PK-3 is a promising strategy for improving Third Grade outcomes and narrowing the achievement gap for low-income and students of color. Teachers can play a leadership role in establishing working conditions that support a PK-3 approach. To this end, the National Education Association (NEA) released two reports that provide specific recommendations on how teachers can accomplish this goal.

Collective Bargaining for PK-3 Success, produced by the NEA and The NEA Foundation, identified six working conditions (class size, length of instructional day, planning time, the role of para-educators, entry level personnel requirements and ongoing professional development) that are subject to contract negotiations and support a PK-3 approach. NEA affiliates identified strategies to negotiate successfully for these contract provisions. The strategies include creating diverse negotiating teams, organizing parental pressure, surveying teachers, advocating with policymakers, supporting equity lawsuits, and taking an interest-based approach to collective bargaining. The negotiating guide contains sample contract language to address the working conditions that have a particular impact on the work of Prekindergarten teachers.

This publication also provides information about the bargaining practices of the states that participated in NEA's survey of affiliates, offers ideas about improving working conditions for PK-3 teachers in non-bargaining states, and discusses strategies for incorporating PK-3 components into contract negotiations.

Taking Steps Toward Achieving PK-3

A companion brief, Taking Steps Toward PK-3 Success, examines state policies and practices that affect PK-3 teachers' working conditions. The brief is designed to support efforts to change or implement policies that will improve the teaching and learning environments at the PK-3 levels.

Taking Steps Toward PK-3 Success offers NEA affiliates specific advice on state and district policies addressing class size, supporting full-day Prekindergarten and Kindergarten programs, promoting high quality teachers, targeting professional development to improve PK-3 practice, clarifying the role of para-educators (especially in support of bilingual and bicultural children), and providing for adequate planning time for teachers within grades and between grades to develop integrated and coherent programs and practices throughout the age span (alignment).

Additional Resources on Teaching in PK-3

The essay in FCD's 2006 Annual Report, Ready to Teach? Providing Children with the Teachers They Deserve, includes edited excerpts from a wide-ranging discussion on how to build public and policy support for effective ways to prepare PK-3 teachers.

Carrots and Sticks: New Jersey's Effort to Create a Qualified PK-3 Workforce, shows how New Jersey established a set of mandates supported by incentives to upgrade the qualifications of the PK-3 teaching workforce in the state's poorest school districts.