Posted by Susan Ochshorn, on September 5th, 2017
We talk ad nauseam about quality and equity in early care and education. How do we get there? The answers elude us, in spite of our good intentions, leaving young children in a precarious state. The list of our sins is long—and dispiriting. Childrearing has now achieved the status of luxury item in the United States. Education is seen as expenditure not investment. We tolerate child-poverty rates that put us to shame on the world’s social-justice index. The hard, essential work of caregiving and nurturing appear nowhere on the ledger sheets for our GDP.
For Reeshemah Brightley, who . . . Read full article →
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Posted by Susan Ochshorn, on June 2nd, 2017
Bruce Fuller has weighed in—yet again—on universal preschool. He’s had a lot to say over the past few years, as Bill de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, has pursued a bold experiment to combat inequality in a “Tale of Two Cities.”
A professor at Berkeley’s graduate school of education, Fuller is well known for Standardized Childhood, his ten-year-old book that tackles the thorny questions of access and quality in early childhood education, while sticking it to proponents of preschool for all. “Institutional liberals in pursuit of political legitimacy and public dollars” he called them—marching down a dangerous path, well trodden
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Posted by Susan Ochshorn, on May 11th, 2017
My family held a Passover Seder in London this year. A feast of liberation in a city governed by Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to preside over a major Western capital. Our haggadah, the guiding text, affirmed our solidarity with refugees across the globe. The meal was leavened by savory Indian delicacies, mashed up and sampled by the 8-month-old infant at the table.
I loved this version of our annual spring rite: short and unorthodox—a much-needed gaze beyond the navels of our own tribe. But my mind wandered. I was worried about young children, exiled from play.
On . . . Read full article →
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Posted by Susan Ochshorn, on May 2nd, 2017
Central Park East 1, a small, public elementary school in East Harlem, has been under siege for more than a year, a battleground for democracy. Founded by renowned educator, writer, and activist Deborah Meier in 1974, this outpost for progressive, developmentally attuned practice is one of a dwindling number of options in New York City for leveling the playing field for young children.
A neuroscientist who was born and grew up in Puerto Rico, Kaliris Salas-Ramirez is an assistant professor at the medical school of the City University of New York, and co-president of the Parents . . . Read full article →
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