Community Conversations in Four Cities Promote Educational Alignment for Young Children

New research highlights the importance of ensuring that students read at grade level before grade four. This is why reading at grade-level is a critical milestone on the Memphis City School’s Cradle to Career Roadmap.

But some children have an easier time making the transition to school and to reading because their earliest experiences put them on a pathway to academic success. Perhaps they were in a childcare setting where reading was a regular part of the daily schedule. Perhaps their parents read bedtime stories with them. Unfortunately, few cities collect information on children's preschool experiences, so that it becomes extremely difficult to connect children's early learning experiences to their later outcomes. For many children, particularly children of color, the educational gaps that develop during the first years of life have an influence on educational outcomes for years to come. This is a particular concern in Memphis City Schools, where more than 80 percent of students are African-American.

As part of an initiative sponsored by the National League of City’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute), city leaders in Petal, Miss.; Richmond, Va.; San Antonio; and Seattle convened “community conversations” in August and September of this year to promote alignment between local early learning and K-12 educational systems. These events were made possible by support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Working toward better ways to connect early learning to k-12 success, these events were designed to assess local progress and establish goals for improving educational alignment. Senior officials from the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services joined municipal leaders, school superintendents, state policymakers, national education experts, early learning providers and parents to discuss how to better align early childhood programs and school-based learning and improve transitions as children move from one level to the next.