An early start should be a fair start for America's children, say two UW researchers leading an ambitious national project to improve pre-school teaching and learning. The researchers face high expectations, huge responsibilities. Their decisions could affect the outcomes of more than 900,000 of America's most vulnerable young children.

The researchers are backed by a five-year, $40 million Head Start grant and supported by some of the nation's top minds in early childhood education. "With the $40 million and more than twenty Ph.D.s involved in this project, we have the intellectual capital and the resources to really make a difference," says assistant professor Gail Joseph, who heads the College of Education's program in Early Childhood and Family Studies. "That's the daunting part. It's up to us to make this happen."

Joseph co-leads the project with Susan Sandall, associate professor in Special Education at the college. In January, just months after receiving the Head Start grant, the two early childhood education specialists launched the UW-based National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning, one of four initiatives by Head Start aimed at reviving the 46-year-old program's leadership role in early learning. Other centers address cultural and linguistic responsiveness, program management and fiscal operations, and parent, family, and community engagement.

"Head Start was the original laboratory for early childhood education. We want to reclaim that position," says Sandall.

Sandall and Joseph face five years of hard work, long hours, and tough deliberations as heads of the center. The payoff is the chance to address childhood inequities and influence educational policy on a nationwide scale. "Too often children's chances get limited even before they get out of the birth-to-five-year period," says Joseph.

Their first goal at the new center is to strengthen teacher performance in Head Start classrooms. "Preschool teaching is important work," says Sandall, who co-founded the journal Young Exceptional Children. "We want to make evidence-based practices everyday practices in these classrooms."

Head Start, which serves disadvantaged 3- to 5-year olds, began in 1965 as part of the Great Society and War on Poverty federal initiatives. More than 40 years later, program directors are trying to muscle-up the program's academic base. "We know a lot more now about how capable very young children are. We have to make sure children in the Head Start program have the curriculum and teaching that really emphasizes that," says Sandall. "We need to make sure we engage and challenge them."

That has not always been the case, impact studies show. Head Start children often come out of the program behind children who attend other programs, and have problems sustaining the gains they made when they hit kindergarten and first grade.

That's a troubling indicator. Early failure, like early success, can extend over a lifetime, says Joseph. "We know that very young children who fail are more likely to drop out of school, more likely to engage in substance abuse, more likely to be violent, and more likely to be unemployed. The trajectory is not an enviable life."

Comparing Head Start children to other children is not apples-to-apples, she points out. Head Start children come from the lowest-income, highest-risk families in America. More than 11 percent have disabilities, including health and mental impairments, visual and hearing handicaps, emotional disturbance and learning issues. Many come from homes where substance abuse and domestic violence are the norm.

Their multi-tasking teachers must double as nurturers and instructors, dealing with not only education, but with health, nutrition, and social service issues. "We ask a lot of our Head Start teachers and we have the greatest respect for them," says Joseph, who, like Sandall, is a former classroom teacher herself. "We also think they deserve support and resources that they don't currently have."

The center will build up those supports and resources, translating early childhood education research into relevant, useable classroom practices, products, and training materials. Plans include:

• Hiring early childhood education specialists who can teach, model, and coach evidence-based instructional skills for Head Start teachers

• Offering the teachers abundant professional development opportunities

• Producing catalogues and assessment tools on best practices for early childhood educators

• Connecting with parents, and pre-school/kindergarten teachers to help Head Start students make a smooth transition to elementary school

The goal of the center is to help jump-start Head Start and, in the process, level the playing field for young at-risk learners. "At the end of five years, I want people to say: 'Head Start knows how to do that' or 'Let's see how Head Start responds to that issue,' " says Sandall. "And I would like kindergarten teachers to say, 'Oh, those Head Start kids — I love having them in my class. They arrive here ready to go.'"

Collaborating institutions include the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, Iowa State University, the University of South Florida, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Florida, SRI, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.