The Norwich Bulletin highlights the plight of one high school dropout from Griswold. Griswold is one of four Eastern Connecticut towns invited to the Governor's Summitt for Drop Out Prevention, where the top 22 towns with the highest cumulative averages of dropouts in Connecticut were invited to attend. Griswold reported a cumulative drop out rate of 15.8% over four years of high school in 2007-08, more than double the state average of 6.6%. The article also quotes a report by Northeastern University that finds high school dropouts are more likely to end up poor, unemployed or jailed.  

A study financed by the US Department of Education and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found that the 398 low-income children picked from 47 preschool centers in New York City and San Francisco, on average made significant gains in acquiring skills such as naming letters, knowing the sounds associated with those letters, and understanding concepts about stories and printed words. The study compares the children’s performance with that of preschoolers taking part in a technology-supported science curriculum. Each set of children received 25 hours of activities over 10 weeks. The study looked at a technology-supported literacy curriculum and also included online games which targeted some of the same literacy skills. These shows included Super Why!, Sesame Street and Between the Lions. The online games were produced by the same producers that put the TV shows together.

Teaching Strategies is conducing field testing on an innovative, seamless, birth-to-6 early childhood assessment system designed to measure those aspects of child development and learning most predictive of later school success. The press release goes on to note that Teaching Strategies GOLD(TM), assesses key elements that research indicates are most predictive of school success in the areas of social-emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development, as well as learning in literacy and mathematics.

New research by Harvard University shows that few states require child care providers take specific nutrition and physical activity steps considered key to keeping the under-five crowd in shape. The research shows that more and more kindergartners are showing up to school overweight or already considered obese.

DSS reported at the Oct. 22 Care4Kids Advisory Committee meeting that enrollment may re-open this fall/winter.

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman says the nation needs to wake up and realize what it's been historically known for -- the education system that made America great -- is wasting away. 

Economic downturns are the perfect time to invest, says Lynn Huizing, president of the Colorado PTA and Liane Morrison, executive director of Great Education Colorado. It's time to invest from preschool right up through college, they say. The future, they say, belongs to states and nations that invest wisely in education.

Come January 2010, preschools, nursery schools and daycares in Massachusetts will be required to give dental care lessons and supervise cleanings if the children are there more than four hours a day or eat a meal while they are at the facility.  

Barbara O'Brien, Colorado's lieutenant governor, said one of the most astonishing things she learned at a recent early childhood summit in Colorado was the vast difference in vocabulary for three-year-old children whose parents are on welfare (500 words), children in working families (700 words) and children from well-educated families (1,200 words). For employers of these future graduates, it's important to see the role preschool will play in their working lives.