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Barney and Baby Bop day care center owners Michael and Georgia Ford, of Patterson, ask Louisiana Department of Education Policy Analyst Nasha Patel and program consultant Kaye Eichler questions about early childhood accountability changes for the 2016-17 school year. (The Daily Review/Shea Drake)

New rules for children: Centers will be graded based on instructional quality

By Shea Drake sdrake@daily-review.com

LAFAYETTE — The Louisiana Department of Education held its last series of roundtable discussions Tuesday in Lafayette informing early childhood professionals about preliminary performance results and accountability changes coming down the pipeline.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved a multi-year implementation plan of Act 3. The plan seeks to unify early childhood programs across the state so all children are kindergarten ready.

Twenty-nine early childhood community networks have been launched since 2013. Also additional legislation was passed to unify licensing, enrollment and funding. At present, all of the networks have implemented the statewide process.

The act also requires the state to evaluate publicly funded early childhood programs to help families choose the best option for their children.

“It’s exciting because this is the first time we are bringing information … that is reflective of all our classrooms statewide,” said Jenna Conway, Assistant Superintendent of Early Childhood at the Louisiana Department of Education.

The state department uses an evaluation program called CLASS. It assesses children’s experiences in the classroom, correlates with student outcomes, and supports teachers by providing information for coaching.

Ninety-eight percent of toddler and pre-K classrooms were observed in fall 2015.

Conway said the areas of strength for early childhood programs were classroom climate and organization. The classrooms are supportive and encouraging for student outcomes.

Classrooms have consistent routines with clear behavioral expectations.

Classrooms scored low on the quality of instruction. Learning activities are rote or nonexistent and rarely encourage analysis and reasoning, Conway said.

Young children receive few opportunities to learn through dialogue and are not supported to connect concepts and ideas, according to results.

“There may be kids in a room with toys and the teacher is not facilitating any type of activity,” Conway said. “The kid is bored or listless. There’s not really anything going on to intentionally help them.

“But on the flip side, you can roll back maybe elementary school type teaching to 4-year-olds sitting at desks all day filling out worksheets. … You have situations that people think its high quality instruction, but it’s not.

“We know this is not how 3- or 4-year-olds learn.”

Evaluation scores range from 1 to 7. Needs improvement ratings are 1 to 2.99. Proficient is considered 3.0 to 5.99, and excellent is 6 to 7.

Most of the pre-K sites scored in the range of 2 to 4.49 in the area of instruction. About 50 sites scored lowest at 1 to 1.49.

There are a “handful of centers not performing well,” Conway said.

There is also a significant difference between interaction and instruction quality in toddler classrooms, Conway said.

Ninety-five percent of the program types (childcare, school, early/Head Start) were proficient. But children are experiencing different levels of care and instruction based on the data.

The rating system is to encourage people to provide high-quality instruction so students are kindergarten-ready, Conway said.

Two classroom observations are conducted during the school year. One is held in the fall and another in the spring. Local and third-party observations are involved in the monitoring process.

The state department continues to plan “to work out kinks” with the monitoring process.

One childcare provider voiced her concerns about biased observations.

She is concerned that local observers, who are in direct competition, may negatively evaluate her private childcare business site. Other private site owners echoed her concerns.

The department’s hope is that policy shifts help encourage instruction improvement in 2016-17, Conway said. Bulletin 140 proposes rewarding and recognizing excellence and improvement.

The department wants to “keep the bar high” for sites and networks. Officials want to recognize sites by creating a public honor roll for excellent-rated providers. In addition, networks will be recognized for “top gains” on their performance profiles.

The bulletin also proposes future consequences for low-performing sites. If a site scores below 3 overall on the CLASS evaluation, approval or funding could be at risk.

Sites will have two years to improve their unsatisfactory rating. If the site earns an unsatisfactory rating for two years in a three-year period, it will lose academic approval and public funding.

The two-year timeline will start this fall. A loss of funding takes effect no earlier than July 1, 2019.

Final evaluation scores will be available to the public in August, Louisiana Department of Education Program Consultant Kaye Eichler said.

There are currently 1,600 students statewide in a Head Start program, Conway said. And 65,000 children across the state are at-risk.

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