Lessons for de Blasio in New Jersey’s fee pre-K, By Javier C. Hernández, January 26, 2014, New York Times: “Teddy Lin’s teachers were worried. For the first few weeks of preschool, Teddy, a 3-year-old Chinese immigrant, cried nearly every day. While his classmates recited stories in English about dogs and elephants, he talked in Mandarin. Some days, he sat quietly and refused to play. His teachers responded with a radical plan. They began learning Mandarin, tutored his parents in reading, and paired Teddy with older classmates to teach him about topics like woodland animals. Within a few months, Teddy was performing on a par with his peers. Officials across the country, including Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, are looking to efforts like those in New Jersey as they seek to broaden access to free, full-day prekindergarten…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty