Overview

Across the United States, teachers use The Creative Curriculum^® to prepare more than a million young children for success in kindergarten and beyond. Our materials are used in every state, by all branches of the military, and in thousands of school-based and faith-based early childhood programs nationwide. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool is also used by more than half of the Head Start teachers across the country.

Teaching Strategies is both proud and humbled to have the opportunity to support teachers in serving so many young children--particularly those in greatest need. Understanding the broader social responsibility associated with helping educate America's youngest children, Teaching Strategies is committed to promoting high-quality early childhood education at the federal, state, and local levels. Through Congressional and grassroots advocacy, as well as our own professional development and training program, Teaching Strategies actively supports policies and practices designed to create a well-funded, high-quality system of early childhood education.

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Our Work at the Federal Level

Teaching Strategies works tirelessly to educate federal policymakers about the benefits of early childhood education and has been actively involved in discussions on the reauthorization of the Head Start legislation. Teaching Strategies is a vocal proponent of the Head Start program and continues to advocate for increased funding for Head Start, Early Head Start, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, Indian Head Start, and programs serving English Language Learners.

To support the goals of the Head Start program, all of our materials and services align to the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework in addition to state early learning standards.

Teaching Strategies also supports and is actively advocating for the Education Begins at Home Act (S. 503, H.R. 3628, 109^th Congress) (PPT file), a bill that will provide $400 million to expand home visitation programs.

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Our Work at the State Level

Teaching Strategies is heavily involved in improving early childhood education at the state level. A key Teaching Strategies staff member is a former officer and current member of the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE). In addition, we strongly support state efforts to secure additional funding for early childhood education and their efforts to promote ways in which federal and state-funded pre-kindergarten dollars can be used together to most effectively and efficiently serve preschool children.

Over the past year, a large portion of our state-level work has focused on helping to rebuild the early childhood infrastructure in states affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. This effort has a number of major initiatives:

• Teaching Strategies contributed $2 for every dollar donated from staff and friends to support the Louisiana Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (LAEHCY). Donations from this effort purchased 1,038 uniforms for displaced children now enrolled in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System.
  

• Teaching Strategies is replacing the curriculum materials lost by programs in the hurricanes, and is also providing additional materials to centers across the country that have enrolled displaced children.

• Teaching Strategies is providing free access to CreativeCurriculum.net to programs that are serving children displaced by the hurricanes. We hope that this will lessen their burden as they extend support to these displaced children.

• Teaching Strategies curriculum experts collaborated with mental health experts to create free resource guides that provide guidance to early childhood educators on ways to address the psychological needs of children who have been affected by the hurricanes. Teaching Strategies curriculum expert, Cate Heroman, has provided numerous free trainings across the Gulf region on how to use these resource guides.

We have also worked with states across the country to ensure that our materials align with their early learning standards.

We are also active volunteers in our own community. The president of Teaching Strategies, Diane Trister Dodge, led the process with other Teaching Strategies staff members to develop the District of Columbia's early learning standards. Diane also chaired the Subcommittee on Professional Development of the DC Mayor's Advisory Committee on Early Childhood Development. Equally important, Diane, along with other DC advocates, led the charge to restore $6.2 million in funding in the FY2006-07 budget for early childhood services in the District of Columbia.

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Our Work With the Military

The Creative Curriculum is used in the early childhood programs serving all four branches of the military and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools.

Over the past 10 years, Teaching Strategies staff members have worked with the military to develop an early childhood professional development training system that has made the Army early childhood program a model for the rest of the country. This resulted in Teaching Strategies' Caring for... series--training guides for preschool and infant and toddler teachers.

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Our Work With the Early Childhood Field

Teaching Strategies also works to promote and support the early childhood field. Teaching Strategies staff members serve in leaderships positions within the National Association for the Education of Young Children, sit on boards of early childhood companies and non-profits, and are often asked to review or develop accreditation criteria, state early learning standards, and other policies and regulations that affect children.

In addition, Teaching Strategies works with programs across the country that implement The Creative Curriculum to support efforts to improve federal, state, and local early childhood education. We work actively with programs to secure federal and state funds offered to improve the quality of early childhood education. Over the past year, we provided guidance to over 100 programs applying for Early Reading First (ERF) grants, Early Childhood Educator Professional Development grants, and Early Learning Opportunities grants.

Teaching Strategies is also involved in the Brighter Futures Initiative taking place in Hartford, CT, a 10 year-project to help increase the school readiness of Hartford's young children.  Through a three-year grant from The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Teaching Strategies is providing the curriculum training and consultation to improve the quality of early childhood education and expand capacity in The Hartford. The goal of the project is to create a sustainable model for enhancing early childhood systems at the community level that can be replicated across the country.

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