National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)

The organization that I chose to research is the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).

It can be found through the following link:

http://nieer.org/

This organization conducts research and gives advice to policy makers, journalist, and educators.  They work at the state level as well as the national level in the hope of attaining  excellence in the field.  They monitor and evaluate progress.  They develop and analyze standards, policies and legislation. Their online newsletter provides updates on what’s new in the field. 

In the March 8 (volume 12 issue 5) edition of their online newsletter, the NIEER has articles on new policies, bills, and legislation introduced as the result of Obama’s state of the union address.  There are also articles on media misrepresentations, the effects ofsequestration on education, full-day kindergarten options, ADHD interventions, and universal pre-k.  They have a calendar of events for conferences and a round-up of the nation’s headlines in the early childhood field. 

The resources provided by NIEER offered a small piece on Dual Language learners and how they are assessed.  The link to this brief is:

http://www.teachstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/CLASS-DLL-White-Paper.pdf

This article reiterates what we have been learning about - - that 20% of school age children speak a language other than English at home.  It also discusses the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and the requirements of observers.  The CLASS measure focuses on three main areas: emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. 

The NIEER website is so vast and provides so many links, it will be a long time before I navigate through the entire site!  There is so much to learn and explore.