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Annual Report Special Edition 2004 "Ever since my child entered Kindergarten at Grayhawk, the information on Core subjects that he has since retained and build on now at Pinnacle Peak as a 5th grader has been amazing! . . . I love Core Knowledge." — A Core Knowledge Parent
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| COMMON KNOWLEDGE™ |
The
Newsletter of the Core Knowledge® Foundation |
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Preschool: Paving the Way to Future Learning
Preschool
Training and Development/
New Grant
Funding/
Preschool Training and Development This year Core Knowledge further refined its preschool database to track schools and communicate with them more effectively. There are currently 349 preschools in the preschool database, compared to 330 last year. The existing 10 preschool training modules were updated and a new leadership-training module for preschool directors was added. New delivery options were instituted, including one that invites preschools to host a training session for several other preschools in their locality. The host preschool receives free registrations for their teachers, proportionate to the number of other paid participants. The Foundation has developed a comprehensive consultant manual to formalize training procedures and ensure consistent, high quality preschool professional development. Participation in preschool training, including the conference related and regional Preschool Institutes, increased by 30% this year. Core Knowledge anticipates further growth since it is now offering a regional institute in October, in addition to one traditionally offered in July. In September, the Preschool program was awarded a three-year grant by the Walton Foundation to expand the availability of Core Knowledge preschools to low-income families in the Arkansas Delta. This work builds on the accomplishments of two prior grants given for the same purpose and on the work of Susan Smith, the Preschool Coordinator in the Arkansas Delta. The total number of preschool sites in the Arkansas Delta now stands at 82 classes. This grant will also include a longitudinal evaluation to track the impact of Core Knowledge preschool education on later student performance, as well as to compare the performance of former Core Knowledge preschoolers with a control group. In addition, Core Knowledge will develop a new summer literacy support program for parents and preschoolers. The Arkansas program will be used as a model to show how a content-rich preschool education can close the achievement gap for disadvantaged students everywhere. In July, the Abell and Weinberg Foundation awarded a grant to Core Knowledge to continue funding the implementation of its curriculum in the Head Start classes of Baltimore County, Maryland. These classes, ably coordinated by Heather Callister, were lauded in Federal review documents for their implementation of the Core Knowledge curriculum, and, in particular, for their use of the Core Knowledge Preschool Assessment Tool (CK-PAT) that was field tested in these classes.
In September, Mary Miller , a member of the Department since May of 2002, was promoted to Assistant Director of Early Childhood Development. At that time, the Preschool Department also added Mike Parisi, a part-time employee, as Early Childhood Coordinator. Bridging the Knowledge Gap/ Highlights for 2003/ A Message from The President/ Building Bridges to Schools/ Building Bridges with Words/ Bridging the Content Gap in Teacher Education/ Connecting to Core Knowledge Teachers: 2003 Conference/ A Bridge to Literacy: The Reading Program/ Preschool: Paving the Way to Future Learning/ Bridging the Way to New Alliances/ Financial Status
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Preschool
is increasingly recognized as an important element in overall
success in school especially for disadvantaged children.
More and more states are embracing universal preschool as
an educational goal. The 
A
major accomplishment of the year was the development and
field-testing of the CK-PAT, a comprehensive curriculum-based
assessment tool that will enable preschool teachers and
directors to measure the success of their students in mastering
the specific goals of the Core Knowledge preschool curriculum.
The software based management system generates easy-to-read
graphs and a variety of detailed reports for individual
students, for the class as a whole, and for an entire center or
agency. It will also assist teachers in communicating student
progress to parents and to those involved in program
evaluations.