S4 E21 BONUS: Coaching, Teaching, & Classroom Management Strategies Sparked From My Conversation with Dr. Dan Wuori (❤️Olivia Wahl)

Cheers to states that make child care accessible! In this S4E21 bonus episode, I explore groundbreaking research and state-level solutions transforming early childhood education in America.

Thanks to Dr. Dan Wuori, you'll discover:
➡️James Heckman's revolutionary findings on early childhood ROI
➡️The Perry Preschool Project's 60-year multigenerational impact
➡️New Mexico's game-changing free childcare program
➡️South Carolina's innovative Pre-K to Kindergarten transition framework
➡️Real solutions for the childcare cost crisis

🔑 Key Highlights:
➡️How early intervention creates lasting generational change
➡️New Mexico's $150M+ childcare funding solution
➡️Why childcare costs 8-19% of household income
➡️South Carolina's successful family engagement strategies
➡️Breaking down barriers in early childhood education

💡 Featured Research:
➡️The Heckman Curve
➡️Perry Preschool Project's 60-year study
➡️Labor Department childcare cost data
➡️South Carolina's Birth Through Five Plan

#earlychildhoodeducator #ChildcareReform #Education #EarlyEducation #ChildcareSolutions #PreschoolEducation #EducationPolicy #FamilyPolicy #ChildDevelopment #EarlyLearning

Want to learn more about transforming early childhood education? Check out my S4E21 full interview with Dr. Dan Wouri and visit your state's early childhood education resources to get involved locally.

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New episodes are released every Monday, with a bonus solo episode on Fridays featuring research-backed coaching and teaching strategies you can apply right away to better serve the children in your care.

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

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When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there. I'm so happy you're here. Your time is precious. And because of that, I want to let you know right away what you'll gain by listening to the very last second of this episode, my conversation with Dr. Dan Wuori illuminated why America's early childhood system needs fundamental reform. We are currently paying for ineffective approaches rather than investing in evidence-based solutions that would better serve children, families, and our society.

In this bonus episode, I expand on my conversation with Dan, focusing on early childhood education investments, successful state programs, and the broader implications for society. You'll learn more about how the Perry School Project's 60 year study demonstrates powerful multigenerational benefits, how New Mexico has implemented a groundbreaking child care program, and much more.

and about how South Carolina's Pre-K to [00:01:00] Kindergarten Transition Plan offers a comprehensive framework for family engagement. Stay with me. I am so happy to have you as a listener today. This is Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that offers educators and caregivers strategies to try right away and ensure every student receives the inspiration and support they need to thrive.

I am Olivia Wahl, and this is a bonus episode. It's an accompaniment to my conversation with Dr. Dan Worre. We reviewed and talked about his book, The Daycare Myth, what we get wrong about early child care and education, and what we should do about it. Since reading this book, I have not been able to stop thinking about it.

I am talking about it with anyone that will listen and be in conversation with me, and I want to revisit for this bonus episode a couple of points that Dan brought [00:02:00] up that I would like to go a little bit more in depth with so you can have an understanding, especially with everything going on in the world today.

Just today, it was announced that the president is pausing all federal aid, and that could have an impact on children with disabilities, families in need of housing, seniors who rely on Medicaid for health care, low income pregnant women, students with loans and grants, children enrolled in Head Start, and police, fire, health care, and other first responders.

The AFT, Education Healthcare Public Services, came out with a statement that says the effect of the current president's unlawful pause on all federal aid is catastrophic for America's working families. Americans need a federal government that works for them, not against them. And that propelled me to go back into Dan's book because the [00:03:00] way he approaches what we can do about early childcare and education, he shines a light on what is working.

I want to revisit Dan's mention of Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman and how he's documented the annual ROI or return on investment when it comes to the benefits of early childhood interventions. This is known as the Heckman curve. And again, what the findings reveal is what Dan says is one simple conclusion.

And this I am quoting right from the book, the earlier we invest in high quality early childhood programs, the greater the return to society. And what I find fascinating is that there are two different studies that resonated the Perry Preschool Project, and that's Heckman's research from 2010. It's a classroom based program that served 123 economically disadvantaged three and four year olds in Michigan in the early [00:04:00] 1960s.

And what they did, they tracked the academic and life outcomes of the participants. And this has gone on for years now, and what struck me, it's the multi generational benefits. The Perry study recently marked 60 years since the enrollment of its first preschool age participants. Heckman and his colleagues revisited the study's outcomes through age 54.

Remember, the first group was three and four years old. And what they found for the first time, the benefits to both the siblings and children of the original PERI participants. And so Dan goes a little bit deeper and offers the second generation findings from the Perry School Project. And I just, this was amazing to me.

Uh, it's on page 25 of the book. The children of Perry participants were more likely than the children of non participants to complete high school without suspension67 percent among children of participants versus 40 percent among [00:05:00] children of non participants. They were more likely to never have been suspended, addicted, or arrested60 percent versus 40% and then they were also more likely to be employed full time or self employed.

And these positive outcomes are most likely attributed to the high-quality learning experiences led to more stable and positive family lives into adulthood. And with all that said, it goes to say that we're only beginning to understand the long term multi-generational benefits associated with investments in early development.

And with that said, I really want to spend the rest of the time highlighting two states. I want to go in depth with what New Mexico is doing. So here's a little bit of background in 2022. A constitutional amendment was approved by 70 percent of voters. And what that amendment says is that 1. 25 of the year and market value of the state's land grant permanent fund would be [00:06:00] allocated toward early childhood and public school education.

So this endowment, it was established when New Mexico became state in 1912. It's funded by taxes on the revenue from non-renewable sources, mainly oil and gas reserves. This is a permanent fund now, and it funnels more than 150 million from fossil fuel producers into childcare subsidies, residents can still make up to 124, 000 and qualify for free childcare.

In addition to any existing copays being waived. So here are some numbers just to put this in context. For middle class U. S. households, child care costs typically range from 8 percent to 19 percent of household earnings per child. And a moment in my conversation with Dan that I reacted pretty viscerally to is when he was speaking to how critical our choices are when we're selecting child care [00:07:00] centers for our babies when we have to go back to work.

And I I responded and said, no pressure. And he then said, but pressure. And I think the reason that that moment has lingered with me the way it has is because it felt like such a privileged moment. And what I mean by that is so many caregivers and colleagues, I have the gift of knowing. Would do anything to have their children in the most loving, nurturing, stimulating environments that Dan wants every child to be able to benefit from.

And so many of the early care centers focus on applications far, far in advance. Some, even before you give birth to your child, you have to be applying and thinking of all these steps. It feels like such a gatekeeping system. Just to give you some statistics to illuminate this child care costs typically [00:08:00] range from 8 percent to 19 percent of household earnings per child, according to Labor Department estimates above the federally recommended 7 percent maximum.

So while prices stabilized last year, the average family paid around 11, 600 for child care in 2023. That's 10 percent of a median income married families pay. And 32 percent of a median incomes, single parents. Another issue that Dan and I spoke about is how tragic the pay that early childcare workers receive to do this incredibly important job.

And so New Mexico's program also made a permanent pay raise for daycare workers. It had initially been funded with temporary federal pandemic aid. So now entry level employees make at least 15 an hour and lead teachers make 20 and that's a 30 percent increase since New Mexico's program began. The other [00:09:00] state I really want to shine a light on is South Carolina, and their pre K to kindergarten transition plan, I think it's powerful, and I was at an event this past weekend with a group of other caregivers, and many of them have children that are transitioning from pre K into kindergarten, in different buildings, different schools.

It was interesting to both listen in on their conversations and to all of the troubleshooting that was happening. And it was also interesting to be on the other side of it and to realize that so many parents are unsure of both the logistics and the expectations. Once their student is enrolled in kindergarten, they are not really sure necessarily how to best prepare the child for that transition.

And even, you know, what is the relationship? What's the expectation between families and schools? Because that truly can underpin the success of the child in that new school setting. What South Carolina has done, it's called [00:10:00] the Pre K to Kindergarten Transition Plan Family Engagement, and it's a beautiful demonstration of the state's collective capacity and commitment to ensure every child and family has the resources to learn, flourish, and thrive.

And no matter what state you reside in, this plan could be mimicked and used because it is magnificent. And I'll include a link to this document. It's linked in the original conversation and interview with Dan, but I will include it again in this bonus episode. And with that said, the South Carolina Family Engagement K 12 Framework is the Department of Education's official framework that teachers and parent engagement coordinators use in public 4K and kindergarten.

So this framework is what's guiding their transitions plan, and there are specific strategies. They're organized around what's called Objective 2.1 for our future, [00:11:00] and this plan is to ensure, and I quote, parents have the knowledge and skills to be excellent caregivers and are actively engaged in their children's development, health, learning, and transitions.

And I wanted to offer each of the strategies under the objective. There's more background in the document, but I think these strategies are extremely helpful. So strategy 2.1.1 is expand proven home visiting programs. And Dan speaks a lot to these in the book as well. Um, with transitions components, so more families can participate.

So what that means is having a trusted, competent, and knowledgeable home visiting professional that allows for families to have individualized attention at a level of intensity that can help connect them to other resources. My mother-in-law has done this work for years. She is a gift. And it offers a bridge so that [00:12:00] families have information they need, and they can understand the different programs that can build the skills.

And these home visiting programs can provide the information caregivers need of which programs will best build skills and show benefit for children entering kindergarten. Strategy 2.1.2. Is expand access to information and resources that promote children's health and safety and strengthen family's ability to participate more fully in the development of their children.

This speaks to parents needing to know details about the kindergarten experience. This is exactly what I'm talking about from the event I attended this weekend. They need to not only know about what their child's kindergarten experience will be, they need to know about the school, the logistics, what's expected of them as partners in their child's education, and so they can mentally prepare for this.

And strategy 2.1.3, [00:13:00] help parents support successful transitions from home to early childhood programs and to school entry. And what South Carolina offers, They have state materials like a profile of a ready kindergartner, and they have other tools, CFEC's Ready, Set, Kindergarten, and these tools promote shared understanding between parents and education professionals about the kindergarten experience.

So as I study myself, listening to Heather Cox Richardson, and Figure out what I can do to continue holding on to hope and doing what's right by children, all children in the United States. I go back to a quote on page 13 that Dan articulated. “We're already paying the cost. We're just doing it in the dumbest possible ways. It's time for a change.” And listening to Heather Cox Richardson, she [00:14:00] just articulated that there are people paying very close attention to what's happening at the national level. What we can do is get to know what's happening at our state level better because not as many folks are paying close attention to what's going on state by state.

So New Mexico, South Carolina, shout out to you for all of the beautiful work you are doing to ensure That our youngest people in the world are getting the foundation and the start they need. Thanks for tuning in to this bonus episode. I can't wait to see you next week. Take care. Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl.

Thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts, or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. [00:15:00] Now, I'd love to hear from you! Send me an email at scholutionspodcast@gmail.com. Let me know what you'd like to learn more about as caregivers and teachers when it comes to early childhood education.

Tune in every Monday for the best research backed coaching and teaching strategies you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. And stay tuned for my bonus episodes every Friday where I'll share how I applied what I learned from the guests in schools that week. See you then.