Our Future

   The resources of this week in the Walden University EDU-6162-1, Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Development class, reminded me how important education is not matter what age we are. I also have a Masters in Adult Education and I am very passionate about learners of all ages. Long standing educational gaps and low high school graduation rates was the issue that stood out the most for me because this issue will effect the growth of all economies and lead to not enough qualified workers to run the countries. This is why high-quality, early education is important for children birth to five years of age. On the United States Department of Labor website it stated that the future of unskilled workers depends largely on the education system and the government to provide supplementation to help low-skilled workers and their families http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/futurework/conference/trends/trendsVII.htm.  

   Qualified teachers are an essential component to all preschool programs. Children who are educated by teachers with higher educations in related fields of child development are more sociable, exhibit better language, and perform at a higher level on cognitive tasks than children who are not (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001). Quality education not only takes qualified teachers, it also takes much needed funds to support the programs.

   Another good resource I found was The National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force brings together leading experts in child development, early education, and state police to help states develop tools to measure, assess and set standards to help improve early education (PEW Charitable Trusts Programs http://www.pewtrusts.org/news). The benefits to the Task Force’s recommendations’ are that any state can use this to guide them to create an effective accountability and improvement system. The Task Force aims to help the states overcome the challenges they might face and effectively confront the issues. Some of the issues that might be a challenge are developing new approaches to assess children and programs and improve early childhood services because of structural, conceptual and technical challenges (National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force, 2007).

     There are many resources available to the people that want to learn and research how important education is and how we go about using the knowledge to help others. I feel the common denominator is we all seek to help children, learn, grow in all ways, live healthy, physically and mentally, and most important become productive members of our society. To do this, we as educators need all the help available to obtain this ambition.

Resources

Bowman, Barbara T.; Donovan, M. Suzanne; & Burns, M. Susan (Eds.). (2001). Eager to learn: Educating our preschoolers. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. ED 447 963

Programs at a glance: The National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force, PEW Charitable Trusts. Retrieved on June 18, 2012,  http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=23460