NIEER an Informative Organization

Additional Investigation:

Once I really began to investigate the purpose and scope of NAECT (National Association of Early childhood Teacher Educators) (my first choice) I realized that this was not the organization for my beginning.  At first, I felt I wanted to research an organization that I could one day belong to, and NAECT could possibly be a program with depth and breath for a professional teacher.  However, I soon realized that NAECT was probably well beyond where I am now.  I ran across a small insert in their newsletter stating that they were an organization for early childhood professors who taught at four year institutions.  OK, I am not quite there. 

So, I spent this last week participating in deeper research from our list.  I began with the end in mind.  I knew I wanted an organization that not only aspired to leading individuals in the field to becoming professionals as well as providing information on current research and evidence of helpful words for professional teachers.  Therefore, I chose to change my venue to National Institute for Early Education Research.  I have listed their web site and online newsletter below. 

NIEER Focus:

The National Institute for Early Education Research is an organization dedicated to communicating current research data that will “support high quality, effective, early childhood education for all young children” (NIEER, 2012).   They provide information, guidance, and recommendations that is research-based to professionals such as; policy makers, journalists, researchers, and educators. 

They pride themselves on sustaining a vision for early childhood education that promotes excellence, is easily understood, and is valid for policy makers (NIEER, 2012). 

NIEER works together with policy makers at both the state and national level to pass along information supporting best practices, policies, and quality, develop strategies for research and communication to narrow the gaps in applying scientific knowledge to early education policy, form working partners with scholars and research institutions as they assign their staff to investigate new research and analysis, supply media agencies with “research-based perspective on breaking news”, strive to inspire national and state considerations on early education policies, and partner with other groups to working on collaborative inquiry plans and to make the public aware of  current policy and trends in early care and education (NIEER, 2012).

Hot Topic:

A topic that caught my attention was the idea of “kindergarten redshirting” which takes its name from college sports and has to do with parents choosing to hold their child back from kindergarten one year even though the child meets the birthday cutoff date in order for the child to have time to mature and be more ready before entering kindergarten (NIEER, 2012).    This news worthy report links you to a CBS’s 60 Minutes interview with Samuel Meisels (president of Erikson Institute) as well as staff members from 60 Minutes.  One interesting point made is the fact that demographics play a part in which children end up in “redshirting” with the majority being “Caucasian, male, and higher-income families” (NIEER, 2012).

Other Topics: 

Other news worthy issues addressed included, but were not limited to Education Reform: It Takes a Village (professionals from various states speak about the successes and challenges of educational reform), Third Grade Retention Laws Launch Debate (talks about literacy in the early grades is linked to later academic success of students), and Moving Past the No-Program Moniker? (discusses a bill in Indiana that would mandate state funded preschool (NIEER, 2012).

All are great topics and there are more.  I hope you will have time to visit the site.  It could be a great place for resources for this and other courses to come. 

National Institute for Early Education Research
http://nieer.org/
(Newsletter: http://nieer.org/resources/newsletter/index.php)

References

National Institute for Early Education Research. (2012). Mission statement. Retrieved from http://nieer.org/about/

National Institute for Early Education Research. (2012). Hot topics. In the news: Delaying children’s entry to kindergarten. Retrieved from http://nieer.org/newsletter/index.php?NewsletterID=212