Upcoming ISAAC Roundtable
Save The Date!
2009 Round Table on African American Education
The Situation, The Solution, The Strategy
Date: June 19–20, 2009
Please click here to download the flier for more details.
Spark DC Final Project Report — “Moving Forward, Making Progress”
This report describes NBCDI’s latest work to improve children’s chances for success. In 2002, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched an initiative designed to smooth children’s transition to school and to support early learning and elementary school systems to assure children’s (ages three though six) early school success. NBCDI was chosen to lead the DC initiative and seized the opportunity to contribute to structuring a new agenda on behalf of the District’s children at a family, program and policy level. Over the past five years, NBCDI has partnered with leaders in the local early child care and education community, public schools, city government and non-governmental organizations.
Download the report now.
Poor Children Need Their Head Start
NBCDI’s President Carol Brunson Day and the President of the National Council of La Raza, Janet Murguía, responded to an OP-Ed article by Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call published in the New York Times on February 7th, 2009 “Head Start Falls Further Behind”.
To the Editor:
Douglas J. Besharov and Douglas M. Call never acknowledge that Head Start was recently renewed and improved.
While the program has prepared millions of poor black and Latino children to thrive in school, it was clear to us and others that it could be strengthened. And Congress did just that. In 2007, Head Start was renewed with greater emphasis on teacher quality, academic instruction and services to English-language-learning children and families.
The writers say that the money in the stimulus bill has “no strings attached,” that the bill “does not require any real change in return” for the funding. But every dollar Head Start receives in the economic recovery legislation will be subject to the reforms approved by Congress two years ago.
The education of very young children should be a priority for everyone. It is not clear to us how rehashing tired debates about Head Start helps.
Janet Murguía
Carol Brunson-Day
Washington, Feb.10, 2009
The writers are, respectively, president of the National Council of La Raza and president of the National Black Child Development Institute.
New! Webinar Training for CCR&R Staff
Preparing Culturally Responsive Preschool Early Educators
The National Black Child Development Institute in partners ship with the National Association for Child Care Resource and Referral Agency (NACCRA) is offering a live webinar series for CCR&R professionals who train and provide technical assistance to child care providers. This webinar will address the relationship between social-emotional development and education and help prepare child care providers to support and contribute to children’s resilience. This session will also address issues of the social-emotional development of you and pre-school aged children from a cultural perspective. Issues such as school as a stressor and family, cultural and linguistic identity will be discussed. Participants will receive practical tools and strategies to strengthen what they are currently doing to help children succeed in school.
Facilitator: Dr. Felicia DeHaney
For more information, contact NACCRRA Webinar Training Registration or contact Krystal Jones
Upcoming ISAAC Conference
The African-American Child in School Conference on Research Directions sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the African American Child (ISAAC).
To be held: May 3-6, 2009 at the Hilton Oceanfront Resort in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
For more information, please click here.
