Behind the Headlines: Program pushes pre-K for 2-year-olds from high-poverty areas
An instructor gives a lesson at a Shady Grove pre-K class in March. The Equity2Prosperity Project began a year ago with the premise that children with challenges outside the classroom start pre-K too late. (Aarron Fleming/The Daily Memphian file)
A new education program that puts 2-year-olds from high-poverty areas in prekindergarten environments sooner is part of a broader discussion about achievement standards in education, and who plays what role in meeting those standards.
Eric Harris is the founder of the Equity2Prosperity Project and a former Memphis-Shelby County Schools teacher and administrator.
The program, part of the nonprofit Jessran Corp., began a year ago with the premise that children with challenges outside the classroom start pre-K too late.
“At the age of four, if they live in poverty, they are going to be two years behind a kid who doesn’t,” Harris said on the WKNO-TV program “Behind The Headlines.”
“Behind The Headlines,” hosted by The Daily Memphian’s CEO Eric Barnes, airs on WKNO-TV Fridays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 8:30 a.m. Watch the show now at the video link in this article or listen to the podcast version, which includes an extended conversation.
“So you put them in pre-K at (2 years old), and they go in and they learn some things,” he said. “But their brain’s capacity is not quite ready to take on what it is that it needs to take on.”
A 2-year-old, for instance, may not have the motor skills to write the letter A.
“So part of our curriculum will be developing those skills and then teaching them to write the letter A,” Harris said. “So we’re potty training. But we’re also working with them on things. … We know the ABCs. But we also know each sound that those letters represent.”
E2P is a two-year program for the children and their families. The 3-year-olds in the program’s second year use a blend of the sounds learned with a kindergarten curriculum that moves into reading and writing instruction.
The program has no tuition for families that meet income guidelines, including being Medicaid eligible and living in “Section 8” housing with federal rent subsidies or low-rent public housing.
Families get a $500 payment each month for the duration of the program. There are also financial literacy courses as well as counseling on health awareness and academic support for parents and children.
Terence Patterson, CEO of the Memphis Education Fund, which raises and disburses funds for efforts in Memphis-Shelby County Schools, says children just a bit older in the school system are — for the most part — not testing as proficient at third-grade math and reading levels.
“Forty percent of our students are approaching proficiency,” he said in the same discussion on BTH. “If we can start earlier and make sure we’ve got great adults that are supporting our students, it’ll only help us in the long run.”
Natalie McKinney, executive director of the nonprofit Whole Child Strategies, says for all of the work with the children and their families, there has to be broader change and effort to go with the direct work with affected children.
“It’s not necessarily wrap-around,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get to the systemic failures and come up with viable and sustainable solutions that are built by those who are impacted.”
She described wrap-around services like those provided by Jessran as part of E2P as “triage.”
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“We need to get our residents to politically engage on moving systems and reallocating public resources to the right place and space,” McKinney said.
She also said MSCS needs to hire a new superintendent who is “a visionary leader leading the school district to think about those things in an innovative way.”
“We have the data. We’ve known it for years,” she said. “Now let’s do something that is addressing that data that tells us that we have a broken health care system; we have a broken community and economic development system; our housing; we have a broken justice and safety system. All of these things need to be transformed.”
Patterson said that doesn’t mean teachers and the school system take on new or additional roles.
“I’d say a resounding no. I think we need to increase the expectation on the school system to provide higher quality educational experiences for our children from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 4 p.m.,” he said. “But we also need to make sure that we are bringing in partners to support that system outside of those hours and supporting our community and have an appreciation of what it means to educate kids that are in poverty.”
For educators, Harris says proficiency standards must be maintained and showing growth in proficiency shouldn’t be the goal.
“The problem with growth is that … you have a foundation. You improve it a little bit. Then you’ve shown growth,” he said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that you met the standard. … I know growth is something that a lot of people hang their hat on. But it’s really not good enough.”
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Behind The Headlines Eric Harris Natalie McKinney Terence Patterson Pre-K Equity2Prosperity Project Jessran Corp.Bill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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