Gathering the Experts
April 2012
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving partnered with the Connecticut Mirror to sponsor an education forum on Thursday, March 8 that focused on the role early childhood development education plays on ensuring a child’s long-term academic success.
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| Dr. Sharon Lynn Kagan of Teachers College, Columbia University, discusses the importance of creating a high-quality early childhood education system. |
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| Dr. Barbara Willer of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, talks about the benefits of and how to engage parents in creating a high-quality early childhood education system. |
This forum was the first of the Connecticut Mirror’s four-part series focusing on education issues. The Connecticut Mirror is holding these events in an effort to influence civic life by highlighting some of the most pressing issues of the day and bring together the smartest, most creative people to discuss them. A capacity audience of 150 nonprofit leaders, academics and policymakers attended “Early Childhood Education: Connecticut’s Future” at the Lyceum in Hartford.
Prior to the forum, the Hartford Foundation hosted a luncheon at the Firebox at Billings Forge restaurant in Hartford. The attendees included the five featured speakers at the CT Mirror’s forum and a group of 25 state, municipal and academic representatives active in the field of early childhood education.
For the past two decades, the Hartford Foundation’s Brighter Futures Initiative has worked to develop a comprehensive model of support services to assure school readiness and early academic success for Hartford children and their families. The Hartford Foundation’s strategic plan, Accelerate Success, builds on the early childhood systems work of Brighter Futures, integrating it into a holistic plan to help close the achievement gap and prepare Connecticut’s residents for the workforce.
The luncheon was a part of the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to foster a local dialogue to highlight this issue and inform its work in early child development and education.
At the forum, Governor Malloy welcomed those in attendance and briefly discussed the important role of early childhood education as a part of his education agenda. The event featured presentations from national and state experts on early childhood education issues including:
Dr. Sharon Lynn Kagan, professor of early childhood and family policy and co-director of the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University;
Dr. Barbara Willer, deputy executive director, National Association for the Education of Young Children;
Dr. Fred Carstensen, UConn professor and director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis;
Dr. Ellen Frede, former assistant to the Commissioner for Early Childhood Education at the New Jersey Department of Education responsible for implementing the nationally-recognized Abbott preschool program;
Irene Garneau, instructional coach at the Wintonbury Early Childhood Magnet School, a premiere early childhood education program in Bloomfield, CT.
The key topics discussed included the qualities of a successful early childhood education, the positive economic impact of investments in quality early childhood education programs, New Jersey’s experience in developing a court-ordered universal preschool program, the value of rich language and “purposeful” play in early childhood education, and the role of accreditation to train and support early childhood educators.
For more information about the issues discussed at the Forum, visit: http://www.ctmirror.org/education/early-childhood-education.
And, the entire forum is on CT-N @ http://ct-n.com/ondemand.asp?ID=7548.