July fourth has always been one of my favorite holidays.
Maybe it is due to the music and fireworks.
Maybe it is due to the grand displays of the Stars and Stripes.
Lately, it is also due to the memory of one favorite class of children beginning a collection of Presidential coins.
While I do believe the Presidents on our currency intrigued my students, it was the “demonstration” of one word on their reading lists that really got them – tax!
From that exercise, they learned about the Magna Carta, King George, III and tea. (They even learned to make tea and loved to drink it often – decaf that is – and tossed their collection of used tea bags into the Yazoo River afterwards.)
In fact, they even learned how to start a little revolution of their own!
We only practice two afternoons at the church for our kindergarten graduation programs, so you can imagine my alarm when, after singing the first song once through at our very last practice, George Washington just sat down and refused to sing anything further.
Soon after, he was joined on the front line by his troops, Benjamin Franklin and evenBetsy Ross!
The General was the spokesperson for the group. He represented all cast members who DID NOT HAVE A GUN from wardrobe.
It seemed that the props these children had selected initially – swords and flags – could NOT measure up to “the shot heard around the world”, and somehow, I understood that.
Immediately, I was on the telephone with the Bass Pro Shop in Memphis!
I announced they would have guns waiting on stage for them the next day during the actual performance.
They rose to their feet and we carried on with practice.
The next day, all additional muskets were placed by staff on stage as promised, but the General’s was placed on the wrong side of where he would be standing.
He didn’t know it was there, so he just devoted his energy to the outstanding and proper care of our flag. (What honest to goodness leadership he demonstrated! He wore that uniform well!)
Watch the video to see what happened once I figured out where his musket was.
I was proud of them all when their caps didn’t fire – they just kept it together knowing they would get to reenact and revolt again when next returning to school.
The video is best on full screen and with closed caption turnedon so that you can understand what the children are singing.
Happy Fourth of July, everybody.
The Patriots: Heroes of the War of Independence (Musical) Roll Back the Years Minuteman Minute Song She Made Our Nation´s Flag! Drummer Rode His Drum The Green Mountain Boys The Do You Know What Ben Franklin Said? Roll Back the Years (reprise) Music by Mary Lynn Lightfoot ; script & lyrics by Lee Brandon. Heritage Music Press Juvenile audiences (Grades 3 -9) 1993
US Commission on Civil Rights Meets Today: Is Mississippi’s *QRIS effectively a Tool to Exclude a Disproportionate Number of a Protected Group from Top Tier Quality Bonuses and Pre-School Participation?
Open Meeting Thursday 2 PM Central
Call 888-505-4369 Give ID #4796911
Public Comment Period at the End
Disparate impact is a way to prove racial discrimination based on the effect of a policy or practice rather than the intent behind it.
For example, requiring all applicants for promotion (**or a reasonable increase from a percentage of 2007 market rates onlythrough top tier quality bonus payments) to receive a certain score on a standardized test (or QRIS Evaluation) could adversely affect candidates of color.
Objective criteria, such as tests, evaluations, degree requirements, and physical requirements may be challenged under a disparate impact theory.
These cases rely heavily on statistics, published statements, data, and number crunching, which require assistance from experts and attorneys.
As an example, providers offer these statements to demonstrate potential intent to screen out and exclude a disproportionate number of people and minority owned small businesses through Mississippi’s Quality Stars:
“The QCCSS is an important step in identifying subpar centers, though the rating system does not directly measure child learning.”
Mississippi First- Leaving Last in Line
Rachel Canter, Executive Director
“STAND YOUR GROUND LEGISLATORS, DON’T GIVE IN TO THOSE WHO WILL WHINE AND MOAN ABOUT HOW HARD THIS WILL BE ON SOME CENTERS. THEY NEED TO BE CLOSED AND REPLACED WITH ‘QUALITY’ OPERATIONS, NOT JUST SITES THAT MAKE A PROFIT FOR THE OWNER.”
Gulflive.com
education1st
Over a period of several months, the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has heard testimony and received information upon which it has based the final draft of an Advisory Memorandum of Recommendations to Congress which address potential racial discrimination in the administration of the Child Care Development Fund in Mississippi. (Click here.)
In addition to requested redress of Mississippi’s QRIS, the Committee’s findings state, “a number of African-American child care facility owners continue to view at least some of the state’s administration of CCDF as intentionally discriminatory on the basis of race. In the example of the ***electronic finger scanning initiative, the state maintains the program purpose was to address fraud. Some providers however, saw it is as an unnecessary barrier intended to withdraw support from communities deemed unworthy.”
“Furthermore, shortly after the program’s cancellation, the MDHS announced that all TANF workplace participants, who had previously been working in child care facilities across the state, would be removed and placed at ****alternative work sites because child care providers were not hiring them when they had completed six months of workplace job training. Many child care providers however, saw the move as direct retaliation for their resistance to the finger scanning initiative.”
The Committee will meet today to agree upon its final draft Advisory Memorandum, Thursday, November 19th at 2pm Central time. All Committee meetings are open to the public. If you wish to address the Committee directly you may join the call by dialing 888-505-4369 and providing the conference ID 4796911. A public comment period will be observed at the end of the meeting.
Melissa Wojnaroski, Civil Rights Analyst with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Midwest Regional Office in Chicago, has announced it is possible that the U.S. Office of Civil Rights Enforcement will conduct further, more extensive investigations of potential Civil Rights violations following the submission of the Mississippi Committee’s work.
**According to the MLICCI, base reimbursement rates for providers through the CCDF program are already low— approximately 60 percent below Mississippi’s market rate. As such, many providers who depend on these funds cannot afford to make the necessary improvements to achieve higher rating.
*** The Xerox e-Childcare finger scan method of payment was proposed by Jill Dent who served at that time as the DECCD Director at MSDH. Regardless of her highly contested proposal/policies/ideology being defeated in State Court, Jill Dent was appointed and now serves as Director of the Department of Education’s Pre-K Collaborative which requires QRIS participation among child care providers and costly maintenance of mid to upper tier quality scores.
**** Newly developed alternative TANF work sites (post State Court) include new placements in Head Start Programs (also licensed for child care) even though it is most likely that participating Head Start Programs CANNOT hire the TANF workplace participants as teacher-aides unless or until the TANF workplace participants complete 12 units of college coursework or CDA classes to meet Head Start employment requirements. Adversely impacted child care providers (including those who formerly hired TANF workplace participants) note Head Start is not funded by the Child Care Development Fund and therefore, Head Start programs are now favored by MSDH because they were not involved in public opposition to the proposed Xerox e-Childcare finger scan method of payment.
Of the nine states with small or no state-funded preschool programs that submitted applications to the U.S. Department of Education and Health and Human Services for a Preschool Development Grant, the application developed by Mississippi First and MDE (Mississippi Department of Education) scored seventh.
Preschool Development Grants were designed to support states to build, develop, and expand voluntary, high-quality preschool programs for children from low- and moderate-income families.
Awards were given to states that demonstrated an achievable plan.
Mississippi was not funded.
December 10, 2014, Jeff Amy of the Associated Press reported, “Mississippi misses out on federal preschool money – again”. (Click here to read.)
“State Board of Education member Danny Spreitler of Amory, who runs a foundation active in expanding and improving child care in Monroe County, said the loss was ‘demoralizing.’”
Child care programs know a thing or two about that!
For many of us, the entire Mississippi First and MDE plan was “demoralizing”. We believe, as has become the alleged pattern and practice of Pre-K Collaborative policy makers, the plan marginalized private child care programs and demonstrated little more than an unspoken desire to remove children from licensed child care by creating “new slots” in a public school system recently rated fiftieth in the Nation. See: “Remove 3134 Children from Licensed Child Care?” (Click here to read.)
Rationalizations (insults to our intelligence) for such an approach supported strongly by the Pre-K Collaborative members included an invitation for child care to participate by attending trainings from MDE.
All due respect, but child care providers already receive expert training in early learning from an agency with highly qualified staff – Mississippi State Extension-Family and Consumer Sciences. The Canter plan should have proposed MDE contract or partner with Extension for training in order to gain the early learning expertise it needs to guide early learning policy.
By it’s own admission, and as demonstrated by the qualifications and experience of newly appointed MDE Pre-K staff members – now under the direction of former DECCD Director Jill Dent, who left MDHS under a cloud of highly controversial, failed Program policy– there are entirely too few qualified early learning professionals upon which to build a competent Pre-K Program as outlined in Mississippi’s Preschool Development Grant submission.
Another rationalization was the position that one of the mere six licensed child care programs currently receiving Pre-K Collaborative funding from the state would not have been able to remain in business if they had not be afforded the opportunity to provide services for the children age four it had managed “to keep” as a result of rare Pre-K inclusion and therefore, the plan was developed with the best interests of the child care industry in mind.
However, such a statement is an admission of fact that existing child care programs – many under the radar, already, quietly providing high quality, full day/full year programs without any Pre-K Collaborative Funding whatever from this state – would be adversely and disparately impacted – even “out of business” – if placed in a position only to compete with (and not be invited to participate as an equitable partner in) tuition free programs for children age four.
We didn’t buy into the Pre-K Collaborative hype. Apparently, neither did the grant reviewers for the U.S. Department of Education and Health and Human Services who stated:
“The proposal describes coordination of state funded preschool programs with Head Start and programs that are funded partially or totally by Title 1. There are no details about partnerships with current providers of Part C and Section 619 services in the communities or how this proposal would coordinate with the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990.”
“While the State provided an ambitious plan for increasing the number of slots available starting in grant year one, it was unclear if the State will have the infrastructure and resources in place to support the influx in slots in the year the State proposed to add 2425 slots, which would translate to approximately 120 new classrooms. Also, it was not explicitly stated in the proposal how the State wouldensure the availability of certified teachers and assistants for these classrooms.”
It might even be said that in relation to the early learning submissions presented by other southern states which have been funded, the policies, plans and grant proposals for Preschool development drafted by Mississippi First consultants are, on a national level, “subpar”.
Yet, without any mention of a review, evaluation or amendment of the failed submission, and void resounding input from the child care industry, State Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, who spearheaded the Mississippi Early Learning Collaborative Act and refers to Rachel Canter of Mississippi First as his “policy person” said losing the federal grant shouldn’t affect continuing efforts to expand (this poorly scored state plan reflecting) the current policy and practice of Mississippi’s Pre-K Collaboration.
There is specific work to be done and specific policy to be put into place in order for Mississippi to successfully secure the needed federal funds for preschool development, but it is probably foolish to expect that leadership to rise out of those associated with the development of Mississippi’s 2014 Preschool Development Grant proposal.
It is believed, however, the state will benefit from millions in awards from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to local groups to expand Head Start partnerships with local child care providers to take care of infants and toddlers.
So, we wait for child care to “bring home the bacon”.
MDE Seeks Early Childhood Director and Literacy Director
The Mississippi Department of Education is currently seeking to fill director positions in early childhood and literacy.
The early childhood director will lead the state’s early childhood efforts to ensure that all students are entering kindergarten with appropriate readiness skills. The individual will advance a statewide vision on effective early childhood instruction by leading the Office of Early Childhood and providing services to federal- and state-funded Pre-K programs.
The state literacy director (Pre-K – Grade 12) will lead the state’s efforts to meet the literacy achievement goals to ensure that all students are proficient readers by third grade, meet or exceed state standards in literacy, and graduate ready for the literacy demands of career and college. The individual will serve as a statewide leader and advance a statewide vision on effective literacy instruction that delivers results for all students (K – 12) by leading the Office of Literacy and effectively deploying regional literacy efforts across the state
Applicants must apply online atwww.mspb.ms.gov. Inquiries may be made to Dr. Kim Benton at 601-359-3514. The deadline for application submission is May 30, 2014. Please see the attachments for details. Applicants selected for an interview will be contacted by phone.
See qualification requirements below.
Goodbye Spencer’s Child Care!
Spencer’s Child Care in Indianola – one of only three quality rated centers in the Mississippi Delta – has ceased its child care operations in order to pursue other business interests.
Renee Spencer is now selling its child care equipment, some of which is brand new!
Interested parties are encouraged to telephone Renee as soon as possible at: (662)392-4108.
Best wishes to Renee in all her future endeavors! We will miss her!
BABYGATE – Mississippi’s “George Washington Bridge” Tied to Xerox e-Childcare™
Congressman Thompson Calls for Criminal Investigation
As the nation watches embattled Governor Chris Christie deny all prior knowledge of his Deputy Chief of Staff’s actions to create a traffic jam in retaliation against a Democratic Mayor in New Jersey, Jimmie Gates of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger now breaks a story of similar alleged retribution enacted by a Deputy Director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services against child care providers protesting the adoption of the Xeroxe-Childcare™ method of payment.
A complaint submitted by Congressman Bennie Thompson to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder states: “Because of displeasure with the outcome of legal action (against the adoption of e-Childcare™) and the protest by the child care providers, a MDHS official sent and distributed an email to MDHS county directors, regional directors and case managers to enact a plan to revoke and permanently bar all African-American licensed child care providers as worksite sponsors for the federally funded Alternative Work Experience Program and Community Services programs.”
The Alternative Work Experience Program allows unskilled individuals receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare) to complete 25 hours per week in job training through federally defined work activity to help improve employment skills and move recipients from welfare to work.
Cassandra Welchlin, Director of Child Care Matters in Mississippi, stated some TANF recipients scheduled to care for infants and toddlers on the afternoon of February 27, 2013, were simply a “no show” and child care providers were left to scramble for last-minute substitutes to provide for the safety and care of all the babies suddenly placed at risk as a result of the alleged MDHS reckless endangerment and provider punishment.
Further, Welchlin stated, since the alleged act, she had personally witnessed welfare recipients scheduled to report to one county MDHS office and sit in the lobby for 25 hours per week in lieu of federally defined work activity because once barring child care worksite sponsors, there were not enough employers remaining who were willing to accept the hard to place welfare recipients for on the job training.
The state Department of Human Services has scheduled a public hearing later this month in the agency’s latest attempt to implement finger scanner technology to sign children in and out of federally subsidized child care.
Xeroxe-Childcare™ is designed for utilizing EBT Cards or Finger Scans to track the Time and Attendance (time clock) of low-income children enrolled in child care programs accepting federally subsidized child care certificates of payment (vouchers) to generate an electronic invoice for reimbursement to providers. Reduced child care assistance to parents which will pay fees only for the actual hours and minutes of services rendered rather than the national industry market standard of full-time fees for full-time slots allows the Mega-Tech Giant to profit from the poor by helping states to develop policy to realize “savings” by paying less/differently for the early learning environments low-income children attend. (Take from the poor and profit the rich.)
DECCD rationalizes and dismisses child care provider charges of alleged corporate greed by allowing poor parents who will receive cuts in the amount of child care assistance provided them by the state to pay “out-of-pocket” the difference between what DECCD will pay and what child care cost to secure a full-time slot – likely 30% or more of a single mother of one’s net income in the Jackson area.
This is not a system to be adopted by a state promoting economic development, work force training and high quality early learning environments providing school readiness.
The Mississippi Coalition of Child Care Provider Groups has called for an emergency meeting Monday, January 20, 2014, 11:00 AM, in Room 216 of the Capitol in Jackson, Ms.
Dept. of Ed Requires First Phase QRIS and Scores Absent APL!
The Associated Press reports the competition is fierce among groups applying for preschool money.
“The Department of Education says 72 groups have indicated interest in the money, which is supposed to fund at least 1,325 spots statewide.”
“About 50 of the community consortiums are led by public school districts, while the rest are led by private child care centers or nonprofit groups. Some led by private child care centers could be ineligible, because the law specifies that a community group must be led by a school or nonprofit.”
Providers noted right away the original legislation drafted by Rachel Cantor and sponsored by Senator Brice Wiggins also required participating child care programs to participate in this State’s very poor performing QRIS…which would have left 97% of all licensed child care ineligible right from the start!
A recent national study concludes that after more than 14 years of implementation, QRIS systems still do not improve school readiness or learning outcomes for young children.
Another long-term study now being concluded by the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative has revealed Mississippi’s Quality Stars scoring method is both subjective and inconsistent.
Even Mississippi’s recent Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge application acknowledges the need and lays out a plan to validatecostlyQRISthroughchildoutcomes.
So, if current and removed QRIS is not valid and does not improve school readiness, who isinsistingit be included now as one pre-requisite for Pre-K participation?
Read on.
During the 2013 legislative session, the Mississippi Association of Licensed Child Care Providers successfully lobbied to have QRIS or any specific measure of quality removedfrom the Early Learning Collaborative Act as a requirement of participation until 2016, in hopes that either a validated measure of quality will be developed in that time or it will be more widely accepted that “smoke and mirrors” QRISdoesnotraiseacademicachievementorjustifyimplementationcosts.
However, following the close of the legislative session and sometime after meeting with Representative Toby Barker and Senator Brice Wiggins,the MississippiDepartment of Ed.’s Tracina Green and others put the QRIS requirement back in as child care “policy“without benefit of the required exercise in Administrative Procedures.
Further, MDE requested a large budget increase above and beyond the scheduled incremental pre-kindergarten funding expansions and NOT the first day of state funded preschool has taken place yet!
Why didn’t MDE recommend that more than $11,000,000 in quality funding nowsupporting the legislatively removed QRIS be used, instead, to fundexpanded pre-kindergarten programs in child care programs which meet all other qualifications and offer full day, full yearUniversalpre-koptions to working families?
Emails to Representative Toby Barker have gone unanswered.
Two requests to MDE’s Robin Lemonis for identification of the task force members MDE appointed to advise in pre-school implementation have gone unanswered.
Manyproviders are guessing that MDE task force relationships willlikelylinktoprogramsfundedbyorprogramspartneringwiththosecurrentlyfundedthroughQRIS – a screening tool that may very well claim disparateintentand “narrowingofthecompetitivefield” as its greatest achievements thus far!
Others have turned wide-spread discussion of this MDE conduct into a humorous game show of sorts to just Name the First Wave of Pre-K Awards!
Let us join in the fun!
Identify the Players from the above text!
Which programs do you think will receive First Wave Pre-K Funding?
Send in your Answers!
(Participating child care providers/educators will remain anonymous.)
It will be great fun to look back and see how correct we are/were when MDE awards are finally announced!
In the meantime, the Mississippi Association of Licensed Child Care Providers’ Executive Committee will meet soon to determine the much more serious nature and course of its response to the Department of Education’s interpretation of the Early Learning Collaborative Act.
We’re Validated Again – Xerox EBT Card System Shuts Down!
Xerox, the tech system giant that profits from assistance programs to low-income citizens conducted a lame back-up system test during what is typically a high-use time and triggered a shut down of its EBT card operations in 17 states on Saturday!
The Huffington Post reports many of the less fortunate were left in total chaos.
“In Clarksdale, Miss. — one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest states in the nation — cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn’t afford to pay for the food. After several hours, she put a sign on the front door to tell people about the problem.”
“Mississippi Department of Human Services director Rickey Berry confirmed that Xerox, the state’s EBT card vendor, had computer problems. He said he had been told by midafternoon that the problems were being fixed.”
U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Courtney Rowe underscored that the outage was not related to the government shutdown.
“Shoppers left carts of groceries behind at a packed Market Basket grocery store in Biddeford, Maine, because they couldn’t get their benefits, said fellow shopper Barbara Colman, of Saco, Maine. The manager put up a sign saying the EBT system was not in use. Colman, who receives the benefits, called an 800 telephone line for the program and it said the system was down due to maintenance, she said.” (Click here to read the article on Huff Post Business.)
Profit-seeking organizations such as Xerox often make money by cutting staff and implementing other cost-savings measures that impact the quality of service provided to people who generally have no voice.
With regard to block grant child care assistance programs, Xerox has actually designed a system where Xerox profits and a state profits by reducing the actual benefit amount of the child care fee paid from full-time tuition to a new payment policy reimbursing only for hours and exact minutes through the tracking of time and attendance.
Federal CCDF Law requires payment practices for child care providers to reflect generally accepted payment policies that providers use for their private pay parents. Therefore, Mississippi should continue to pay based on enrollment just as the private pay market is required to do.
Jill Dent continues to work to convince child care providers serving low-income children that under her supervision, Xerox e-Childcare™ would continue to pay for enrollment slots while her boss, Ricky Berry, just tells the truth – the way the state would see a “savings” is by reducing the amount of the current benefit with a new payment policy reimbursing for “actual attendance” only. (Click here to listen to Ricky Berry’s Interview on Paul Gallo’s Supertalk.)
In August, child care providers concerned for the system’s eroding of services to low-income children were successful in receiving a restraining order against the scheduled implementation of Xerox e-Childcare™.
There is NO excuse for such shameful erosion in services as the nation witnessed from Xerox on Saturday and there is NO hope of providing Jill Dent’s touted quality child care services to low-income children through eroded child care fees as proposed by Xerox Solutions.
Contact your legislators and use this information to validate our standing opposition to the $1.7 million wasted to buy the Xerox equipment and the nearly $13 million plus pledged over five years to Xerox to manage the e-Childcare system if implemented.
I Support Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge 2013
I support the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge 2013, because I do not support one more penny spent on Mississippi Quality Stars!
I will never support required QRIS participation, Health Department licensing regulatory manipulation or unfunded mandates that would create further disparate intent for the work force support system serving the largest group of targeted population or that would send the private market rate over the top for all young middle class parents at the start of their careers.
The good news is, the RTT-ELC application to be submitted will announce a new voluntary measure of quality to be developed and designed and one in which we, self-employed providers, will have a seat at the table as one of the largest groups of any early learning system.
I know this because Dr. Laurie Smith has met privately with provider groups and sought input from child care provider leadership. She understands, from all the research, the necessary buy-in of all child care provider groups to the success of any early learning system.
Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge 2013, may just be the first opportunity for us to participate in an equitable way in the development of a measure of quality acceptable to the self-employed child care industry and may even result in a validated approach to actually improve child outcomes by 2016!
It is idealistic to think this way, but if we are to spend millions and millions more in “quality funding streams” each and every year while preventing low-income parents the opportunity to work because much of that allowable money was not spent in certificates of assistance and the parents could not afford child care otherwise, at least let us spend it in an accountable way.
Either develop an affordable, acceptable and validated measure of quality (QRIS) or get rid of it!
Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge begins that work.
Promoting business-friendly public policies that support parental employment with quality early learning opportunities for the Delta's childcare-age population.
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