The Building Blocks of a Good Pre-K

By SHAEL POLAKOW-SURANSKY and NANCY NAGER

WITH the introduction of universal pre-K in New York City, we have created a new entry point into our public school system. This raises a key question: What do we want our children’s first experiences in school to be? What does a good education look like for 4-year-olds?

This summer, Bank Street College of Education led training for 4,000 of New York’s pre-K teachers, including both veterans and hundreds of people who started teaching pre-K for the first time last month. Worried teachers talked about how the pressure to achieve good outcomes on the third-grade state exams has been trickling down to early childhood classrooms in the form of work sheets, skill drills and other developmentally inappropriate methods.

The problem is real, and it is not unique to New York City. Earlier this year, Daphna Bassok and Anna Rorem, educational policy researchers at the University of Virginia, found strong evidence that current kindergarten classrooms rely too heavily on teacher-directed instruction. Their study, “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?” revealed that the focus on narrow academic skills crowded out time for play, exploration and social interaction. In a 2009 report for the Alliance for Childhood, “Crisis in the Kindergarten,” Edward Miller and Joan Almon reported that kindergarten teachers felt that prescriptive curricular demands and pressure from principals led them to prioritize academic skill-building over play.

This is a false choice. We do not need to pick between play and academic rigor.

While grown-ups recognize that pretending helps children find their way into the world, many adults think of play as separate from formal learning. The reality is quite different. As they play, children develop vital cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional skills. They make discoveries, build knowledge, experiment with literacy and math and learn to self-regulate and interact with others in socially appropriate ways. Play is also fun and interesting, which makes school a place where children look forward to spending their time. It is so deeply formative for children that it must be at the core of our early childhood curriculum.

What does purposeful play look like? When you step into an exemplary pre-K classroom, you see a room organized by a caring, responsive teacher who understands child development. Activity centers are stocked with materials that invite exploration, fire the imagination, require initiative and prompt collaboration. The room hums.

In the block area, two girls build a bridge, talking to each other about how to make sure it doesn’t collapse and taking care not to bump into the buildings of children next to them. In an area with materials for make-believe, children enact an elaborate family scenario after resolving who will be the mommy, who will be the grandpa and who will be the puppy. Another group peers through a magnifying glass to examine a collection of pine cones and acorns. On the rug, children lie on their stomachs turning the pages of books they have selected, while at the easel a boy dips his brush into red paint and swoops the paint mostly onto his paper.

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in Education / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

What the Latest Marriage Equality Ruling Says About Same-Sex Parents

Mombian.com, October 7, 2014

What a week! Same-sex couples can now marry in Idaho and Nevada, adding to the boatload of states that have gained marriage equality in the past few days. Let’s look at what the latest court decision said about children.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that it is unconstitutional to prevent same-sex couples from marrying in Idaho and Nevada. Their decision should soon extend to all of the other states within the circuit that don’t yet have marriage equality — Alaska, Arizona, and Montana.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who wrote the opinion, was not as amusingly acerbic as Judge Richard Posner in the 7th Circuit, but did come up with this zinger, responding to a statement by Idaho Governor Butch Otter:

[Governor Otter] also states … that allowing same-sex marriage will lead opposite-sex couples to abuse alcohol and drugs, engage in extramarital affairs, take on demanding work schedules, and participate in time-consuming hobbies. We seriously doubt that allowing committed same-sex couples to settle down in legally recognized marriages will drive opposite-sex couples to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

Reinhardt, like all federal judges who have ruled for marriage equality since June 2013, leaned heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Windsor decision in addressing the states’ argument that marriage should be restricted to different-sex couples because only they can create children, and children do better when raised with a mother and a father:

In extending the benefits of marriage only to people who have the capacity to procreate, while denying those same benefits to people who already have children, Idaho and Nevada materially harm and demean same-sex couples and their children. Denying children resources and stigmatizing their families on this basis is “illogical and unjust.” It is counterproductive, and it is unconstitutional….

To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in “family values.” In any event, Idaho and Nevada’s asserted preference for opposite-sex parents does not, under heightened scrutiny, come close to justifying unequal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.

OK, he was a little acerbic:

Defendants’ essential contention is that bans on same-sex marriage promote the welfare of children, by encouraging good parenting in stable opposite-sex families…. Defendants have presented no evidence of any such effect. Indeed, they cannot even explain the manner in which, as they predict, children of opposite-sex couples will be harmed. Their other contentions are equally without merit.

He is clear that married same-sex couples are not the cause of more children being raised outside of marriage:

True, an increasing number of children are now born and raised outside of marriage, a development that may well be undesirable. But that trend began apace well before the advent of same-sex marriage and has been driven by entirely different social and legal developments….

The defendants’ assertion that excluding same-sex couples from marriage will do anything to reverse these trends is utterly unsubstantiated.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Mother Asks Judge Not To Recognize Late Son’s Marriage To Another Man

by Carlos Santoscoy, October 3, 2014

An Alabama mother has asked a federal judge not to recognize her late son’s marriage to another man.

Paul Hard and Charles David Fancher married in 2011 in Massachusetts.

Roughly 3 months after the wedding, Fancher was killed in a car crash north of Montgomery, which led to a wrongful death case.

Alabama officials have refused to recognize the marriage. Fancher’s death certificate lists him as unmarried.

Hard sued the state, asking a federal judge to force Alabama officials to issue a corrected death certificate for Fancher that lists him as the surviving spouse.

Pat Fancher, Charles Fancher’s mother, intervened in the case and asked the court not to recognize her son’s out-of-state marriage. She is represented by the Christian conservative group Foundation for Moral Law.

“This claim is contrary to Alabama state law,” Ms. Fancher’s attorneys wrote. “It is Defendant Fancher’s opinion that Plaintiff’s requested injunction, if granted, will violate the millennia-old institution of marriage as ordained by God.”

At a news conference in February to announce the lawsuit, Hard said that hospital workers refused to acknowledge his marriage and that he learned of his husband’s passing from a hospital orderly after about a half-hour of inquiries.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which is representing Hard, said at the time that Hard is entitled to proceeds from the wrongful death case.

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in Estate Planning / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Lawsuit: Wrong sperm delivered to lesbian couple

By Meredith Rodriquez, Chicago Tribune – October 1, 2014

A white Ohio woman is suing a Downers Grove-based sperm bank, alleging that the company mistakenly gave her vials from an African-American donor, a fact that she said has made it difficult for her and her same-sex partner to raise their now 2-year-old daughter in an all-white community.

Jennifer Cramblett, of Uniontown, Ohio, alleges in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court that Midwest Sperm Bank sent her the vials of an African-American donor’s sperm in September 2011 instead of those of a white donor that she and her white partner had ordered.

After searching through pages of comprehensive histories for their top three donors, the lawsuit claims, Cramblett and her domestic partner, Amanda Zinkon, chose donor No. 380, who was also white. Their doctor in Ohio received vials from donor No. 330, who is African-American, the lawsuit said.

Cramblett, 36, learned of the mistake in April 2012, when she was pregnant and ordering more vials so that the couple could have another child with sperm from the same donor, according to the lawsuit. The sperm bank delivered vials from the correct donor in August 2011, but Cramblett later requested more vials, according to the suit.

Cramblett is suing Midwest Sperm Bank for wrongful birth and breach of warranty, citing the emotional and economic losses she has suffered.

An attorney for Midwest Sperm Bank said the company would not comment on pending litigation.

Click here to read the entire story.

 

 

in In the News / Known Donor / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Hiring a Woman for Her Womb

New York Times, September 23rd, 2014

People unable to bear children have increasingly turned to women who bear children for them, often by transferring an embryo created by in-vitro fertilization. Because legal and social views on surrogacy vary from nation to nation (and even state to state), prospective parents often engage surrogates in the United States and in developing countries. Controversy has clouded this issue.

What can be done to ensure that birth surrogacy is safe, ethical and protective of both the birth mother and the intended parents?

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in Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay parenting: How to talk to young children about adoption

September 21, 2014 – by gaystarnews.com, David Hudson

Thinking about adoption? Children will always have questions about being adopted, and knowing how to respond with honest answers is essential. We asked Beth Friedberg of New York’s Modern Family Center for advice.

Beth Friedberg is the Associate Director of Parent Preparation and Education at the Modern Family Center at Spence-Chapin. The center provides services for parents of adopted children, adoptees, families formed through adoption, and families brought together through remarriage – including same-sex couples and LGBTI parents.

Beth has been in the adoption and parenting field for over 20 years. We asked her to give the #GSNFamily section some advice on talking to young children about adoption.

Beth, do you have any general advice for speaking to children about adoption?

BF: There are some basic well-known practices that adoptive parents should know about talking with their children about how they became a family: start early, share information slowly over time in a way that meets your child’s developmental age, and talk in a balanced way about birth family being some of the most important.

But all of these sound ideas miss one critical piece that has less to do with talking and everything to do with listening.

This is a hard thing for many parents to do – we want to say the right thing and protect the ones we love from disappointment or loss. So we can often rush in with too many words to fix things before we really know what’s on our child’s mind.

Listen for what is behind your child’s questions and slow down a bit to both tune in to your child’s ‘emotional temperature’ and also consider what their questions brings up for you.

This last part is especially important so you don’t confuse what your child is asking to talk about with what you may actually want or need to talk about.

For instance, if your child asks you why their birth family couldn’t take care of them, you might respond with something simple like: ‘Why do you think some people aren’t able to take care of a baby?’ When your child gives you their own answers, you have a great place to start the conversation.

If your child is not asking any questions, lay the groundwork to give permission for the conversation. Simply saying, ‘If you ever have any questions or want to talk about your adoption that would be OK with me,’ can open a door for a child who may feel nervous bringing the topic up on their own.

What sort of questions might adopted children themselves ask about adoption – with regard to their background, history and biological family?

BF: Children are generally curious and want to know about everything that’s happening in their world. Asking questions about their beginnings and how they came to be in their family is a natural and necessary part of their development, so a goal for adoptive families is to support and encourage this wondering.

The types of questions that children ask will depend on the specific circumstances of their placement and your child’s own character and personality.

As much as each child has their own unique experience, questions do tend to fall into some general categories such as: ‘Why did I have to be adopted? Why couldn’t anyone in my family take care of me?’, ‘Will I ever meet my birth mother/siblings?’, ‘Will I ever see my friends from the orphanage again?’, ‘Is my birthmother alive?’, and, very commonly ‘I wonder who I look like’.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Adoption / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Surrogates and Couples Face a Maze of Laws, State by State

New York Time, September 17, 2014 – by Tamar Lewin

When Crystal Kelley, a Connecticut woman who had signed a contract to bear a baby for a couple in her state, was five months pregnant, a routine ultrasound showed that the fetus had a cleft palate, a brain cyst and heart defects. The couple for whom she was carrying the baby asked her to have an abortion, offering to pay her $10,000 to do so.

But instead, Ms. Kelley, a single mother of two, fled to Michigan, where surrogacy contracts are unenforceable. So in June 2012, when she had the baby there, Ms. Kelley was listed on the birth certificate as the mother, although she had no genetic connection to the infant, made with the husband’s sperm and an egg from an anonymous donor. The little girl was adopted by a family that had other special-needs children.

While surrogacy is far more accepted in the United States than in most countries, and increasing rapidly (more than 2,000 babies will be born through it here this year), it remains, like abortion, a polarizing and charged issue. There is nothing resembling a national consensus on how to handle it and no federal law, leaving the states free to do as they wish.

Seventeen states have laws permitting surrogacy, but they vary greatly in both breadth and restrictions. In 21 states, there is neither a law nor a published case regarding surrogacy, according to Diane Hinson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who specializes in assisted reproduction. In five states, surrogacy contracts are void and unenforceable, and in Washington, D.C., where new legislation has been proposed, surrogacy carries criminal penalties. Seven states have at least one court opinion upholding some form of surrogacy.

California has the most permissive law, allowing anyone to hire a woman to carry a baby and the birth certificate to carry the names of the intended parents. As a result, California has a booming surrogacy industry, attracting clients from around the world.

Seeking Middle Ground

In many states, surrogacy remains a political third rail, drawing opposition from anti-abortion groups, opponents of same-sex marriage, the Roman Catholic Church, some feminists, and those who see surrogacy as an experiment that could have unforeseen long-range effects.

The issue has produced some strange bedfellows: In several states, for example, Kathleen Sloan, an abortion rights advocate who is a board member of the National Organization for Women, has worked with Catholic and conservative groups to oppose surrogacy because she sees it as a form of exploitation. But most other feminists have backed off.

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in Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Parenthood Denied by the Law – New York’s Outdated Parentage Law

After a Same-Sex Couple’s Breakup, a Custody Battle

New York Times, September 12, 2014 by John Leland

The Marriage Equality Act, which New York State passed in June 2011, allowed Jann Paczkowski to marry her partner, Jamie, with the assurance that “the marriages of same-sex and different-sex couples” would “be treated equally in all respects under the law.” But when the couple separated and Ms. Paczkowski sought joint custody of the 2-year-old boy they were raising together, she discovered the limits of that assurance. On June 30, 2014, a judge in Nassau County family court ruled that Ms. Paczkowski did not have legal standing to seek access to the boy — because even under the Marriage Equality Act, she was not his parent.

In his decision, Judge Edmund M. Dane acknowledged “inequity” and “imbalance” in the law, adding that if Ms. Paczkowski were a man in the same position, the law might point toward a different ruling. But in the end, he left Jann with no contact with the boy.

The decision devastated Ms. Paczkowski, 36. “You can see how angry and upset I am,” she said on a recent afternoon, seated beside her court-appointed lawyer after a morning spent moving cars for an auction house. She had not seen the boy since a brief visit on Mother’s Day.

“For 17 1/2 months I changed his diaper in the quickness of a dime,” she said. “I fed him. I sat him in a high chair, one spoonful for you, one for me. At night he crawled up to me in bed. Each step that my son took, I did it with him. That’s what a parent does.”

Beyond her pain, the ruling also illuminated a snarl in New York’s treatment of same-sex couples, three years after the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, according to some legal scholars.

“This is a troubling ruling because it leaves a same-sex parent as a legal stranger to her child,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University law school. Family law, she said, “has not caught up with the way families live their lives, or the rest of New York law. And that gap is causing tremendous damage.”

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus – A Child Helps Your Career, if You’re a Man

New York Times – September 7, 2014 by Claire Cain Miller

One of the worst career moves a woman can make is to have children. Mothers are less likely to be hired for jobs, to be perceived as competent at work or to be paid as much as their male colleagues with the same qualifications.

For men, meanwhile, having a child is good for their careers. They are more likely to be hired than childless men, and tend to be paid more after they have children.

These differences persist even after controlling for factors like the hours people work, the types of jobs they choose and the salaries of their spouses. So the disparity is not because mothers actually become less productive employees and fathers work harder when they become parents — but because employers expect them to.

The data about the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood bonus present a clear-cut look at American culture’s ambiguous feelings about gender and work. Even in the age of “Lean In,” when women with children run Fortune 500 companies and head the Federal Reserve, traditional notions about fathers as breadwinners and mothers as caregivers remain deeply ingrained. Employers, it seems, have not yet caught up to the fact that women can be both mothers and valuable employees.

This bias is most extreme for the parents who can least afford it, according to new data from Michelle Budig, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who has studied the parenthood pay gap for 15 years. High-income men get the biggest pay bump for having children, and low-income women pay the biggest price, she said in a paper published this month by Third Way, a research group that aims to advance moderate policy ideas. “Families with lower resources are bearing more of the economic costs of raising kids,” she said in an interview.

Cultural assumptions aside, here is the reality: 71 percent of mothers with children at home work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and women are the sole or primary breadwinner in 40 percent of households with children, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Yet much of the pay gap seems to arise from old-fashioned notions about parenthood. “Employers read fathers as more stable and committed to their work; they have a family to provide for, so they’re less likely to be flaky,” Ms. Budig said. “That is the opposite of how parenthood by women is interpreted by employers. The conventional story is they work less and they’re more distractible when on the job.”

Ms. Budig found that on average, men’s earnings increased more than 6 percent when they had children (if they lived with them), while women’s decreased 4 percent for each child they had. Her study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1979 to 2006, which tracked people’s labor market activities over time. Childless, unmarried women earn 96 cents for every dollar a man earns, while married mothers earn 76 cents, widening the gap.

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in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Colombia court allows lesbian adoption

AFP.com, AUgust 29, 2014

Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a lesbian woman could adopt her long-time partner’s daughter, though the ruling does not apply to gay adoption in all circumstances.

Ana Leiderman appealed to the court to let her partner, Veronica Botero, adopt her biological daughter after the Colombian Family Well-being Institute rejected Botero’s adoption application.

With six votes for and three abstentions, the court ruled that Leiderman, who underwent artificial insemination to conceive her daughter and raised her together with Botero, had the right to request an adoption by her partner regardless of sex.

“The court considered that the discriminatory criterion the administrative authority had used to deny the adoption procedure… was unacceptable in this case, which involves a consensual adoption in which the biological father or mother consents to an adoption by his or her permanent partner,” said chief justice Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva.

The ruling sets a precedent for all similar cases in the South American country, but will not apply to gay couples seeking to adopt if neither person is the child’s biological parent.

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in In the News / International / Second Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments