NCCP | Present, Engaged, and Accounted For

NCCP | Present, Engaged, and Accounted For

At the core of school improvement and education reform is an
assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students
have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the
discovery that thousands of our youngest students are at
academically at-risk because of extended absences when they first
embark upon their school careers is as remarkable as it is
consequential. Schools and communities have a choice: we can work
together early on to ensure families get their children to class
consistently or we can pay later for failing to intervene before
problems are more difficult and costly to ameliorate.

http://nccp.org/publications/pub_837.html

NCCP | Parent Engagement from Preschool through Grade 3

NCCP | Parent Engagement from Preschool through Grade 3

Parent engagement in children’s education is increasingly
viewed as an essential support to children’s learning in
early care and education programs and throughout the school years.
While there are many definitions of “parent
engagement,” the term is used here to describe parents’
efforts to promote their children’s healthy development and
learning through activities that can be encouraged by educators in
child care, preschool and school settings. (We also use the term
“parent involvement” in the same way.) This report
makes the case that effective parent engagement during the span
from preschool through the early grades is a key contributor to
children’s positive academic outcomes. During this period,
young children acquire foundational competencies – including
language, literacy, early math, and social-emotional skills –
that strongly affect their capacity for grade-level learning. When
young children fall behind in developing these skills, they often
face an uphill path for the rest of their school years. For
example, children who have weak language skills upon school entry
are more likely to struggle while learning to read, and weak
reading skills in third grade greatly hamper children’s
learning across the curriculum in later grades. While high-quality
teaching in preschool and the early grades is essential, parents
can also play a vital role in helping children acquire foundational
competencies that fuel school success. 

NCCP | State Policies through a Two-Generation Lens

NCCP | State Policies through a Two-Generation Lens

 Two-generation approaches to promoting the healthy development
and school success of young children aim to enhance the well-being
and life opportunities of both parents and children.1 This approach is based on
research that shows how conditions affecting both parents and
children are interrelated and play a key role in children’s
development. For example, health insurance for parents matters for
children’s well-being since parents’ health and mental
health problems can reduce parenting capacities and the chance that
young children will receive the consistent attention and
stimulation they need to develop competencies that are key to
school success.2 Similarly, children’s
experience of stable, high quality early care and education
supports both children’s early learning and parents’
work effort.3

NCCP | Young Children at Risk

NCCP | Young Children at Risk

Across the U.S., large numbers of young children are affected by
one or more risk factors that have been linked to academic failure
and poor health. Chief among them is family
economic hardship, which is consistently associated with negative
outcomes in these two domains. 

http://nccp.org/publications/pub_1073.html

NCCP | Promoting Young Children’s Health and Development

NCCP | Promoting Young Children’s Health and Development

Young children’s health is essential to their overall
development, well-being, and school readiness. Untreated health problems and a
lack of preventive care contribute to higher rates of serious
illness, absenteeism in preschool, physical and emotional
distress and even long-term disability.  At a historic moment when the
passage of federal health care reform promises significant
improvements in health care access for many Americans, it is
important to take stock of how well states are currently meeting
the health needs of young children in low-income families.

NCCP | Basic Facts About Low-income Children, 2008

NCCP | Basic Facts About Low-income Children, 2008

Children represent 25 percent of the population. Yet, 41 percent
of all children live in low-income families and nearly one in every
five live in poor families. Winding up in a low-income or poor
family does not happen by chance.

http://nccp.org/publications/pub_892.html

NCCP | Making Maternal and Child Health Care a Priority

NCCP | Making Maternal and Child Health Care a Priority

As the national debate about health care continues, two things
remain clear about ensuring children’s health:

1. Access to health insurance is not enough. While eligibility for
   and enrollment in Medicaid and/or SCHIP is fundamental, children
   must get to the doctor at regular intervals for the screening,
   diagnosis, and treatment of any special needs or developmental
   delays they have, coupled with follow-up referrals to needed
   services to address them.
2. Healthy children need healthy parents. The health of the mother
   – before, during, and after pregnancy – has a direct
   impact on the health of the child.