Greeting from GatewaysVoices from the FieldLilian Katz: ReflectionsThe Big Picture in IllinoisNew Gateways ResourcesCurrent IssueTell a FriendSubscribe to Inside GatewaysPast IssuesGateways HomeInside Gateways Newsletter—Spring 2012
Greeting from Gateways
Greetings and welcome to the spring edition of Inside Gateways, the Gateways to Opportunity quarterly e-newsletter! It’s spring, and we are already overwhelmed with rampant election messaging as well as discourse over our upcoming Illinois FY13 state budget. The potential impact of our fiscal spending and of the multitude of budget decisions underway in Illinois is enormous and will ultimately affect everyone in our state. At every turn, data are used to support various positions. It is imperative that we are informed of data sources in order to talk knowledgeably about the impact that various decisions may have on children and families in our state. In newspapers and on radio and TV, there is a bewildering array of frequently opposing information. However, one area of general consensus is that investments in early childhood pay off. We are fortunate that in our work with children and families it is generally recognized and accepted that investing in high-quality early childhood programs for children saves us money in the future. We are also fortunate that, both at a federal and state level, there is strong support for early childhood education. In this issue of Inside Gateways, learn more about key data and information that are readily available to each and every one of us. The Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (IECAM) provides Web-based access to a huge variety of data sets in an easily understood format. IECAM benefits all early childhood practitioners, and it can provide aggregate or geographic specific data across a broad range of variables for early care and education. If you haven’t already obtained a copy of Investing in Opportunities for Children—Now, the Voices for Illinois Children annual Illinois Kids Count data report, be sure and get a copy! This fascinating and easy-to-read collection of data is a must-read to learn about gains and losses for children and families in the areas of education, health, and economic well-being. The Gateways to Opportunity Registry is an important tool and resource for collecting workforce data. Information about our workforce can inform policies developed and promoted by key advocacy agencies, including Illinois Action for Children (IAFC). Voices, the Ounce, and IAFC track legislation and use data to promote policies that support children, families, and our workforce. Consistent and clear messaging is critical during challenging economic times. We must all utilize early care and education data to better inform our legislators, the parents and families we serve, friends, and colleagues. Children cannot speak out for themselves—we must do it for them. Data can paint a picture of where we are, whether we are making improvements overall, or whether we are showing a loss. Become familiar with the array of data and information that is readily available—use it to promote consistent and clear messaging in our state. The future of Illinois depends on investments made today to support children. Thank you for your work on behalf of children and families in Illinois.
Joni Scritchlow and Voices from the FieldThis issue of Inside Gateways shares three perspectives on the role of data in shaping the early care and education and school-age and youth landscape in our state. We spoke with Joan Vitale from Voices for Illinois Children, Joellyn Whitehead from the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, and Christine Robinson and Choua Vue from Illinois Action for Children. Joan Vitale In today’s economic climate, public and private funders want to see the bottom line return of their investments in dollars and cents. We must continue to work on new and better ways to communicate our message that the future well-being of everyone in Illinois depends on investing in children today. Inside Gateways (IG) talked to Joan Vitale (JV) at Voices for Illinois Children about their use of data to influence early care and education public policy in Illinois. Joan, Director of Special Initiatives at Voices, co-chairs the Early Learning Council’s Public Awareness Committee.
JV: Accurate data can provide a comprehensive view of children’s issues. In order for data to have an impact on funding and policy issues, they need to be promoted in multiple ways. At Voices, we take a multipronged approach to promoting our annual Illinois Kids Count data books. We promote the book through a statewide media launch. We engage our network of community leaders to host local press release events of Illinois Kids Count to highlight data relevant to their county and district. We then hold an Illinois Kids Count Symposium and Business Luncheon as a follow-up to the report’s release. This year’s Illinois Kids Count data book assesses the gains and setbacks for children and families in education, health and development, economic well-being, and other key areas. The panel of statewide experts at this year’s symposium included the president and CEO of Metropolitan Family Services, the president of Heartland Alliance, and the president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League. The speaker at the symposium’s business luncheon was James Heckman, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, who talked about how we can strengthen our economy with smart investments. This is an effective formula for us—annual publication of Illinois Kids Count, local press releases around the report, and a symposium discussion of the report’s implications. Joellyn Whitehead The interplay between staff education, training, and program quality is multifaceted. The Registry data will provide insights into that complex puzzle.
IG: In the spring 2011 issue of this newsletter and the fall 2009 issue, we discussed the growth of the Gateways Registry in Illinois and its benefits to practitioners and to trainers. In this issue, we’d like you to focus on the Registry’s use of aggregate data to inform child care policy in our state and nation. Describe the kinds of aggregate data that Registries make possible. Illinois Actions for Children
In addition to the quantitative data, we do a variety of surveys that are often neighborhood specific. For example, we have conducted a door-to-door survey in collaboration with COFI (Community Organizing and Family Issues) targeting the north Lawndale neighborhood in Chicago, where we knew many 3- and 4-year-old children lived but were not attending child care settings. We wanted to find out where children were if they weren’t in child care centers, Head Start, or Preschool for All programs and why. Through our work, we have been able to focus on policy and program barriers that families face in accessing high-quality early care and education. We try to connect our data and research to our policy work so that the numbers tell a story and support our policy goals. For example, we have one-page community profiles that provide a data snapshot of what early care and education looks like by legislative district. The community profiles describe the demographics of children and families in each legislative district, the formal and informal child care options available, the cost of various kinds of care, and the number of families in that legislative district receiving child care assistance or being served by Head Start or the state-funded Preschool for All program. IG: Your Child Care Works Campaign (CCWC) is an effort to talk about child care economic impacts. Describe how it got started. CR/CV: The CCWC was inspired by the director of Eyes on the Future, a child care center in Chicago. The director wanted to find a way to communicate to her legislators how her center contributed to the local economy. IAFC created a tool reflecting her ideas to give more child care providers a clear way to convey to others how child care helps the economy—how many parents are able to work or go to school as a result of a particular center or family child care program, how much income is generated by those families as well as by the employees of the child care program, and how many taxes are paid to local, state, and federal governments as a result of individual child care programs. All the CCWC data provided to IAFC is kept confidential and is only used to develop the final economic impact tool. IG: What impact has the CCWC had so far? Have there been any unexpected outcomes? CR/CV: Many child care professionals are accustomed to talking about the impact of high-quality child care on children’s development, but they haven’t had the language to talk about the economic impact of child care. The CCWC gives them the specific language and tools to talk about the economic impact of their business. Providers tell us that they find it very rewarding to talk about the economics of their business with the families in their care, with board members and funders, as well as with their legislators. It instills a sense of pride in their profession. This seems particularly true for family child care providers. We encourage more center and family child care providers to participate in the CCWC so we can tell the broadest possible economic impact story. The governor released his budget proposal on February 22, 2012, and has promised significant budget cuts in programs and services to address our state’s serious budget deficit. Our challenge in the coming months is to use our data to tell a compelling story and to demonstrate that cuts to child care and PreK will hurt children, families, and our economy. We are fortunate in Illinois to have several sources of useful data—Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (discussed elsewhere in this issue), Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, and the Illinois Department of Human Services—to complement the data that we collect at Illinois Action for Children.
Lilian Katz: Reflections
This issue of Inside Gateways focuses on the role of data in shaping the early care and education field. My reflections incorporate data from research about the benefits of mixed-age grouping in early childhood program settings. Observations and discussion with the directors and managers of the preschools reminded me of the important potential benefits of mixed-age grouping, especially for those children who have no experience of either younger or older siblings. Research indicates several advantages of mixed-age grouping during the preschool years to children's social and intellectual development, as well as to the adults who care for them and teach them. Research indicates that children associate different expectations by age very early. Preschoolers will even modify their behavior when trying to comfort a baby versus trying to comfort a same-age peer. Even a 3-year-old assigns different attributes and behavior to a picture of a younger child than a picture of an older child. By about the age of four, children themselves feel pressure to match their same-age peers in many behaviors and abilities. Needless to say, this pressure often gives rise to strong competitive behaviors and early forms of one-upmanship! Many parents mistakenly believe that mixing the ages only benefits the youngest children. However, the benefits go both ways. For example, in mixed-age groups, older children more often exhibit leadership than the very same children show when they are among their same-age peers. Indeed, many older children who are not confident leaders in their own age group seem to feel less threatened and more confident in their leadership abilities when attempting to be leaders in mixed-age groups. They also engage in more help-giving, explaining, sharing, and teaching behaviors, and they show greater sensitivity to the complexities of group processes in an age-mixed environment. These are useful life skills to begin to develop. Furthermore, in the mix, older children often facilitate the efforts of others rather than try to outdo or sometimes even thwart them! Here in the mixed-age context, they are providing models of positive social behavior that the next generation will be able to apply when their turn to be the elders comes. In some cases, older children who have difficulty in regulating their own behavior improve when encouraged to help younger ones observe the rules of the group. Once teachers or caregivers ask such children to remind the younger ones about the rules, the older children seem to be better able to do so themselves. Of course, the caregivers and teachers may have to stay close by to help the older children resist the temptation to become heavy-handed sanctimonious law enforcers! Children who are socially less mature than their own age-mates are less often rebuffed by the younger ones in the mixed-age group than by their peers in a same-age group. In this way, when the ages are mixed, these timid older ones have opportunities to practice and polish social skills with younger ones and thereby learn to use them with the greater confidence required for competent interaction with their own age mates. Benefits to the Younger Children In mixed-age groups, older children are encouraged and expected to help the younger ones. Younger children who are assisted by older ones will do the same in their turn when they are the seniors. Such early nurturing behaviors can and should be encouraged in preschools, not only because it is good for children in need of comfort and assistance, but also because it provides a model that the young recipients will use themselves. These help-giving and nurturing behaviors are life skills. Indeed, they are early forms of parent education! All through the growing years, children should have genuine opportunities to be nurturant and helpful to those around them who may need it. The Big Picture in IllinoisDawn Thomas, Associate Director of the Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting and IECAM Project Coordinator, discusses the kinds of and uses for early care and education demographic data provided by the Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (IECAM) project. Dawn Thomas The Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (IECAM) is a Web-based tool that provides users with a comprehensive picture of early care and education services in Illinois. IECAM was created in 2006 at the request of the Illinois Early Learning Council and is jointly funded by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). By combining up-to-date demographic information with early childhood program information from state agencies, Head Start, and private-sector child care, IECAM users are able to find data that can be useful in developing community needs assessments, grant request proposals, and other types of reports or press releases. IECAM users include Head Start directors, child care and Preschool for All (PFA) administrators, staff from regional Child Care Resource & Referral agencies, advocacy organizations, policy makers, legislators, and the general public. Although the vast majority of users come from Illinois, IECAM statistics show that a small percentage of users come from other states in the United States, Canada, Japan, and China. IECAM is intended (1) to assist policy makers in allocating resources for early care and education programs to areas where they are most needed, (2) to make public resource allocation transparent by showing the changes in funding of services from year to year, and (3) to provide a one-stop source for early care and education data gathered from multiple agencies in Illinois. This is accomplished by providing information on the capacity of existing services and the demographic characteristics of young children and their families in various geographic regions or units (e.g., counties, municipalities, legislative districts) of the state.
New Gateways ResourcesThe following resource links have been added to the Web site since the last issue of Inside Gateways. For other resources, go to www.ilgateways.com/en/resource-links. Advocacy Links Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
A Tool Using Data to Inform a State Early Childhood Agenda
Early Childhood, School-Age, and Youth Development Initiatives Links 21st Century Community Learning Centers Federal Afterschool Initiative
Research Centers Illinois Early Intervention Clearinghouse
Research Reports America’s Children, America’s Challenge: Promoting Opportunity for the Next Generation Building an Early Childhood Professional Development System Child Care: Like the Military, Is It Time for Shared Responsibility? Evaluation of the 40-Hour Initial Pre-Service Training for Entry-Level Child Care Providers Instructional Coaching: Helping Preschool Teachers Reach Their Full Potential Preventing Childhood Obesity in Early Care and Education Programs Reaching Families Where They Live: Supporting Parents and Child Development through Home Visiting |
Inside Gateways (IG) talked to Joellyn Whitehead (JW), Data and Research Director at the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (INCCRRA), about the uses of the data collected by the 
Inside Gateways (IG) talked to two staff members at 
Accurate and timely early care and education data are necessary for decision makers in the state to be able to make funding and programming decisions for young children. IECAM provides a wealth of data that can be used to guide planning services for all young children and their families in Illinois.