ECE Initiative Resources - Recently Updated Pages

Resources: Standards of Excellence

JasmineRochelle — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:04:13 CDT

Navigation: Home: Standards of excellence: Comp/Finance Resources: Connecting w/ Families Resources:

Pro Development Resources

Articles and Research

Summary Sheet for this Task Force

Defining Excellence in Early Childhood Jewish Education

What Makes Early Childhood Jewish Education Excellent?

Websites of Interest

The link between the quality of the workforce and the quality of the program

QualiStar Early Learning

Attachments
Please Note: All items under this category will need to be downloaded from mediafire: Clicking on the title will take you to the download form

Resources: Professional Development

JasmineRochelle — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:03:08 CDT

Navigation: Home: Standards of excellence: Comp/Finance Resources: Connecting w/ Families Resources:
Pro Development Resources

Articles and Research

Summary Sheet for this Task Force

Training the Next Generation of Teachers

Professional Development for Teachers

Chutes or Ladders? Creating Support Services to Help Early Childhood Students Succeed in Higher Education

Universal Pre-K: What Does it Mean for Early Childhood Jewish Education?

Early Childhood Jewish Education and Profiles of its Educators, 2004

Time to Revamp and Expand: Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs in California’s Institutions of Higher Education (Executive Summary)

Websites of Interest

Teach for America

Day School Leadership Through Teaching (DeLeT)

Attachments
Please Note: All items under this category will need to be downloaded from mediafire: Clicking on the title will take you to the download form

Resources: Connecting with Families

JasmineRochelle — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:57:45 CDT

Navigation: Home: :Standards of excellence: Comp/Finance Resources: Connecting w/ Families Resources:

Pro Development Resources

Articles and Research

Summary Sheet for this Task Force

Jewish Preschools as Gateways to Jewish Life: A Survey of Jewish Preschool Parents in Three Cities

Websites of Interest

Sulamot: Family Education Initiative, Harold Grinspoon Foundation

Attachments

Please Note: All items under this category will need to be downloaded from mediafire: Clicking on the title will take you to the download form

For Full-Report of Jewish Engagement from Birth to Three, please go to http://www.cmjs.org/Filexfer.cfm?File2Get=1 and enter your information to retrieve it

Resources: Compensation and Financing

JasmineRochelle — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:56:07 CDT

Navigation: Home: Standards of excellence: Comp/Finance Resources: Connecting w/ Families Resources:
Pro Development Resources

Articles and Research

Summary Sheet for this Task Force

Compensation and Comparable Worth: What lies ahead for California’s Preschool Teachers?

Websites of Interest

The economics of an average program vs. a high quality program

Attachments
Please Note: All items under this category will need to be downloaded from mediafire: Clicking on the title will take you to the download form

ECE Initiative Resources Home

JasmineRochelle — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:53:25 CDT

Hi everyone! This website is an informal page for research links for the Early Childhood Education Initiative. I will be posting links to articles that can be found online for easy research and reading underneath each Task Force. General reading items will be found under General Resources (recommended for all to read).

You can choose to join or not (it gives you the option), and you will still have access to the articles. If you have anything you would like me to add to the site, please
E-mail me and send me the link to the article or research!

Resources for Task Forces
(Highly recommended for each Task Force)

Standards of Excellence

Resources: Compensation and Financing

Resources: Connecting with Families

Resources: Professional Development, Recruitment and Retention

General Resources
(Recommended Reading for all)

2006 JESNA Study

Chutes or Ladders? Creating Support Services to Help Early Childhood Students Succeed in Higher Education

Universal Pre-K: What Does it Mean for Early Childhood Jewish Education?

Colorado Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative

Defining Excellence in Early Childhood Jewish Education

Jewish Early Childhood Education Study Highlights, Spring 2002

Early Childhood Jewish Education and Profiles of its Educators, 2004

What Makes Early Childhood Jewish Education Excellent?

QualiStar Early Learning

Documents from Mediafire
(Click on Download, and the article will come up)

Compensation and Finance

JasmineRochelle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:08:32 CDT

Draft: January 2008

Early Childhood Education Task Force Compensation & Finance

According to the recent study completed by the Mandel Teacher Educators’ Institute, there is a “potential crisis in Preschool teaching recruitment.” Teachers in our Jewish preschools report a “great dissatisfaction with their salaries, which are below the median of Bay Area salaries.” The study goes on to recommend, “Given the large numbers of teachers who will be retiring soon-and the lack of pay as an incentive-it’s crucial that we attend to creating salaries and working conditions that will retain and attract qualified preschool teachers.”

The same theme was prominent in the JESNA study which the Endowment Fund commissioned in 2006. “According to Directors, the most challenging aspect of their jobs is finding qualified teaching staff overall and particularly finding teachers with Jewish and Hebrew knowledge. The study goes on to recommend that we “set community standards for salaries and benefits for Jewish early childhood educators (teachers and directors), and help individual sites develop plans to achieve higher teacher salaries and greater parity.”

The Center for the Study of the Childcare Workforce at UC Berkeley, in their study “Center-Based Child Care Staff in San Francisco County, state “Low wages among child care employees impede recruitment and retention of well-qualified staff. Centers paying higher wages to teaching staff and directors have been found to offer higher quality services..”

What we know about salaries and compensation in San Francisco Federation area ECJE programs:

The average beginning salary for a qualified preschool teacher in Jewish preschools is between $14.00 and $18.00 per hour. Teachers who have been in their school for over ten years often do not exceed $21.00 per hour, and many are under $20.00 per hour. At $17.00 per hour a teacher in San Francisco grosses just over $20,000 for the school year; adding a summer position would bring it to about $25,000. Hardly a professional salary considering the high costs of living in the Bay Area.

Most teachers have some benefits, ranging from vacation and sick days in some schools, to partial to full health, dental, child care, retirement and health club benefits in other schools. *There are several schools that provide no benefit package *

Directors salaries vary between $20,000 and $90,000 with two thirds of the directors earning $60,00 or more. • The beginning salary in a publicly financed “school year” preschool is $31,000, according to Teach for America. • The average beginning salary at a Jewish day school is $41,000 per school year.

Given the high cost of tuition at our Jewish Community preschools, ranging from $10,000 to $16,000 in 2006, increasing the tuition significantly presents challenges. Our aim is to raise teacher compensation, while at the same time keeping Early Childhood Jewish Education within reach of families in our areas.

Information Compiled by Janet Harris.

Connecting with Families

JasmineRochelle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:08:02 CDT

Draft: January 2008

Early Childhood Education Task Force Connecting with Families

According to Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, educating children without also educating their parents is akin to “heating a home with the windows open.” Pearl Beck, in her research “Jewish Preschools as Gateways to Jewish Life” (2002) found that “70% of those interviewed claimed that they were doing something different in terms of their Jewish observance of Jewish lifestyle as a result of their child attending a Jewish preschool.” She goes on to state “many families began making small, yet meaningful, changes in their levels of Jewish observance.”

Mark Rosen, in his study “Engaging Parents from Birth” talks about the power of the “peer effect.” Dr. Rosen opines that first-time parents are in unchartered territory, and that “relationships are the key” as they navigate the new world of parenting. He goes on to say that parents often make decisions based on “word of mouth and word on the street” information that is gathered from their peers. In his book, “What we Know About Jewish Education” Rabbi Stuart Kelman found that “parents make decisions regarding their child’s Jewish education before their fifth birthday.” With all of this data, and much more, we now understand that the first five years of a child’s life, and perhaps, according to Mark Rosen, the first three, present a critical window of opportunity for the Jewish community to engage parents of young children and to create connections with the Jewish community.

There is significant work being done in Jewish Family Education, and Early Childhood Jewish Family Education as well. The two types of programs that are most prevalent in our community are those that involve the whole family, and those that are intended for parents only. Here is a sampling of Jewish Family Education programs that are being offered in the Jewish preschools in the San Francisco Federation area:

One-time holiday related programming for whole families.

“Blessing of a Skinned Knee” book groups for parents.

Pirkei Avot and other text-related study groups for parents.

Family Tzeddakkah projects/social action projects.

Weekly play groups for parents and babies/ toddlers.

Havdalah pajama parties/ Shabbat groups for parents and toddlers.

Library programs.

Jewish/Hebrew music for parents and toddlers.

We are fortunate to have the “ATID Fellows,” a professional development program under the auspices of the Bureau of Jewish Education that works with Early Childhood Educators to increase their understanding of Jewish family education through regular study, reflection and practice. ATID Fellows is funded by the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and is in its second year of funding. This group of educators has grown tremendously in their two years studying with Vicky Kelman, and this is a model that I believe needs to be examined and built upon. The programs above are not offered consistently throughout the community. The funding sources differ, and are sometimes threatened. Some of the questions that need to be considered are:

How do we define a successful program?

How do we institutionalize and replicate successful programs?

How do we reach the majority of Jewish families who are not affiliated with Jewish preschools?

How do we support Jewish preschools in their role as a gateway- both into the preschools, and as a link to other Jewish educational or communal settings?

How do we support Early Childhood Jewish Family Education and Early Childhood Jewish Family Educators?

Information compiled by Janet Harris.

Standards of Excellence

JasmineRochelle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:06:42 CDT

Draft: January 2008

Early Childhood Education Task Force Benchmarks of Excellence

A high quality Early Childhood Jewish Education program has not yet been defined in our region. In the JESNA study that was commissioned by the Endowment Fund in 2006, it states:”This study did not include a formal assessment of the quality of current offerings in Jewish ECE, which would require a very different time frame and approach.” Standards of excellence in ECE are available in the world of general education. There are several measurements of quality that are widely accepted in the field:

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has a rigorous accreditation system which only 3 of our schools currently have employed.

The Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS) is used as an assessment tool by many schools, including Preschool for All (PFA) in San Francisco.

ITERS is the Infant/Toddler version of ECERS.

High Scope has a rating scale that is widely available, but not widely utilized in our area.

In the arena of Jewish Education, the following work has been done on standards of excellence:

Several communities, including Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and Chicago have identified elements of excellence and have adopted an accreditation or commendation system, often linked to salary.

The Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI) is developing standards of excellence which should become available later this year.

The Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE) has developed a draft statement in defining excellence in early childhood Jewish education.

The Jewish Community Center Association has guidelines of excellence for their centers.

The Union of Reform Judaism and the united conservative synagogues are beginnng to look at standards.

The Chabad movement has developed standards of excellence in Judaic education for their preschools.

Our community has the opportunity to glean from the work that is being done nationally to create benchmarks of excellence that will inspire each school to be examples of best practice in early childhood Jewish education.

Information Compiled by Janet Harris.

Calendar

JasmineRochelle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:05:48 CDT

Click here for the Meeting Schedule Calendar!

Professional Development

JasmineRochelle — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:02:52 CDT

Draft: January 2008

Early Childhood Task Force

Professional Development

Research tells us that professional Development for teachers is directly correlated to the quality of the education for the students. For our purposes, we are going to look at professional development in broad terms to encompass the following issues:

1. Recruitment of teachers and directors into the field of Early Childhood Jewish Education.

2. Professional development to support teachers and directors in Early Childhood studies and Early Childhood Jewish studies.

3. Creating a career ladder to retain excellent teachers.

In their recent study “Community Report; Are our Schools Places Where Teachers Thrive as Professionals? A Survey of Teachers in Bay Area Jewish Schools”), Stodolsky and Dorph recommend ” Given the large number of teachers who will be retiring soon- and the lack of pay as an incentive- it’s crucial that we attend to creating salaries and working conditions that will retain and attract qualified preschool teachers.” (Stodolsky and Dorph, 2007). Current Professional Development Programs in Early Childhood Jewish Education in our FSA are:

Jewish Everyday Moments in School (JEMS); a program of the Bureau of Jewish Education, JEMS works with teachers to improve their Jewish knowledge and incorporate it into classroom life. JEMS uses a coaching model, as well as seminars for the sites involved. This is the final year of seven for JEMS.

Atid, in its second year also a program of the Bureau of Jewish Education, works with a select group of teachers in Early Childhood Jewish Family Education. The teachers attend the Consortium for the Education of the Jewish Family, at CAJE, and meet approximately monthly to study and reflect on their practice. They implement a Jewish Family Education program at their sites.

Ethical Start: Ethical Start, a program of the Jewish Community Centers Association currently works with three of our four JCC sites. They provide study and training opportunities to those teachers utilizing their curriculum. They meet several times a year, usually multi-day for beginners, and a one-day retreat for experienced Ethical Start teachers.

Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI) JECEI is a national program sponsored by Jewish Life Network. JECEI is currently working with two of our schools. It is in its final year with the Osher Marin JCC, and its first year with the Albert Schultz JCC. JECEI is working to create state-of-the art curriculum and programs in Jewish preschools, including lifelong Jewish learning, and employs intensive retreats, and one-on-one coaching in organizational development and pedagogical practice for leaders and teachers. JECEI is also conducting a two-year leadership program in order to recruit future leaders for the field.

With all of the professional development opportunities available, only half of our teachers are participating in these programs. We need to institutionalize professional development so that it becomes part of the culture of teaching in our schools. Beginning Ideas for recruitment:

MA in ECE Leadership at Mills College.

“Teach for America” model program for Early Childhood Jewish Education.

Certificate programs, such as those at Gratz College, Baltimore Hebrew University, Boston Hebrew University.

“Delet” like model for Early Childhood Education.

Early Childhood Jewish Educator; one for each program over 100 children.

There are many young Jewish college graduates who have good Jewish backgrounds from Jewish camps, day schools, Israel experience and Jewish study programs in college. Who can we partner with to bring this cohort into the field of Early Childhood Jewish Education?

Information compiled by Janet Harris.