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Top Story / Paraprofessionals and Specialists Working with Children

Coordinating services can seem like an overwhelming task for the early care and education providers, specialists, and families who support children with special needs. To learn more about how those who care for children with special needs in many capacities can collaborate to support their early development, PDI interviewed two experts in the field…

Career Profile / Service Coordinator: Leticia Cardenas-Simmons

Service coordinators provide assistance in finding and obtaining vital resources for those who need support in living a healthy, active life—including children. Many work with families to access services that support the healthy physical, cognitive, social and emotional development of children with special needs…

Voices from the Field / Denise Burgess and Talisa McGraw

Denise Burgess
Family Child Care Provider

Talisa McGraw
Teacher Assistant
ABC Echo Park

Tools for Action / Early Childhood Career Assessment – The Decision Survey

Career self-assessment is a vital part of engaging in career planning and professional development with intentionality—making informed decisions instead of wandering aimlessly through your career without goals. The process of gathering information about oneself should be the first step in making an informed career decision…

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Sydney has written about young children throughout her career and is known for her pure and soulful dedication to children and her incredible perception and understanding of children as whole human beings who deserve the most respectful adults. She authored with book with Leslie Gleim and Jed Handler.  Do yourself a favor and read about Reggio Emilia through Sydney’s eyes!

Download and read part one now!

The Gesell Institute of Human Development is an independent non-profit organization located on the Yale campus.

http://theconversation.edu.au/were-hardly-the-nanny-state-when-it-comes-to-decent-childcare-6191?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweetbutton&utm_campaign=article-top

Let’s take a step back here, and begin with this question: should the school/government be inspecting and in essence overruling parents’ choices for their children’s lunches? The lunch this mother packed seems fitting. Sounds like the exact same lunch my mom made for me as a student in primary school. And furthermore, the mother appears to be appropriately in tune with her daughter’s eating habits, “I have to watch her because she doesn’t like to eat vegetables.” And maybe the mother doesn’t want her child eating chicken nuggets.

What is the nutrition content of the chicken nugget? To not target any one company that might supply chicken nuggets under a school contract, we used the search feature on the website Livestrong.com, http://www.livestrong.com/food-and-drink/. We entered the turkey sandwich with cheese, the banana, the potato chips and the apple juice. Then we compared it to the chicken nuggets. (We selected the nationwide brand of Tyson, which are healthier than McDonald’s or Wendy’s chicken nuggets.)

Table 1. Nutrition Information of Selected Food Items

*Above recommended allowance for children under 5 years of age

Source: Livestrong.com: http://www.livestrong.com/food-and-drink/.

What should a 4-year-old child be eating? What is the DRI (Daily Recommended Allowance)? And by the way, the DRI has replaced the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance). This was news to me too. I had to search high and low to come up with any information relating the nutrition standards for children in DRIs. The information is readily available for adults, but the norm seems to list food items for children by 5 oz. grains, or ½ cup of dairy, etc. The chart below, from the Baylor College of Medicine breaks it down into the components adults are used to seeing when they read nutrition labels.

Table 2. Recommended DRIs for Children Age 2 to 18 Years

Source: http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/consumer/archives/percentDV.htm

We don’t know if the child was given a fruit, vegetable or a drink to accompany her USDA school- approved nuggets. Nor do we know what the child ate for breakfast, or how much physical activity she gets daily. Whether the toddler’s lunch is perfect is debatable. If it works for her and her family, is that wrong?  Is there an opportunity for the mother and daughter to learn about nutrition from this experience together? Absolutely.

And let’s not forget that the lunch the mother made, bought, and paid for with her hard-earned money, (let’s presume) was thrown away. And on top of it, she was billed $1.25 for the nuggets. Maybe a letter should have been sent out listing what food items parents may send to school with their children for lunch.  I doubt the majority of parents have read Federal Register, Vol. 77. No. 17, from January 26, 2012: The USDA Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs contain a staggering 80 pages. Eighty pages of…let’s be honest, a lot information that is not…easily digestible. Here’s a link: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-01-26/pdf/2012-1010.pdf. It’s written for the scientific, policy wonk, lawmaker crowd. It’s not written in plain English that the public can wrap their heads around. How about we re-write it? Simplify it…to 3 pages max. And really, rules and regulations? Let’s call them guidelines. This will be easier for both parents and school districts to attempt to follow.

Perhaps we can find a new role for these inspectors to perform at the USDA. Certainly their time could be spent more effectively in another capacity, such as studying food security? Or ways to reduce food waste? (In 2010, more than 34 million tons of food went to waste in the US. Our country produces twice as much food as needed per person, yet we still have children going hungry and on the Free school Lunch Program.) Where is the disconnect? USDA should bump up the priority of this issue, let parents pack the kids’ lunch, and let schools get down to the business of teaching.

Let us know what you think on this topic? Was the school right? Do you think parents should decide what their children eat for lunch? Or should the USDA be tasked with ensuring all children have a healthy and nutritious breakfast/lunch?

Our next blog post will continue with the theme of nutrition but will feature childhood obesity, so be sure to stay tuned and have your questions ready.

Last month, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a working paper by researchers Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Jonah Rockoff that addresses these questions. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the effects teachers in large urban school district on both the test scores and long-term outcomes of their students. (Read the executive summary here or the full paper here). Building on the recent trend toward “value-added” measurements (which measures the average gain among students in a teacher’s classroom against the student’s prior test scores), the study included two major findings:

1) When a teacher who had high “value-added” scores joined a school, the test scores in the grade taught by that teacher would rise; when a high “value-added” scoring teacher left, the test scores would fall, and

2) Students assigned to high “value-added” scoring teachers tended to have more success on long-term measures, such as college attendance, salaries, and retirement savings.

On the whole, most of the reactions to the paper (such as CNN contributor William J Bennett and the New York Time’s Nicolas D. Kristoff) interpreted these findings as the strongest empirical evidence to date of the substantial impact teachers have on not only their students’ academic performance, but their futures as well.

Although the findings, as well as the amount of well-collected data supporting them, are undeniably crucial in demonstrating how great of an impact a teacher may have, some have cautioned against jumping to policy conclusions right away.

Considering the broad or specific recommendations based on these findings at this stage would not only be premature, but also skips over the more exciting impact of this study: the questions it raises about teacher efficacy and the path it sets out for research into teacher quality.

If this study has potentially provided a means of identifying excellent teachers, further research can use this technique to investigate other significant questions regarding teacher quality, such as:

• What qualities do high value-added teachers posses that distinguish them from their peers (what qualities make a teacher excellent)?
• Are there other methods for capturing and assessing information about these qualities for individual teachers? The study itself notes that using test scores to measure the performance of an individual would raise several problems (random error, cheating, teaching to the test, etc). However, it may be useful in validating other assessments of teacher performance that are more comprehensive or nuanced (such as observation tools).
• Which teacher education or preparation institutions tend to produce more high value-added teachers (and what do they have in common)? This issue seems poised to receive considerable attention in the coming year, particularly when the National Council on Teacher Quality releases its major study on teacher preparation programs this fall.

What impact do you think this will or should have on teacher assessment, preparation and practice? If this research does lead to a reliable measure of teacher efficacy, how could that affect teacher compensation or hiring and dismissal practices? How could school districts implement these strategies related to teacher efficacy? Are there any other questions or concerns this study raises? Share your reactions to the study below!

Offered in partnership with the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the launch date for this credit-bearing CDA Program is Spring 2012. Applications are currently being accepted for January enrollment.

For more information about this Child Development Associate (CDA) Certificate program, please visit the SPS website: http://sps.cuny.edu/programs/spscourses/programdescription.aspx?pid=127&sid=EDUC

For more information about the CDA credential, please visit our website: http://earlychildhoodnyc.org/education/credentials.cfm#cda

We would like to thank Dr. Barbara Schwartz, Bonnie Cohen, Hedi Levine, Ilana Lesser, Clare Bonafede, and Brenna Briski for their participation and sharing their expertise with us.We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our audience members and share the many excellent questions and comments they raised.

One question from the audience addressed the need to specialize in a particular discipline or special population. For example, when working with children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder, two common methods are Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) and Floor Time. Our panelists suggested having a variety of experiences before committing to a particular specialty.  It’s important to have a wide understanding about an area of interest and to have sound reasoning when you select a specific discipline.

Panelists also reminded the audience to explore opportunities to work with other under-served populations such as blind or visually impaired students or bilingual learners. This can be a unique way to enter the field.

To learn more:

• The CDC is a comprehensive resource. To learn more about Autism and various intervention approaches click here.
• Hunter college offers a graduate program for teaching blind or visually impaired students. Visit Hunter College’s website
• Light House International is a great resource in NYC for the blind and visually impaired, visit Light House International
• For more information about obtaining a bilingual extension, visit the PDI website
• PDI’s Career Development Services Center has a variety of resources for anyone interested in learning more about the certification process, including preparation for NYS certification exams

Join the discussion! Comment below to share any other questions you may have, or to find further information or resources from your fellow professionals.

Panelists:

Barbara Schwartz, PhD
Associate Clinical Professor of Early Childhood Special Education
NYU Department of Teaching and Learning

Bonnie Cohen, LCSW
Director of Early Intervention and Butterflies Program
University Settlement

Hedi Levine, M.S. Ed.
Education Supervisor
YAI/NYL LifeStart Program

Ilana Lesser, M.A.
Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT)
PEAK Services and Bank Street Family Center Home & Community Program

Clare Bonafede, M.S. Ed
Educational Coordinator
YAI/NYL William O’Connor Bay Ridge School

Brenna Briski, M.A.
Preschool Special Education Teacher
United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of New York City