The purpose of this document is to facilitate discussion among decision makers at the Iowa Department of Education (DE), Area Education Agencies (AEAs) and local communities (including school districts) to establish early childhood priorities, and define the AEA role in the statewide efforts to build a strong early care, health, and education system. Such vision and leadership has appropriately fallen on the shoulders of state and local partners. The current challenge is to manage time, personnel, and fiscal resources to create new and better ways of helping more children to begin kindergarten on a trajectory for success. This must start by identifying the most important priorities in early childhood and create a plan for improving the capacity to support children, families, and schools. Appended are: (1) Iowa's Early Care, Health and Education System, June 2003; and (2) Endorsements for Early Care, Health and Education System. [Document prepared by Early Childhood Special Education Leadership Network and the Iowa Department of Education.].

This report discusses the services disadvantaged children need to prepare for school, the extent to which they receive these services from early childhood centers (defined as providing child development, parent, and health and nutrition services), and the reasons early childhood centers may not deliver all the services these children need. Chapter 1 describes the objectives, scope and methodology of the study and the funding of early childhood programs by federal and state governments. Chapter 2 discusses the full range of services needed to prepare children for school: developmentally appropriate, high quality services; parent services and health care and nutrition services. Chapter 3 presents two reasons why most disadvantaged children do not receive these services: they do not attend early childhood centers, and, if they do attend early childhood programs, the centers that they attend may provide only limited services. The limited number of places available in the centers, limited subsidies, and narrow program missions are discussed in chapter 4 as barriers which impede centers' efforts to provide services to disadvantaged children. The last chapter suggests changes required in the areas of funding and program missions so that the first national education goal, "by the year 2000, all children will enter school ready to learn" can be met. This report contains seven appendices including: description of selected federal programs that provide early childhood services; case studies of early childhood programs in four states; technical description of national data analyses; standards that apply to early childhood centers; and Department of Education comments.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.

This book examines how quality and good practice in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is interpreted and implemented in a variety of settings and circumstances. Drawing on her experience of research and policy making in a wide variety of countries, the author considers the variety of rationales that inform services for early childhood education and care. Services are organized, financed and delivered in many different ways across the world. The policies that have been adopted by governments, and the resources which are made available for implementing them, have shaped practice. On the one hand there are complex ideas about what children should be learning and how they should be learning. These ideas about curriculum and the training of teachers and carers may differ radically between countries. On the other hand policies have been prompted by the need to reconcile family and work obligations and to provide childcare to support working mothers, irrespective of educational concerns. The notions of economic competition and parental choice have led to the growth of private for-profit childcare services which promote a particular view of quality and achievement. Above all, growing inequality within countries, and between rich and poor countries, have undermined attempts to provide good quality services. In an unfair world, the impact of any services is likely to be distorted. The book charts the many different approaches to understanding and measuring quality and gives an exceptionally well-informed overview.