Interesting post on the ECERS. The entire study will be in the Library at Montessori Forward.

You might also want to take a look at The Montessori Guide to the ECERS-R. This guide was created by volunteers at Montessori Forward for you to use as you advocate for a more accurate assessment of Montessori environments. It is meant as a supplement to the manual used by ECERS-R raters to help them observe the ways in which a high quality Montessori environment meets the goal of an ECERS-R standard but might differ in specifics. This teaches those who are not familiar with a Montessori environment what to look for.

For more information for its use in your advocacy work, please contact us at montforward@gmail.com.

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Study: Preschool Evaluation Tool Does Not Track With Child Outcomes

By Christina Samuels on April 30, 2014 3:00 PM

The Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised, an assessment of preschool quality that is a common factor in the quality rating and improvement scales in place in many states, has little connection to the academic, language, and social functioning of children evaluated at age 5, according to a study published in the spring 2014 edition of the journalEducation Finance and Quality. 

In addition, children with more exposure to risk factors also didn't appear to derive any academic or behavioral benefit from centers that earned higher ratings under the ECERS-R, the study says.

The ECERS-R currently consists of 43 evaluated elements which are divided into seven subcategories, such as "space and furnishings," "personal care routines" and "language-reasoning." A score of 1 is considered to be inadequate quality, 3 is minimal quality, 5 is good quality, and 7, the top of the scale, is excellent quality.

In the study, the researchers used data collected through the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study by the National Center for Education Statistics. About 800 children were a part of the study, and trained observers evaluated the quality of their preschool programs using the ECERS-R tool. The paper's findings were that children, including children deemed to be at-risk, failed to benefit more from preschool programs deemed to meet medium or high levels of quality compared those that were low quality.

This finding is important because scores on the ECERS-R are a major part of the QRIS programs, which generally give preschools star ratings based on the combination of several measures of quality. An earlier study published by the same research team found that QRIS star ratings also don't appear to relate to children's academic and social skills. 

Terri J. Sabol, a postdoctoral fellow at Institute for Policy Research  at Northwestern University and the lead author of this study, said in an interview with Education Week  that the assessment may be useful in ensuring that centers meet a certain baseline level of quality—indeed, studies of the ECERS-R tool conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s found a positive relationship between children's development and high ratings on the scale, and the scale may have been essential in prompting programs to meet certain levels of structural quality, the study suggests.

But now that preschool centers are mostly meeting the broad standards that the ECERS-R looks for, it may be necessary to develop a more finely-grained tool, Sabol said. "Maybe we need more nuanced measures of quality."

 

This is from ED. Week and specifically explores Mission Statements of Independent Schools. However, as we organize groups, both formal and informal, for advocacy at the state and national level, thinking about a mission statement that really says who we are and what we plan to do can be a guide to us as much as a message to the world.

Montessori Forward

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Independent School Mission Statements and Missions

By Peter Gow on July 18, 2014 9:21 AM | No comments

In a few past posts here I've touched on the role of mission statements in guiding each independent school along its paths toward doing whatever it purports to do. Remembering that an independent school is by definition a self-governing institution operating outside the formal "control" of a higher body (say, a diocese or a religious province or even another non-profit entity), the need for some kind of pole star or driving impetus is critical if the school is to have any coherence in its purposes, its programs, and its culture.

Although the formal acknowledgment of mission in a concise statement is a product of the last half century, accrediting bodies were quick to focus on the mission statement as the central element of the school accrediting process. For many years this process was largely a close study, first by the school and then by a visiting team, of how and how fully a school was enacting or implementing or carrying out its mission, supplemented by some questions around basic operational issues like financial sustainability, compliance, and safety.

This process led to a kind of enshrinement of the mission statement creation process, in which schools struggled to capture in a paragraph or so the essence of their being and purpose. Schools could agonize over the process, with committees, consultants, and resident wordsmiths racking up hours (billable, from the consultants' perspective) as they struggled to get a mission statement that was "just so." Cheerleading from the business world, whose boom mission years were those following the publication of mission-lover Jim Collins's Good to Great (and its step-child, Good to Great and the Social Sectors), turned mission-writing into an art form, somewhere between haiku and sonnet.

As an art form, the mission statement had its dangers. As short-form poetry gave birth to the dirty limerick, mission statements became highly susceptible to both parody and banality. My favorite parody at the moment comes from Maria Semple's brilliant dissection of independent school parent culture, Where'd You Go, Bernadette (Little, Bown, 2012), in which the mission of the "Galer Street School" is this: 

Galer Street School is a place where compassion, academics, and global connectitude join together to create civic-minded citizens of a sustainable and diverse planet.

As one character notes, this is a school that doesn't just think outside the box--its leaders "think outside the dictionary." Alas, dropped into a compendium of real mission statements, Galer Street's might not immediately stand out as bogus.

In a part of my life I get to talk to schools and school people about things to do with telling their own story, and my work usually begins by looking at a school's mission statement. Some are quite compelling: specific, realistic, and concise without being reductive. Others, however, stray into territory marked out in this generic statement aggregated by Lauren Hasten for a 2009 article forIndependent School magazine: 

Our school provides a supportive community while encouraging individuality, nurtures the spirit while challenging the intellect, and inspires a lifelong love of learning while teaching respect, responsibility, compassion, and an appreciation of diversity.

Like many real statements, this one leaves no cliché unturned and is almost unassailably true for so many schools--independent, public, religious, charter, and possibly even "home"--as to be virtually useless as a way to understand what a school using it might actually be like.

The essence of a mission statement is of course to communicate a school's mission, but in reality looking at mission in the broadest sense is a much more useful way for schools and outsiders to evaluate the degree to which a school is doing what is claims to be doing. "Mission" finds expression in such areas as
* values and vision statements
* strategic thinking, priorities, and directions
* rules and policies for students, employees, and families
* the structure of the academic and extracurricular programs
* expressions of "moral culture," including programs in "character" and "life-skills" education
* systems of rewards and recognition

A challenge for any school, of course, is to both know and understand its mission beyond just the simple mission statement. The greater and most essential challenge, however, is to live and communicate that mission fully--to make, if you will, the Venn diagram of a school's "mission" and "experience" a perfect circle. For most schools in any sector, however, the diagram will represent some areas of non-overlap; these are the areas the school must work on.

Independently developed and individually expressed missions are at the core of the independent school milieu, and with this freedom comes, as I have tried to stress in this space, a responsibility to enact to our missions in ways that represent some positive social good that offsets, or compensates for, the other privileges regarding taxation and regulation that have been granted to independent schools. One might say this responsibility begins at the top, at the school governance level, but it extends right through the administration, faculty, staff and even to students and parents. This is a tremendous obligation, but there are plenty of schools that understand and work hard to live up to it, both in the work they do on their campuses and in their posture in the community. They understand that a school's mission is more than just a bunch of lovely words.

News and Updates for the Montessori Community

Some interesting news to share with you~

OHIO HBG 487 includes two provisions of great impact on the Montessori community. First, this legislation provides for enrollment of students under the age of 5 in Montessori charter schools. This allows for the full three year age cycle in the Montessori primary classrooms.
Secondly, this legislation provides an alternative path for obtaining a state teaching license for those who hold an AMS* or AMI teacher credential. A Montessori credentialed teacher can now apply for a state license, at the age span of credential, and can, therefore, teach in a public Montessori school.
The passage of this bill is thanks to the ongoing work and effort of NAMTA and AVANTI. It helps to set the ever important precedent as we move forward on similar initiatives in other states.
* note that all AMS Teacher Education Programs are accredited by MACTE.

The Pacific Northwest Montessori Association advocacy action has resulted in the Washington State Department of Early Learning (DEL) defining "early childhood" to include children six years of age. From the DEL- "This is so that child care programs can have greater flexibility in grouping children near the cutoff between preschool age and school-age.
This, therefore, provides for the full 3 year age span in Montessori primary programs in the state.
Congratulations PN Montessori Association.

Following a nation wide trend, the state of Washington has just announced that by 2015, all pre-K programs wanting to receive public funding to serve children, will be required to participate in QRIS.
Illinois has recently decided that ALL early child care programs in the state, private and public, will be required to participate in that state's QRIS. These two states follow in the footsteps of KY which requires participation by all programs.
Many states and cities with universal pre-K programs are requiring participation in QRIS if programs want to apply for public funds. Another trend we are seeing, which means that all of this has a greater impact on the Montessori community, is that of increasing the income limit for children to receive free pre-school. One program already offering free preschool to all families, regardless of income, is the Universal preschool program to begin this September in NYC.
It will be more and more difficult for private Montessori schools to ignore these trends.

Illinois- in addition to making QRIS mandatory, there are several other changes taking place in IL. The Gateways Professional Registry is evaluating specific competencies to determine teacher education and experience levels on the career lattice; a mandatory statewide assessment of kindergarten students- The Kindergarten Individual Development survey- will be instituted; early childhood programs are being studied for their validity in meeting the state's QRIS standards; and to ensure maximum coordination of departments, Inter agency Project Teams, between the Office of Early Childhood Development and the Office of the Governor, will focus on implementation, workforce development, community collaboration, and data and outcomes.
What makes IL particularly important is that it serves as a model and mentor for several other states.

A recent meeting sponsored by the Department of Early Learning in Washington was held to review the state's use of its Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant. This meeting was attended by representatives from Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. A Forum within this meeting focused on the integration of IDEA- part C, the federal legislation guaranteeing service for special needs children, within early childhood education programs and the need to have partnerships with local agencies and schools to build a coordinated approach to service.
The trend to require appropriate education and services to young children with learning differences will impact all early childhood programs and the requirements of staff working with those children.

Yet another trend we are seeing in Early Childhood Education is the importance of serving children 0-3. The most recent recipients of RTT ELC grants ( GA, KY, MI, NJ, PA, and VT) all included infants and toddler programs and dollars in their applications. Not only is money being made available to serve the youngest of children, but early learning guidelines, as well as requirements for education and experience for the "workforce" are resulting in mandated professional development. Another public initiative that will impact Montessori programs.

At the Federal level, both the House and Senate Committees on Education are putting in last minute work before the 5 week recess beginning at the end of the month. The Higher Education Act will provide funds for states to rank their teacher education programs (university, college, and free standing, including Montessori TEP's) on several criteria such as measures of teacher impact on student learning, employer evaluations, self identified assessment of preparedness for competence in the classroom, number of teachers still working after 3 years, and the number of teachers in full time positions. This data will be used to determine the quality of a teacher education program. Programs not scoring well will be required to institute an improvement plan to be monitored by the state. The Post Secondary Institution Ranting System- PIRS- will be created and monitored by the USDOE.

We have posted some recent research studies in the Montessori Forward Library, including an evaluation of the ECERS-R titled Do Standard Measures of Preschool Quality Used in Statewide Policy Predict School Readiness. Senior authors are Terri Sabol and Robert Pianta. The study appeared in Education Finance and Policy in the Spring 2014, vol.9, no. 2 , pages 116-164 issue.

And finally, a quote that we like-

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not" Dr. Seuss

Let us hear from you in your comments, and the List Serve. It's time to build our community so please invite your colleagues to take a look.

Organizing for Change: Lessons Learned Part three

Go Sow To Get Fast: There is part of us that wants to see change happen QUICKLY! so we
are eager to “get down to business”. However, investing time and energy to make sure the entire
group is looking at the same thing (problem) in the same way (all perspectives are expressed and
understood) by (1) making all information explicit, (2) giving as much attention to the process as as
the content, and (3) fostering a “win-win”, “both-and” culture, can embed ownership and
alignment within the process, ultimately making the group more coherent and effective. [The
Collaborative Operating System]

Create a Community of "Fearless Leaders": To accomplish something we have never done
before, requires us to travel through “the land just beyond proficiency”. Whether it is struggling
with a camera during a video conference, having difficulty accessing Google docs, or stretching
ourselves to stay engaged in a conversation that feels threatening, we will need to grapple with
feelings of incompetence, frustration, and vulnerability. Anticipating the learning curve
normalizes and depersonalizes the awkwardness. Establishing a culture where learning is
supported and mistakes are embraced will nurture personal and collective growth, as well as
group cohesion.

Define Who "We" Are: In her book, Children Who are Not Yet Peaceful, Donna Bryant Goertz
illustrates the healing power of inclusion. The mindfulness community considers
loving kindness/compassion to be a skill set we can develop by reflecting on: What are we paying
attention to? Whom are we paying attention to? Whom becomes the other? Whom do we
ignore? By observing and being aware, we train our attention to include or exclude.
Improving our ability to monitor our attention gives us the potential to harness the healing power
of inclusion.

Leverage the Power of Systems Thinking: Dr. Montessori understood systems! (The power of
Montessori education lies in its totality and interrelationships; it can never be replicated by
piecemeal copying because the synergy of Montessori education is created by the way all the
parts work together.) Montessorians can leverage the power of systems to shift our community
from fragmentation to cohesion (until we do, time and energy shortages will remain one of the
greatest obstacles to collaborative work), anticipate “delays” (collective work to promote public
awareness and affect policy will ultimately lighten our individual loads, but there will be a time
lag between these actions and their consequences, which, unrecognized, might lead to
discouragement), and harness Collective Impact to create a unified voice for policy change.
[The Fifth Discipline]

Welcome Chaos: Today’s rate and scale of change, and degree of complexity, require more
innovative, adaptive, and self-regulating systems. There are many organizational tools and
structures that harness the group’s dynamic capacity to self-organize (a concept that has many
parallels to the child’s drive to self-construct), including Dynamic Governance/Sociocracy,
Open Space Technology, World Cafe, and Appreciative Inquiry; by inviting in chaos (in the sense
of “having many possibilities”) they allow innovative solutions to emerge. [Mapping Dialogue]

Tomorrow's entrry will bring this thoughtful article full circle.

Organizing for Change: Lessons Learned Part Two

Enjoy part two of this article on Organizing by Laureen Golden, M.Ed.

Anticipate Crucial Conversations: A Montessorian’s task to “aid life” touches on the sacred.
So although diversity can increase a group’s intelligence, when it comes to the ideas we care
most deeply about, diverse opinions can feel profoundly threatening and trigger our “fight or
flight” response, causing us to respond with violence (by attacking each other’s ideas and
feelings), or silence (disengaging from the conversation). By anticipating crucial conversations
as part of our process, we can better prepare ourselves, and effectively manage these moments.
[Crucial Conversations]


Prioritize a Need for Safety: How can groups leverage the power of diversity, even
when the stakes are high and emotions are running strong? Monitoring feelings of safety enables
us to recognize when we are in the midst of a crucial conversation. In “real time”, we can make
“repair attempts”, by letting the other person know we care about his/her best interests and goals
(mutual purpose), and that we care about him/her (mutual respect), thereby reestablishing safety
so collaborative work can continue. [Crucial Conversations]

Invest in Building a "Pool of Shared Meaning": When ideas, feelings, and opinions are openly
shared, a group develops a “pool of shared meaning”. The more information that is in that
pool, the better decisions the group can make. Developing a rich pool of shared meaning
requires an investment of time, but it ultimately serves the group’s effectiveness and efficiency,
by helping us move beyond “your way” and “my way” so that we can discover “our way”.
[Crucial Conversations]

To be continued tomorrow.

Organizing for Change: Lessons Learned Part 1

Humanity is grappling with the limits and potentially dire consequence of our current model of competition, conquest and consumption, and desperately needs an alternative vision. Dr. Montessori provided a vision for a global community and a peaceful world, as well as a method to bring this vision to fruition! What remains for us, is to organize our community and cultivate the unified cooperation required to bring this transforming education into the lives of more children!


Organizing for Change: Lessons Learned

by Laureen Golden, MEd, LISW
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
~African Proverb
Working together is indeed powerful ... but it can also be quite difficult, especially when we consider the
complexity of the problems we seek to address, and the diversity within our community. Our ability to aid
life and transform society hinges on our ability to stay cohesive despite these challenges. When working
together to create change, it is helpful to:
Tap our Collective Intelligence: A group can be amazingly intelligent -- smarter than its
smartest members -- IF we maintain:
*Diversity (of opinion, perspective, knowledge, experience, and resources),
*Independence in thinking (ensuring that no one is dominating others), and
*Decentralization (leveraging tacit knowledge), and
*Aggregation (mechanism for turning private judgments into collective decisions).


[The Wisdom of Crowds]

This is part one of an excellent article on organizations and how they can function. Look for part two tomorrow.

Essential Elements of High Quality Montessori Education

Members of the Montessori Forward List serve group have recently been sharing thoughts and ideas about just what are the essential elements of high quality Montessori education. We would like to thank Marci Martindale from CT for sharing a document on Essential Standards. (The CT version can be found at Montessori Foward under the resources tab).

The original, from which the Montessori Schools of CT. worked, was chaired by Betsy Coe in collaboration, and agreement, with AMS, AMS, NAMTA, MEPI, and the Southwestern Training Center. Does anyone know when it was completed?

In condensed form, here it is:

• A Montessori credentialed teacher in every classroom
• A Montessori credentialed administrator
• The full compliment of Montessori materials
• A 2-3 hour uninterrupted work cycle
• Multi-age grouping with an, ideally, 3 year age span
• A school that, ideally, starts at the Early Childhood level
• Assessments that are congruent with best Montessori practice
• All staff participate in ongoing professional development

In the current public policy clamor for accountability, many of these Montessori Essential Elements components are required of all early childhood education programs, albeit without the Montessori philosophy behind them.

Most state QRIS and all proposed federal and state initiatives and proposed legislation have a teacher education requirement as a measure of quality. The requirement of a bachelor's degree in early childhood is more and more becoming the norm. Teachers have to register through the Career Lattice and/or Professional Registry which gives them a rating based on education level, years of experience, and professional development (often state course mandated). These scores are counted towards a QRIS rating.

All state QRIS and most federal, state and city initiatives and proposed legislation have requirements for program administrators.

All state QRIS and most federal and state initiatives and proposed legislation have requirements that curriculum align with Early Learning Standards, and have specific materials in the ECE classroom.

All state QRIS have specific assessment tools to determine quality in the environment, of the staff, and program components such as parent communications, cultural diversity and working with special needs students.

We all know the emphasis being placed on early childhood education through Universal Pre-K, Pre-School for all, and many other initiatives and grants. A recent Gallup poll (June 13, 2014) determined that 65% of those polled support passing new legislation providing access to high quality pre-school to every child in America.

These are initiatives that are not going away. Accountability is not going away. More and more states are mandating accountability through QRIS and publishing rating results to the public. Public funds are being made available to all levels of families for their children to attend pre-school.

As a Montessori community, shouldn't it be up to us to define what quality Montessori education looks like? We need to have our teacher credentials recognized as high quality and not simply equal to a CDA. We need to define what materials are in our classrooms and have a rationale so that we can educate parents, decision makers, policy implementer s and policy  makers. We need to support multi-age groupings at a ratio and maximum group size that we know benefits children. We need to "translate" what we do so that when our classrooms and programs are rated, it will be understood why we do what we do. The Montessori ECE curriculum should be recognized as high quality in every state.

We can move this discussion forward. We can invite our colleagues from across the country to join in (there are currently 22 state groups with no voice on this website). Let's agree that we can talk about our similarities and our differences with grace and courtesy. But let's start the conversation. Comment here or better yet, join in the Montessori Forward List serve.

Montessori Forward