Making Validated Educational Models Central in Preschool Standards

This paper presents some ideas to preschool educators and policy makers about how to make validated educational models central in standards for preschool education-and-care programs that are available to all 3-and 4-year-olds. An educational model is a coherent body of program practices, curriculum content, program and child assessment, and teacher training. Educational models are meant to contribute to all aspects of children's development. A model is validated if its effectiveness in contributing to children's development has been scientifically confirmed. Replication of validated educational models is critical if the results these models promise are to be realized on a widespread basis. Regulatory, professional, and outcomes-based standards all have roles in promoting such replication by supporting the role of independent model developers. Standards should support educational models that are comprehensive, well-documented, internally consistent, implementable, effective, supported by effective training, and able and beginning to be broadly disseminated. State preschool programs, Head Start, and child care programs are all at crossroads in their histories. President George W. Bush has indicated a strong interest in harnessing Head Start and other preschool programs to the national effort to have all children achieve literacy and educational success. His interest has prompted unprecedented federal attention to preschool educational models that have evidence of their effectiveness. Although only a handful of states operated state preschool programs a quarter-century ago, four-fifths of them do so today, and 2 several of these – Georgia, New York, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Illinois – have taken action towards providing preschool programs for all 4-year-olds whose parents wish to enroll them. These state preschool programs are fertile ground for innovative policymaking. Child care programs must either respond to this new national interest in early childhood education or resign themselves to inadequate public funding and attention and being little more than a stepchild of welfare reform policy. Some Definitions To deal with these challenges, this paper presents some ideas to preschool educators and policymakers about how to make validated educational models central in standards for preschool education-and-care programs that are available to all 3-and 4-year-olds. These terms should be defined at the outset. § An educational model is a coherent body of program practices, curriculum content, program and child assessment, and teacher training. Sometimes early childhood educators use the term curriculum to encompass program practices as well as curriculum content; this paper uses the term educational model to subsume this difference in