High quality early childhood education is vital for students to achieve later success in school, but finding qualified teachers has been a constant struggle for early education centers and pre-kindergarten classrooms throughout the nation.
A report released today from the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville describes how Illinois colleges are working together to overcome this challenge. Their efforts are part of the Educator Preparation Program Innovation (EPPI) grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education, and one of a wide array of projects funded through the state’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge award.
The IERC report details the innovations resulting from this grant and lessons learned from the colleges’ experiences.
“This in-depth look at partnerships for early childhood teacher preparation is the latest in our series of studies of Illinois’ education workforce and provides insights into the strategies used by these partnerships and the broader implications of their efforts,” says IERC Executive Director Janet Holt.
The EPPI grants partnered 20 four-year universities from throughout the state with one or more nearby community college campuses to design new models for early childhood educator preparation and develop innovative solutions for common challenges.
The IERC study describes how the partnerships used the grant funds to create more seamless pathways for attaining teaching credentials and improve the quality of early childhood teacher preparation. The innovations detailed in the report include:
- new articulation initiatives to ensure that students’ credits hours can transfer across postsecondary institutions
- systems for aligning assessments so students can demonstrate progress toward key competencies
- strategies for advising and supporting transfer students, both academically and financially
- promising practices for improving the field experiences for teachers in training
- approaches to improve instruction skills for early childhood math, bilingual students, and infants and toddlers
According to Bradford R. White, the lead author of the report, the EPPI grants were successful in producing substantial progress with a relatively small investment and over a short amount of time—$50,000 or less over approximately 10 months. However, he notes, it will be important to collect follow-up data on the academic and social-emotional success of Illinois’ youngest students to determine the ultimate impact of these efforts.
The seventeen partnerships participating in the IERC study were: Bradley University with Illinois Central College; Chicago State University with Morton College and South Suburban College; DePaul University with the City Colleges of Chicago District Office and Prairie State College; Eastern Illinois University with Danville Community College and Parkland College; Governors State University with Prairie State College and South Suburban College; Illinois State University with Heartland Community College, Illinois Valley Community College, and Illinois Central College; Lewis University with Joliet Junior College, Kankakee Community College, and Waubonsee Community College; Loyola University Chicago with the City Colleges of Chicago’s Harold Washington College ; Millikin University with Lincoln Land Community College and Richland Community College; National Louis University with Triton College; Northern Illinois University with the College of DuPage; Illinois Valley Community College, Kishwaukee College, and Waubonsee Community College; Rockford University with Highland Community College and Rock Valley College; Roosevelt University with the City Colleges of Chicago’s Harold Washington College and Harper College; St. Ambrose university with Black Hawk College; St. Xavier University with Moraine Valley Community College and the City Colleges of Chicago’s Daley College; Southern Illinois University Carbondale with John A. Logan College, Rend Lake College, Shawnee Community College, and Southeastern Illinois College; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with Kaskaskia College, Lewis and Clark Community College, and Southwestern Illinois College; the University of Illinois Chicago with Harold Washington College, Malcolm X College and Truman College (all from the City Colleges of Chicago); The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with Parkland College; and Western Illinois University with Carl Sandburg College, Black Hawk College, Illinois Valley Community College, Illinois Central College, John Wood Community College, Sauk Valley Community College, and Spoon River College.
The complete report, along with other reports in the series, is available at http://ierc.education. For more information, call the IERC at (618) 650-2840 or (866) 799-4372.
The Illinois Education Research Council is an independent research organization that conducts education policy research on issues of import to the state of Illinois. Since 2009, it has been the legislated research arm of the Illinois P-20 Council. Our policy research follows important educational trends in Illinois and is disseminated through our research reports, presentations to the Illinois P-20 Council and its subcommittees and through conference presentations.