that exist between minority and non-minority students, and between children from low-income families and families with higher incomes. When people speak about the need for education reform, they often mean that there is a need to reduce the achievement gaps between these groups.
This report clearly establishes that the gaps in critical home experiences mirror the gaps in early school achievement — gaps that persist through the end of high school. [emphasis in original] (Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, The Family: America‟s Smallest School, Educational Testing Service, 2007, p. 39.) http://www.ets.org/Media/Education_Topics/pdf/5678_PERCReport_School.pd f
In a 2009 report, Barton and Coley reiterated this assessment, as they noted: ―The bottom line is that gaps correlated with school achievement continue to show up in the life and school experiences of minority and low-SES children.‖ (Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, Parsing the Achievement Gap II, Educational Testing Service, Policy Information Report, April 2009, p. 32.) http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICPARSINGII.pdf
According to a 2011 posting by Sarah Garland of The Hechinger Report on meetings in San Diego between preschool and kindergarten teachers, some kindergarten students suffered from a lack of exposure to nursery rhymes at home; they stated: ―Among the revelations, the kindergarten teachers told the preschool teachers that their 5-year-olds, many of them immigrants, struggled with stories covered in the kindergarten reading curriculum. They weren‘t hearing English-language classics like ―Goldilocks and the Three Bears‖ or ―Humpty Dumpty‖ at home. So the preschools began incorporating those stories into their curricula, to help better prepare their students.‖ (Sarah
Garland, ―Advocates See Pre-K-3 as Key Early Education Focus,‖ Education Week, June 14, 2011.) http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/15/35early.h30.html?tkn=NRUFQdC95MrfwJG tCzb3gb2qejEj8cCq2Ojd&cmp=clp-edweek
Others involved in early education recognize the criticality of this period in a child‘s life. Diana Rauner, from the Ounce of Prevention Fund in Chicago, emphasized this view as follows: ―The most important time for us to intervene is really in the first 1,000 days of life, a time when the brain is developing so quickly and when interactions with adults matter so much to children's developing sense of who they are and their language development . . . . The only way we‘re going to systemically break that achievement gap, close that achievement gap, is by investing in early education.‖ (Diana Rauner quoted in John Merrow, ―Chicago Program Seeks To Close Achievement Gap for Youngest Students,‖ PBS NewsHour, April 5, 2011.) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/janjune11/readinessgap_04-05.html#
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