) all solved the same problem in different ways, shouldn’t we also give students that option?

Of course, this is the ongoing debate around how to teach math. We need to figure out a way to ensure kids have options, but also know basic algorithms like cross multiplication. And as always, balance is key. It’s the middle ground we need to strive for. One that includes rote methods but also teaches deeper concepts to get us all to 75 grams of Tasty Oats.

That’s how volunteer board member for the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) Suzi Levine simply put it when asked about investing in early learning.

As this article explains, UW professors and co-directors of I-LABS, Dr. Andrew Meltzoff, professor of psychology, and Dr. Patricia Kuhl, speech and hearing professor, started I-LABS in 1999, tackling questions we all want answers to. For example, is watching TV really that bad for infants? Or is it all a bunch of hype?

Meltzoff and Kuhl will tell you next month when they release research on the effect of TV viewing for children under the age of 2. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that info.

Over the years, I-LABS researchers have proved, among many other things, that newborn babies (some only 40 minutes old!) can mimic adults and that face-to-face interaction with a 6-month old is imperative to language development. Extremely fascinating stuff, I-LABS research also proves that the mantra of early learning advocates is right: all babies are born learning.

But there is still much more to learn about how a child’s brain develops and not enough money to do the work. As the pool of federal funding for children’s research runs dry, I-LABS is looking to private foundations and philanthropists for much needed dollars. They’ve put together a 10-year business plan with $23 million in new expenditures — a major one being a $6.8 million MEG machine (MEG stands for magnetoencepholography, but I can barely type that much less pronounce it) that will basically give researchers a better look at the fireworks going off in a baby’s brain.

Timing couldn’t be better for this work as Thrive by Five revs up, building statewide interest in early learning. Much like the outcomes from Chicago, studies show that every dollar invested in early learning saves $7 to $17 in rehabilitation or incarceration costs later.

Brain science really is a no-brainer.

We’ve heard it time and time again. If we invest in early learning now, we’ll save on societal costs later. But it’s hard to see the value in investing a buck I could use toward my needed caffeine fix today, when the supposed returns won’t materialize for decades.

Well, take off your cynical hat! A new study co-authored by Arthur Reynolds, a child-development professor at the University of Minnesota, shows a 10-to-1 gain in terms of reduced social-welfare costs like remedial education, health care and incarceration, when compared to the $5,000 per student cost of a public early childhood enrichment program like Child-Parent Centers.

Since 1967, the Child-Parent Centers in Chicago have provided comprehensive education, health, job and family services for kids and their parents. Most children begin the program at age 3 or 4 and receive help until 2nd or 3rd grade. The program has teachers with four-year college degrees and special training in early childhood education, and parents are expected to be very involved in their child’s education.

All 1,539 Child-Parent Center alumni surveyed for this study lived in the poorest school district on the Chicago’s West Side and are now in their early 20s. The findings?

Adults with an increased percentage of high school completion and full-time employment, decreased incarceration and felony arrests, and decreased self-described symptoms of depression.

Looks like my latte can wait. See the full article for details.