21CSLA Universal Prekindergarten Initiative
The 21st Century California School Leadership Academy—headquartered at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education and in partnership with the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and UCLA Center X, the California Subject Matter Project, and seven regional academies. statewide—is leading a $5-million state-funded Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) Initiative to prepare leaders to "lead for equity" in rolling out California's groundbreaking Transitional Kindergarten (TK) or all four-year-olds.
The 21CSLA’s UPK Initiative will include no-cost professional learning for leaders, featuring a “train-the-trainer” model and certification, development of learning modules with more than 60 hours of content, design and piloting of multiple professional learning opportunities, and evaluation and research to continually improve the effort. Professional learning topics will include developmentally appropriate instruction, socio-emotional development, inclusive practices for English Language Learners and bilingual students, recruiting and retaining highly trained and qualified teachers who reflect the community, home/family engagement, and integration across preschool through third grade—among many other areas.
The 21CSLA UTK Initiative is led by Coordinator Aija Simmons and Lead Trainer Tanya Harris at UC Berkeley; Lead Trainers JoAnn Isken and Amanda Steiman at UCLA; and Lead Trainer Deborah Costa Hernandez at UC San Diego. The 21CSLA State Center is led by Director Rebecca Cheung and Faculty Director Jabari Mahiri at UC Berkeley and Nancy Parachini at UCLA.
Watch the 21CSLA Research-Practice Webinar on Early Transitional Kindergarten Implementers in California and read the brief.
Preparing educators to meet an urgent demand
With backing from the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and Heising-Simons Foundation, we are one of six policy training sites nationwide, coordinated by Columbia University colleagues. The School of Education, in cooperation with the Goldman School of Public Policy and Institute of Human Development, will begin in fall 2022 to train graduate students in child development and intersections with child and family policy.
The Berkeley Teacher Education Program and the University of California Consortium for Early Childhood Teacher Preparation have received a $250,000 planning grant to lay the groundwork with California policy makers to prepare 11,000 newly credentialed teachers to provide free and high-quality pre-K. As experienced pre-K staff move into these newly created slots—leaving Head Start and other community providers—worsening teacher shortages will appear in some communities. The state can only accomplish this remarkable goal if universities, together, build sustained capacity to prepare high-quality teachers with rich knowledge in child development and classroom practices that lift California’s diverse children. Collaborating with three University of California campuses, to design teacher residency training to advance the careers of experienced pre-K teachers, as new positions open in school districts, and provide the bulwark to prepare new staff for community-based pre-Ks who will lose current staff. The state must build the training infrastructure to credential transitional Kindergarten teachers and, long term, support the career pipeline, from entry-level aide positions to leadership roles.
Leading Early Childhood Research
Berkeley's School of Education offers deep research expertise related to policy, pedagogy, assessment, and more related to early childhood education. Professor Bruce Fuller's dynamic body of research on early childhood education—including Standardized Childhood and his recent When Schools Work—examines societal forces and education policy. Goldman School Professor Rucker Johnson, an expert in education policy, has recently become an affiliated faculty member with the School of Education. Professsor Chunyan Yang's research examines educator resiliency to challenging conditions and expectations in K-12.
