ABCs of Early Learning in Detroit

ABCs of Early Learning in Detroit

presented by

EXCE L L E N T

SCHOOLS D E T R O I T

excellentschoolsdetroit.org @ESDetroit #DetroitECE

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Detroit Early Childhood Education At-a-glance

Programs that meet Great Start to Quality’s 4 or 5 star rating system (according to self-report) Childcare Worker

out of 1261

154

$19,300 annual salary $25,700

Preschool Teacher

$42,960

Preschool & Childcare Directors

Kindergarten & Elementary School Teachers

$51,280

Middle School Teachers

$51,960 $53,230

High School Teachers

$86,9701

Elementary, Middle & High School Principals

Child Development Associate Certificate Child Care and Development Associate Degree Early Childhood Education Bachelor of Science

CERT.

DEGREE

3

Semesters at Community College

2

Years

120

15

62 Credit Hours

Credit Hours

Credit Hours

$578

2

$7,874

3

$37,920

(1) Annual salary based on U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 2012. (2) A Detroit resident, attending Henry Ford Community College, as of March 2013.

(3) Schoolcraft College (textbook frees, equipment and registration fees are additional), as of 2013. 4. In-state tuition costs for Michigan, as of 2013.

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CONTENTS OBSERVATION GUIDE 3 STORIES 9 RESOURCES 39 “In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children…studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of Their own. We know this works…”

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA STATE OF THE UNION, FEBRUARY 12, 2013

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“Michigan’s future lies in the hands of our children.”

Gov. Rick Snyder Executive Budget Recommendation for Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015

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OBSERVATION GUIDE

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OBSERVATION GUIDE

When you visit an early learning and development program, chances are the staff is doing its best to look good for visitors. That’s great. It’s important, however, to ask several crucial questions and to look for these things: Look for: ∞∞ Does it look as if the kids are engaged in a regular routine or are they doing something new (potentially for your benefit)? ∞∞ Does it look as if the kids are used to structure? ∞∞ Are images in the setting cartoons or of real people? Are images culturally and racially appropriate for the students served and do they avoid stereotypes (e.g., boys doing science and girls playing with dolls)? ∞∞ Are there lots of real things - 3D objects - at the students’ eye level? ∞∞ If you’re in a home-based setting, notice the safety and cleanliness of the environment. Are emergency routes and numbers posted?

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Ask: ∞∞ How do you accommodate individualized instruction for a child that needs more? ∞∞ What are your staff’s credentials? How many have CDAs, AAs or BAs? Do you offer professional development and education plans to your staff? ∞∞ Describe a typical day. ∞∞ Especially in an environment that serves infants, ask if babies are on a feeding or sleeping schedule or if it’s on demand? ∞∞ Especially in a home-based setting, ask to see the first aid kit and about how medications are distributed.

These questions and observation cues are by no means exhaustive. They do, however, cover some of the most critically important cues for determining whether you’re in a high quality learning environment.

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Notes:

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Notes:

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The essence of quality in early childhood services is embodied in the expertise and skills of the staff and in their capacity to build positive relationships with young children. The striking shortage of well- trained personnel in the field today indicates that substantial investments in training, recruiting, compensating, and retaining a high quality workforce must be a top priority.

The Science of Early Child Development, a report by The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, January 2007.

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STORIES

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STORIES

Excellent Schools Detroit recently spent time with those with young children and early learning and development educators to understand the challenges all are facing when it comes to getting our littlest learners into quality educational environments. These are their stories. We hope they help paint a more complete picture of the challenges faced by families and educators as we also hold up what’s working.

Families Angelica C., a dental student and mother of twins, volunteers at Head Start and has a plan for her children’s future.

Debra A. works hard to give her young children a bright future, fighting perceptions.

Deborah C. unexpectedly became the primary caregiver of three grandchildren and struggles to balance their needs and the lack of available quality options.

Denise S. is an early learning and development expert, mother of three grown children and primary caregiver for her three-year-old niece, struggling to find high quality learning environments.

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Educators Detroit Edison Public Academy Pre-K in Eastern Market is working to meet the growing demand for high quality early learning.

Henry Ford Kids - Bright Horizons Child Care Center in New Center believes quality learning experiences for our youngest are an essential benefit for employees.

Gwen’s Heaven’s Angels in Brightmoor is a nurturing environment and a haven for young children in a challenged neighborhood.

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Angelica C.

Angelic

I want my kids to have that kind of head start.

Angelica remembers when preschool first pinged on her “mom radar.” Two years ago, when her twin daughters were about two, she visited a relative she hadn’t seen in awhile. “Here was her little girl speaking Spanish! She was sharing and carrying on a conversation about things I knew were not coming from the home.”

“Where did all this come from?!” Angelica remembers marveling. “Preschool,” her relative answered. And Angela remembers thinking, “That is it: I want my girls to have that kind of head start.” Her search for this experience led her to a center that was perfect for her budget and needs: the Cathedral Head Start program in Midtown.

“I fell in love with that program the minute I walked in the door. The way those teachers were acting with the kids; all of the activities they had planned; the kind of

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behaviors they were teaching them and experiences that help them get ready for school. I loved everything about it,” Angelica says.

The 6-month wait for an opening was excruciating, but eventually Amira and Jasmine were enrolled in January 2012.

Angelica never doubted the importance of education in her own children’s lives. But she had not known about the advantages of jump starting that process in pre-school until she saw the difference it made in someone else’s child.

School has always been Angelica’s anchor and inspiration. “I had kind of a rocky start: not as bad as some; not as good as others. But one thing I did know ever since Day 1 is that I had to be self-sufficient, and I knew I wanted to get good grades.”

ca C.

I have really come to see that if we give our kids a chance now, and open their eyes and ears to positive things, they are more likely to turn into positive adults.

In particular, Angelica’s 3rd grade teacher helped her learn the value of education in an otherwise tough year, when Angelica was taken from her mother and became a ward of the court.

head want to pop. ‘You know you’re very smart. You can do anything you want to.’ Having Ms. Jackson really gave me hope. This is not the end for me. It can get better from here.” As it did.

“Ms. Jackson adored me, and I adored her. She would not let me give up on anything. I would get so frustrated with long division, and she would say, ‘Angelica, you’ve got to get this.’ And I would get so mad and say, “Ms. Jackson, I am going to blow up the world!’ and she’d say, ‘Well, even if you do that, you still have to learn your long division.’”

At Wayne State, Angelica immersed herself in a liberal arts education: “I wanted to be able to think on a broader scale…to taste the different cups of tea they have to offer you, whether it be public speaking, sociology, philosophy, even swimming. I just wanted to experience it all.”

“To this day, I still hear her when I have a problem I can’t figure out and it makes my

While she continues to pursue her goal of becoming a dentist, she has worked as a dental assistant and as a receptionist in a dental office.

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Angelica C.

“I have really come to see that if we give our kids a chance now, and open their eyes and ears to positive things, they are more likely to turn into positive adults.

Preschool gives our kids a head start…it’s really what it says. We want our kids to be able to compete with the suburban kids and, realistically, the only way we’re going to be able to do that is by giving them a head start,” Angelica says.

Angelica’s involvement in her children’s pre-school has opened up new opportunities for her, as well: she has taken early learning and leadership development courses and learned how to lead Excellent Schools Detroit-sponsored community cafés to solicit parent input on community issues and priorities to help children.

She even had her television debut: tapped to be an audience member addressing NBC’s Education Nation panel when it filmed in Detroit.

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“I want all kids to be able to keep up academically, socially, emotionally, and be ready and able to attend any of those good schools that other kids can. If we get them started early, by the time they get to high school or college, the only problems they are going to have is picking what university wants them,” Angelica says. “Those are the kinds of problems I want our kids to have. Let’s give them the head start we know they are going to need to get on the right path so they can become the productive citizens we all want them to be.”

“If our children are to realize their personal and professional promise, if our country is to continue to boast the creative, adaptable, career-ready populace that has made us the world’s leader in innovation and productivity for more than a century, we must accept that K-12 is the past. The future of public education is pre-K-12.”

Transforming Public Education: Pathway to a Pre-K-12 Future, a report by The Pew Center on the States, September 2011.

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Debra A.

Debra A

We can do it by focusing on the littlest ones.

Debra answers the phone and listens intently. It’s her oldest son’s teacher. She asks a few pointed questions before smiling, relieved. “He’s not sick! He’s just tired!”

Debra explains that when she got up in the middle of the night, she found her son under his covers, playing a video game. “He just wants to come home for a nap. You tell him he has to go back to class! There’s plenty of time to sleep at night when he should!” She thanks the teacher for calling, as they share a final laugh.

Debra prides herself on knowing each of her four children’s principals and teachers personally. She works hard to cultivate good relationships, sharing issues at home that may affect their behavior and focus at school. In return, they know to contact Debra first with any concerns. “We know we have a partnership going: We are working together for my kids.”

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Debra’s commitment to her children’s education comes the hard way: She knows what it’s like when nobody cares. Now in her early 30s, she is finally at a place in her life when she can think about getting her G.E.D. “I guess because I never had a childhood, I know how important it is to make sure my children – all children -have a good one. I see how important education is, and I want to set a good example so my children see how important I think education is,” she says. “I want to be able to make a difference for all young people in our community.”

Debra was sent to Louisiana when she was little to be raised by her grandmother.

By age 13, she was squeezing school in when she could.

Cooking, cleaning, and caring for her sick grandmother, her younger brother, a niece and nephew – even a cousin’s mother at one point – all came first. By 16, Debra had a

A.

child of her own to care for, too. She left school to work a second job at McDonald’s to help support them all.

Her older sister eventually sent Debra a one-way ticket to bring her children back north. With no money for a ticket back, Detroit once again became home.

Personable and reliable beyond her years, Debra quickly found work as a gas station cashier near her mother. She enrolled her son in a nearby school, and her mother cared for him and Debra’s two younger children while Debra worked the late shift.

Nearly every weekday for four years, Debra bundled up her children by 5 a.m., heading out into the dark to catch a crosstown bus. After dropping off her oldest at school, she’d take a bus home until it was time to head back and drop off the younger children with her mother on her way to work. “It was hard, but when you don’t have a lot of choices, you make do,” Debra says.

We have seen so many people left behind, so many fail.

We need to change that.

“Sometimes if an emergency came up with my mother, I would have to give somebody $20 to watch my kids.

There might be dogs or traffic coming in and out of the house I didn’t like, but, again, what choice do you have? I would pray before I left, then go. You have to work to keep the job,” she says. Programs like Head Start or other childcare programs were never an option. “It never sounded like something I could afford or have for my children.”

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Debra A.

After the company shuttered its Detroit stations, Debra applied for assistance for the first time in her life. When she asked if she could get help with childcare while looking for work, Debra says the woman processing her application snapped, “That’s your problem. Nobody asked you to bring these children into the world.” That’s the only time Debra says she felt defeated, fearing she could never give her children the life she wants for them, “that they would end up being looked at like just another bad statistic.”

In short order, Debra found and quickly completed a training program to be a certified nursing assistant. With that credential came steady work, a car, and easier access to basics like healthy, affordable food. All was going well until that center suddenly closed. Then, she was fired from her new job when she left work one day to search for her father who has dementia and had wandered away from home. “Some

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Debra A

of us aren’t allowed to have emergencies,” she observes.

At that point, Debra vowed to make long-term changes in her life. She became more involved in her children’s school; became active in her community, eventually being appointed to the Brightmoor Alliance board. She started serving on the board of the Smith Homes near Schoolcraft and Evergreen where she and her four children – now ages 15, 10, 8 and 5 -- live along with 280 other children under age 18.

She regularly hosts a book club for children in her home, where she sees how far behind so many are in reading. She works with neighbors and community members trying to organize daytime programs for the little ones and after-school and summer programs for children of all ages. Excellent Schools Detroit has tapped Debra and her neighbor, Dawn, to lead community cafés, where residents are encouraged to define their

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priorities for how to improve life for their community’s children.

The café discussions are wide ranging, touching upon domestic violence, joblessness, crime, schools, the challenges of getting anywhere due to limited transportation, confusion about where to find help with elder care, food, community gardening. But no matter the topic, it always comes back to what they can do to help the next generation.

“We have seen so many people left behind, so many fail.

We need to change that. We can do it by helping parents understand how their kids are supposed to develop and grow. We can do it by focusing on the littlest ones, catching problems early and helping them move forward to live good lives,” Debra says.

“That’s all any parent really wants, right?”

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Deborah C.

Debora

If we teach them young, they will blossom.

For Deborah, “pre-school” doesn’t begin to describe Head Start. “Lifeline” will have to do. “I truly do not know where I would be without it,” Deborah says. “It is what’s giving me hope for my grandkids. Hope for the future.”

Every weekday morning that her health and circumstances allow, Deborah bundles her 3-year-old granddaughter, Italy, into her car seat and drives the mile and a half to the early learning class at Head Start’s Cathedral Center in Midtown. Teachers welcome them to a bright room filled with books, games and play spaces designed to spark imagination and inspire love of learning. There are pintsized tables where healthy meals are served. Another door opens to a cheerful playground tucked into a courtyard sheltered from the street.

The daily challenges of getting Italy to and from the center take a toll on Deborah who struggles with health

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issues, including a defibrillator implant and complications from childhood polio, while unexpectedly raising three grandchildren under age four.

“But not going isn’t an option. I am praying for the day there will be space for her two brothers to join her, too,” Deborah says. “I saw enough raising my own children to know that giving them this opportunity when they are little will help them be more successful with their lives.”

Until 2009, “things had been going along fine,” Deborah recalls. Her daughter, Shameka, and the children’s father had steady work with an auto parts manufacturer.

While doing payroll work for a non-profit, Deborah started studying for an associate’s degree in business administration, aiming for a promotion. Then out of nowhere came the recession, layoffs, no new jobs anywhere, and a devastating blow: Shameka’s shocking death in September 2011 just two hours

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after giving birth to her third child. Jobless and without resources to pay for childcare, the children’s father relinquished custody. Ever since, Deborah has cared for her granddaughter, Italy, and two grandsons – Chase, now 2 ½ and Chance, 1 ½.

The last months have been a numbing march through agencies, courts and offices sorting out complicated custody, probate, and aid issues, while searching for and relocating to affordable housing that would accept Deborah and three children.

For the time being, Deborah’s sister has given up her own apartment, schooling and job search to move in with Deborah and help out. “We didn’t have a choice: how do you even run to the store for something the kids need when the family car is not even big enough for three car seats to fit properly in back?”

was increasingly hard for the two women to keep up as the three children grew ever more active and curious. The new townhouse development they live in sits amid abandoned buildings and vacant land. An overgrown lot nearby – a park in name only – is a magnet for questionable activities. “We keep inside and the blinds closed: the babies don’t need to see what’s going on out there.”

I saw enough raising my own children to know that giving them this opportunity when they are little will help them be more successful with their lives.

Though other family members regularly help out, it

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Deborah C.

Last year, while campaigning in her district, State Representative Rashida Tlaib knocked on Deborah’s door.

Deborah shared the story of her daughter’s death; her struggles to make day-today ends meet let alone try to finish her degree and find work; the fear that she won’t be able to give her grandchildren what they need to succeed in school and in life. Before leaving, Ms. Tlaib called the area Head Start office to place Italy on the waiting list for a slot in the fall. Deborah didn’t wait for a return call: before the school year started, she followed up on her own, eventually securing a spot at the Vista Nuevas Head Start’s Cathedral Center in Midtown.

“I know I need help. We as a community know we need help. We know what issues need to be addressed with our children. But too often we keep putting the money on the wrong side of things – after it’s too late to change things; after our children fall by the wayside and they’re

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Debora

statistics in prison,” Deborah says.

Looking back on her own struggles as a single working mother of three, she is convinced that early learning interventions would have helped her understand and manage her sons’ learning and behavior issues and given them better opportunities.

“I just kept falling into brick walls. There was nowhere to take them; nowhere to help, and I was just working hard to keep food on the table.”

This time around, Deborah credits her involvement with the Head Start learning community for expanding her confidence and helping her connect with services such as counseling for her grandchildren as they deal with their mother’s death.

Deborah has stepped up to serve on the parent’s policy committee as its Cathedral Center representative to the Vista Nuevas Head Start program. She’s helping to organize a series of Community Cafes, sponsored by

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Excellent Schools Detroit, to learn more about the concerns and needs of families in Midtown and Southwest Detroit. With her associate’s degree in hand, she’s now working toward a bachelor’s degree in children and family services to help more parents understand how important early learning is and to expand affordable options for all children.

With Italy home from preschool, everything is in perpetual motion. There is juice to pour, diapers to change, tears and noses to wipe, a favorite stuffed animal to find, a tipping chair to catch. For one brief moment, Deborah gets all three grandchildren to join her on the sofa. “These are the kids of the future,” she says, hugging them close. “If we don’t instill in them early what they are capable of becoming, we have failed them. If we give them nothing when they are young, then they have nothing to build on. But if we teach them young, they will blossom.”

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Denise S.

Denise

It is all on us to open their worlds.

The doorbell was filthy, the welcome mat, frayed. Put off by the shabby exterior, Denise Smith nonetheless kept an open mind. An expert with Excellent Schools Detroit on statewide early childhood learning issues, systems and best practices, Denise sympathizes with the challenges early childhood educators face. She’s willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those who try hard to do right by the children in their care.

Inside, though, children careened wildly through the rooms; crashed into furniture; knocked each other down; fought over toys.

“Chaos. Just pure chaos! No real supervision, let alone any kind of structure, real interaction, or learning plan,” she recalls. Then, Denise spied a little boy hiding in a corner, frantically sucking his thumb. “I could see him just completely shutting down. ‘This is not working!

This is not a good place for a child to be!’,” she remembers thinking.

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Months later, the image of that little boy still haunts her: his solitary distress testament to the dilemma early learning advocates face. Parents are desperate to find affordable childcare options so they can work to feed their families or finish the training or schooling they need to find jobs. Yet, many child care providers lack the knowhow, resources and expertise to provide a safe – let alone enriching -- learning environment appropriate for children in those critical first five years. Too few parents and providers even know what quality childcare should look like or how vital these first learning experiences are to preparing their children for success in school.

“I am so sad when I look at these little children and know that they are not going to have meaningful experiences and how that is going to set them on a different course for the rest of their lives,” Denise says. “It is not fair. It is not right.”

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The lack of quality early learning options particularly hurts the estimated 56% of Detroit children age five and under who live in poverty, leading to poorer K-12 performance and college and career outcomes. Those childhood challenges often translate into adult problems such as higher unemployment and incarceration rates.

Denise leads Excellent Schools Detroit’s and its partners’ efforts to highlight how central early education is to improving every child’s birth to work options, an issue that has gradually gained broader traction. Nationally, the President has called for universal access to pre-school. Gov. Snyder’s 2014 budget proposes a $130 million increase in the state’s Great Start Readiness Program, providing 34,000 more pre-K openings for at risk 4-year-olds over two years. Even the lingo has changed, with “early learning” displacing “daycare” and “childcare” in parents’ and providers’ vocabulary.

“There is a growing understanding that it’s not enough to simply drop your child off somewhere and hope for the best, or sit a child down in front of the TV and call that appropriate care,” Denise says.

She sees the issue from all sides. In 1991, she opened her own in-home childcare program without any early learning background or guidance. It was a way to help support her family while being able to care for her own three children. Over the years, those early experiences figuring out how to navigate the system and seeing the unmet need for good care and staff training led to her growing advocacy, first through involvement with Early Head Start in the city of Detroit and then with the Early Childhood Investment Corporation’s work with the state’s Great Start to Quality program.

“It was overwhelming when seeing at [a larger] scale the very basic things our

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Denise S.

children do not have: good nutrition, regular health care, heat, adequate shelter or clothing. You know how much these children are capable of learning in those first three to five years and how challenged we are to design programs that meet their need, knowing the difficulties they faced at home and in their communities,” says Denise, who was instrumental in the introduction of male and female co-teachers in Detroit’s Early Head Start programs.

Now, Denise is working with local and state partners to make sure that every early learning program and preschool is measured for quality. She is educating parents to know what’s best for their young child’s healthy development; helping them know what to look for and where to look for enriching child care experiences. She also is working to improve the resources and training available to providers, encouraging their participation

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Denise

in Great Start to Quality, the statewide tiered quality rating and improvement system that provides clear and consistent benchmarks of quality coupled with quality improvement supports. .

The lasting impact of those first years of learning has become even more vivid since last June when Denise became the guardian of her grand-niece, Aaliyah, now three.

Her son was just off to college; her daughters happily moved on into rewarding careers and lives. “In her short life, Aaliyah had already had all these things happen to her….I could not in any way fathom her life continuing in that way,” Denise says. “Our focus has been on giving her all that she needs to explore and figure out who is Aaliyah, to always be grounded in our love and support and to know that we are always here for her as she explores the world of possibilities out there.”

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She has the resources to provide Aaliyah with many enriching experiences and has the support of her grown twin daughters -- one of whom cares for Aaliyah on alternating weeks, the other who takes her for the summer. Though an expert in early learning with resources and connections at her fingertips, Denise, too, struggled to find a workable, affordable opening in a program that provided quality care and real learning opportunities.

remediation. We know: Early learning is the place where we can have the most impact,” Denise says.

“Choice. So much comes back to choice. Education is about having choices…about being exposed to the world of possibilities out there,” she reflects. “It is all on us to open their worlds.”

While marveling at every milestone Aaliyah passes – “She spelled her name correctly this morning!” – each one reminds Denise of all the children Aaliyah’s age who already lag far behind and are unlikely ever to catch up.

“All the foundations for later learning are instilled in those first years. As the saying goes, pay now or pay later.

That’s our choice. Invest now in these children or forever be pouring money into

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Detroit Edison Public School Academy If you really want to change a city around, to prepare our children for the jobs of the future that require a college degree, then we must start at an early age.

From the outside, Detroit Edison Public School Academy looks more like the tomato ripening plant it used to be than the award winning school it has become.

Inside is another story. “We believe the walls should talk,” says Nancy Garvin, Director of School and Community Partnerships and Director of Pre-School: And not just talk, but inspire, engage, and reinforce the commitment to excel. “College Bound” spelled out in big letters is the first sign welcoming the 1,200 pre-K through 8th grade children who pass by every day on their way into school. College posters, pennants and school colors adorn every corridor, bulletin board, and classroom entrance. Motivational signs and grade-appropriate tips about good study habits and steps on the pathway to college abound.

The first Michigan charter school to earn the state Department of Education’s coveted Blue Ribbon designation, Detroit Edison prides itself on educating some of the community’s neediest children: not only educating them, but accelerating them into above-average school success and college readiness.

Detroit Edison draws from a wide range of socio-economic levels. Children from the areas surrounding Eastern Market, as well as from neighboring zip codes, enroll through the annual lottery process for 120 new kindergarten seats and the rare opening in an upper grade. They all share one thing in common. Regardless of income level, family background or circumstance, every Detroit Edison student is immersed in one consistent message: you will succeed in school.

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Detroit

t Edison Public School Academy

“The only question is which college, not whether college,” Mrs. Gavin says.

Every year for the last five years, 15 children have been able to jump start this process by entering through the pre-K program, a single classroom authorized and funded through the state’s Great Start to Readiness program targeting 4-year-olds who are at risk of school failure.

The demand for affordable, quality pre-K programs is so great that even if the school had the money and space to admit four times the number, Mrs. Garvin would still have to turn families away.

The pre-K classroom brims with purpose, even during less structured “learning lab” time when children choose which activities they want to try. Some 4- and 5-year-olds carefully cut out construction paper tree branches; others surround the water table, corralling rubber ducks and trying to spell out words using the letters printed on the bottom. There are well-constructed kitchen, playhouse and reading loft areas and ample colorful, current games, toys, and books. Children clamor to greet Mrs. Garvin, taking turns showing off projects, sharing news, asking questions. Two teachers with early learning certification work with these 15 students all school year so they can start kindergarten ready to learn and keep up from Day 1.

With a masters degree in early childhood education and more than 30 years’ experience as a teacher, principal and administrator, there is no doubt in Mrs. Garvin’s mind that the pre-K experience provides a proven, lasting advantage,

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Detroit Edison Public School Academy

particularly for children whose families lack resources and other educational supports, experiences and background.

Detroit Edison has begun to document that impact. Last year, the school compared the reading and math scores on nationally normed standardized tests of 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students who had been through the pre-K program with those who had not. The students with the pre-K background clearly – often strikingly – out-performed peers who started in kindergarten. More rigorous longitudinal studies are planned, but this data suggests a strong correlation between pre-K and better and sustained school outcomes for Detroit Edison students, Mrs. Garvin said.

“The brain is growing at its most rapid level from birth to five so why wouldn’t you take advantage of that time to bring knowledge to children?” Mrs. Garvin says. “In the world they’re growing up in, they’re competing globally, not locally. So let’s show all of our young children that learning is fun, learning is exciting, and plant that seed of knowledge so when they walk into a kindergarten classroom, the love of learning and the skills they need to start on the journey are already there.”

While success is the universal expectation at Detroit Edison, it is not a given without deliberate, targeted intervention, supports and resources – everything from extensive individualized student instruction to intensive, continuing professional development for faculty and staff; to an on-site community health center, including free dental work and social work services, to addressing nutritional needs by planting and harvesting gardens to augment the healthy meals that are served. Pre-K is one more critical resource to address children’s needs.

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Detroit

t Edison Public School Academy

“If you really want to change a city around, to prepare our children for the jobs of the future that require a college degree, then we must start at an early age. We must. There’s not even a question,” Mrs. Garvin says. “Any child can learn given the right opportunity and the right environment. Through no fault of their own, children coming out of poverty, start school far behind. To attend a pre-school or an early learning program helps level the playing field for their success…and our success as a healthy community.”

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Henry Ford Kids - Bright Horizons Quality childcare makes for better employees and a better community.

Quality childcare makes for better employees and a better community. Those core beliefs have inspired Henry Ford Health System’s 26-year investment in its vibrant childcare center just north of its Midtown Detroit campus.

Owned by Henry Ford and operated in partnership with Bright Horizons, the Henry Ford Kids Child Care Center embodies company culture and key goals -- contributing to improved employee health, morale and focus, as well as investment in, connection with, and service to the Midtown community, says Noel Baril, Henry Ford Health System Vice President of Talent Selection and Rewards.

“Our continuing commitment to the center is as much philosophical as it is a good business practice,” Baril says. “The analysis of whether it is the right business decision for us is affirmed by no less a source than our CEO Nancy Schlichting. It is a key part of our culture…our pillars of performance that are focused on what’s best for people and for our community.”

Bright Horizons, a nationally recognized provider in employer-based early learning programs, operates the center located within easy walking distance of the Midtown hospital campus. Accommodating about 60 children from infancy through pre-K, the center serves mostly employees’ children but is open to community members, as well.

Bright Horizons provides “The World at Their Fingertips” curriculum that focuses on age-appropriate early learning and school-readiness skills, Director Debi Rizk says. Parents can walk over from the hospital to spend lunch with their children or schedule check-in calls during breaks. Staff carefully documents the children’s work and play, sharing photographs so parents can share more directly in their children’s

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Henry

Ford Kids - Bright Horizons

daily activities and experiences. Free webinars and materials on parenting and child development topics are readily available.

For its part, Henry Ford carefully coordinates and monitors the center’s services to ensure they meet employees’ needs, says Patricia Janus, Henry Ford Director of Benefits. Lisa Carlisle serves as Henry Ford’s liaison to the center, making sure both childcare and hospital employees know about each other’s health and wellness programs and child development educational opportunities and events.

Through regular surveys and focus groups, Henry Ford fine-tunes services to meet employees’ changing needs. For instance, the center plans to close an hour and a half later at 8 p.m. to accommodate more nurses working 12-hour shifts.

“When employees know their children are in a safe, secure and educationally enriching environment, they can focus on their work and be better employees,” Janus says.

Supporting that work-life balance provides tangible results all around: improved employee health, attendance and focus, and the confidence to pursue career objectives and goals, knowing their children’s needs are being met.

“That commitment to our own people extends to our investment in the Midtown Detroit community,” Baril says. Henry Ford recently invested more than $100,000 to renovate and update the center, including a beautifully landscaped outdoor play space in a part of Detroit where few quality early learning care options exist. “Supporting quality care for children is another important way in which we can have a positive and lasting impact on our community.”

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Gwen’s Heaven’s Angels Children need love and a sense of purpose to see that they are important and to figure out who they are.

Thirty-three years ago, Gwen Shivers walked away from a cubicle and career at IBM. She remembers sitting in a windowless room, working on a computer, seething with disappointment because she was missing her son’s special school performance.

“I just sat there thinking to myself, ‘I can’t be part of my child’s life?!’ And that was it. I left and never looked back,” Gwen remembers.

Not long after that decision, she was at her children’s school when she overheard several women talking about how they wanted to get their GEDs but could never find time because of their young children’s needs.

“I’ll look after them,” Gwen volunteered. At first, she did it for free. But as more women asked for help, and as Gwen realized how much she loved working with her “babies,” as she calls her charges no matter their age, she decided to go into business.

Three decades and countless children later, Gwen’s Heaven’s Angels Day Care remains a thriving Brightmoor Community in-home business operating out of Gwen’s red brick bungalow on the same block of Bramwell where she started. In the early years, she cared for as many as 20 children at a time, including nine infants at once for a stretch. She has covered for parents 24/7, all shifts. Her recent decision to “really cut back” means she’s open every weekday from 6 – 6. “This is my calling,” Gwen says simply.

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Gwen’s

s Heaven’s Angels

Gwen’s career path parallels major changes in childcare as the practice has evolved from “glorified babysitting” to a professional, educational track. Important discoveries about brain development in children’s crucial first years have raised the bar. Researchers, educators and policy makers have developed best practices and resources to ensure healthy cognitive and behavioral growth. Specialized training has helped providers learn how to implement those best practices and is often a prerequisite to accessing federal and state operating funds and competitive grants.

The biggest challenge remains changing parent, provider and public attitudes, Gwen believes. Too many still think that leaving children in a relatively safe and clean place is good enough. “They don’t take early learning seriously,” Gwen says, failing to see how important it is to provide experiences that will stimulate their children’s social and emotional development to get them school ready.

Gwen cites cumbersome state early learning licensing and reimbursement mechanisms as a barrier to providers’ enthusiastic participation in licensing and rating systems that set minimum requirements and mandate improvements. It can be tempting to opt out or operate under the radar completely.

Most of Gwen’s clients are eligible for state-subsidized care, and she depends upon those subsidies to run her center and meet state codes and requirements. But approval can take weeks, even months, resulting in significant delays and lost funds. She grumbles about the extra work required to maintain state licensing and a higher program rating. Mandates and paperwork can be overwhelming, she says.

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Gwen’s Heaven’s Angels

Gwen’s

But in the same breath, Gwen enthusiastically acknowledges the upside of improved oversight and higher expectations within the publicly regulated early learning system.

“I can say truthfully that I am a lot farther ahead now than I was five years ago. It has been a rewarding personal experience, and I know for certain that it has benefited the babies,” Gwen says.

Through her voluntary participation in state early learning programs, she’s been eligible for grants to help update her center and augment the resources she can provide to her children. “It was out of date in a lot of areas,” she admits.

Best of all, her participation has required her to go back to school in early childhood education, notwithstanding her bachelors degree in computer technology, again with subsidized grants.

“I can say this has truly been a good thing,” acknowledges Gwen who has completed her initial early learning certification and will begin working toward an associate’s degree in September.

“Much of what we learned in the past was just common sense, passed on from great-grandparents to parents to our own mothers and fathers. It worked, it’s still good, but this new information gives me new ways of understanding, treating and teaching the children that I never had thought of before,” Gwen says. “It’s not just about making sure they know their ABCs, their numbers, their colors.”

Further study and training has helped Gwen be much more intentional and effective in guiding children’s social and emotional development by helping them learn how to pay

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s Heaven’s Angels

attention, how to listen, how to make good choices, and to do so in age appropriate and effective ways. Other courses have helped her streamline and organize her business operations.

These new skills have refreshed and refocused her work “nurturing these babies’ imaginations. There is nothing more important than exposing children to as much as you can about the world around them so they know what the possibilities are.”

At Gwen’s, those possibilities can be anything from tending their community garden plot, Ms. Gwen’s Edible Playscape, just up the block to camping in the back yard, going on nature walks and scavenger hunts in Eliza Howell Park, heading out to the zoo, the circus, museums, performances, or just flopping on their bellies to read books together.

“Now, when I do these things, I also stop and think that it’s all about giving them thinking skills; putting them in situations to use their thinking skills, and then helping them practice those skills by having to make choices,” Gwen says. “Children need love and a sense of purpose to see that they are important and to figure out who they are. If you are willing to stop and plant good seeds of love and care, they will come back to bless you.”

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“I am just one person, stretched all over so thin, being dragged to one place and another and dragging my grandkids one place to another. I cannot do it all on my own.

I need help so they can turn out all right. I really do.�

Deborah a 56-year-old grandmother caring for her three grandchildren

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RESOURCES

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National Foundation/Private America’s Promise Alliance – americaspromise.org Annie Casey Foundation – aecf.org (Kids Count – datacenter.kidscount.org) Children’s Defense Fund – childrensdefense.org Families and Work Institute – familiesandwork.org First Five Years Fund – ffyf.org Gates Foundation/Education – gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do MDRC – mdrc.org New Schools Venture Fund – newschools.org Ounce of Prevention Fund – ounceofprevention.org/home/index.php Work and Family Researchers Network – workfamily.sas.upenn.edu

Detroit/Michigan based Detroit Parent Network – detroitparentnetwork.org Education Trust-Midwest – edtrust.org/midwest HighScope – highscope.org Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation – mmfisher.org The Kresge Foundation – kresge.org The Skillman Foundation – skillman.org United Way of SE Michigan – liveunitedsem.org/page/s/stand-with-us W. K. Kellogg Foundation – wkkf.org Wallace Foundation – wallacefoundation.org/Pages/default.aspx

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Government U.S. Department of Education – ed.gov Michigan State Department of Education – mi.gov/mde Great Start for Kids – greatstartforkids.org Great Start Connect – greatstartconnect.org Wayne RESA – resa.net

Media Hechinger Report – hechingerreport.org EWA Education Writers Association – ewa.org/site/PageServer

“A coalition of 100 business leaders from across the state is calling for greatly intensified state focus on early childhood education programs and strategy to ensure Michigan’s children are prepared to compete in the 21st century global economy.”

Announcement from May 2012 Mackinac Policy Conference

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Contact Information Please contact Nicole de Beaufort at Excellent Schools Detroit for more information. ndebeaufort@excellentschoolsdetroit.org 612-353-7895

“Among the eight strategies to improve student learning, Michigan residents said expanding preschool and early childhood programs was a clear priority….[S]even out of 10 respondents said early childhood expansion was either ‘crucial’ or ‘important.’”

The Public’s Agenda for Public Education ~ The Center for Michigan, January 2013

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