"Given the diverse auspices and leadership in early education in the U.S.,United States, Universal Preschool will only happen through collaboration. The issue of Universal Preschool is not new. Others have conducted research, shared success stories, and ideas for moving forward.This book plans a different approach to the Universal Preschool dilemma by using dynamic and specific lenses to sift through the layers of power and policy that are the foundation of any effort"
Winner of the 2011 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Book Prize presented by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) The spectacular recent success of state-funded preschool education is revealed and explained in this absorbing study. A quiet revolution has been underway in American education policy since 1995, with forty-one states and the District of Columbia creating some form of state-funded preschool learning. Brenda K. Bushouse tells why it became politically advantageous for state legislators to support universal access to preschool programs and how political and budgetary stability was achieved to spur this initiative. In 2001, the Pew Charitable Trusts announced an ambitious new giving program aimed at creating universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. Bushouse reveals Pew's unorthodox giving program and complex strategy for advancing universal preschool policy change.
Study comparing preschool education programs within the United States and between the United States and France and Sweden, followed by the authors' own proposed program and funding scheme to make preschool education universally available in the United States.
With close to 1 million children on the autism spectrum enrolled in U.S. schools, educators need effective interventions that promote young learners’ abilities and build cohesiveness in complex classroom groups. Drawing upon video recordings from 16 months in a public preschool classroom, this book depicts the emerging relationships and abilities that develop through musical play with children on the autism spectrum. Barnes explores connections among students, teachers, and a music therapist; broader questions about the needs of young children; and the benefits of incorporating music therapy in early childhood education and school-based autism services. In vivid narratives, readers follow individual preschoolers through their challenges and their steps toward shared attention, interpersonal interaction, and communication during music. This important book raises key issues about autism supports and therapies, and offers encouraging alternatives to prevailing educational and therapeutic methods. Features: Chronicles the first two-year research study inside a music therapy group for preschoolers on the spectrum in a U.S. public school.Provides lucid personal portrayals of young children, teachers, and a music therapist.Explores the challenges and encouraging possibilities of helping young children through music.Describes the use of picture schedules, augmentative and alternative communication devices, musical instruments, percussion rhythms, and visual and tactile materials in music sessions.Presents children’s engagement in vocal interplay, turn-taking, theme-and-variation exchanges, and reciprocal expressions of emotion in early childhood education.
Research shows the need for a universal preschool education program in the U.S. to help give children a sound cognitive and social foundation. This book describes the social, educational, and economic benefits for the nation as a whole that would result from the implementation of a universal access preschool program.
