Preparing All Kids for the Race

Building Preschool Children’s Academic, Language, and Social Competencies to Close the Achievement Gap

Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants include invitational priorities for early education. While research shows that investments in the early years of children’s lives make a tremendous difference in their educational outcomes, recent Head Start studies raise concerns about the lasting impact. Can quality early education—brought to scale—close the achievement gap before children enter kindergarten?

The District of Columbia provides universal access to pre-Kindergarten. AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation and four District of Columbia Public Charter Schools comprise the DC Partnership for Early Literacy. The Partnership’s goal is to close the achievement gap before children enter kindergarten and it serves young children in some of the nation’s most at-risk neighborhoods through a differentiated language and early literacy response to intervention program delivered in the context of nurturing, engaging and playful classrooms.

Dr. Craig Ramey, will report on the “impressive and statistically significant gains in language, pre-literacy skills, and pre-mathematics skills with effect sizes in the range of .24 to .80, well above that normally seen in education research.”

Craig T. Ramey, PhD, serves as external evaluator of the DC Partnership for Early Literacy. Dr. Ramey is the Director of the Center for Health and Education at Georgetown University. He specializes in the study of factors affecting young children’s development of intelligence, social competence and academic achievement. Over the past 30 years, he and Sharon Ramey have conducted research involving 14,000 children and families in 40 states. Dr. Ramey is the author of more than 225 publications.

UPDATED LOCATION:
Edison Electric Institute
701 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20004-2696

TIME:
11:30 am to 1:30 pm.
Buffet lunch will be served.

Please register for this event by 12:00 noon on April 30th at:
http://www.appletreeinstitute.org/register-20100428