FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2009
TMC Hosts Texas School Readiness Summit
Austin, TX – TMC (Teaching and Mentoring Communities), formerly the Texas Migrant Council, in partnership with the Children's Learning Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas Education Agency, hosted a Texas School Readiness Summit on Tuesday, March 31.
"This summit was held to promote the latest research on how to effectively prepare at-risk children for success in school, and to celebrate the 11 pioneering communities that served as pilots for the initial implementation of the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM)", stated Mary Capello, TMC - CEO.
The Summit began with a press conference and awards ceremony for the original 11 TEEM communities and their legislative delegations at the Texas Capitol. From there the Summit moved to the Doubletree Hotel at 303 W. 15th St where participants heard from experts on the field of early childhood education.
The Summit featured Amy Wilkins, Vice President of The Education Trust, who discussed the importance of community-based school readiness approaches as an effective model for delivering high-quality early childhood education. Also, four nationally recognized scholars in the field of early childhood education and development, which included Dr. Dorothy Strickland (Rutgers University), Dr. Clancy Blair (New York University), Dr. Marcia Barnes (Children's Learning Institute), and Dr. Susan Landry (Children's Learning Institute), provided insight into the proven research-based approaches to high-quality early childhood education. Following their presentation, a Q&A session will be held.
The summit ended with the unveiling of a newly developed best practices guide entitled, "Community-Based School Readiness Integration Partnerships: Promoting Sustainable Collaborations." This guide was researched and written in order to assist local communities throughout the state in their ongoing efforts to establish and sustain mixed-delivery partnerships between public schools, federal Head Start, and child care programs.
