First Things First!: Creating the New American Primary School

Challenging policymakers, educators, reformers, and citizens to replace piecemeal reforms with fundamental redesign, First Things First! calls for a different way of organizing the American primary school. Ruby Takanishi outlines a new framework for integrating early education with primary education (pre-K–5), including both short- and long-term strategies, that starts with 3- and 4-year-olds. Featuring portraits of primary schools that have successfully integrated pre-K, the book includes resources on dual-language learners, dual-generation family engagement, effective philanthropy, rethinking advocacy, and more. The book centers on four basic questions:

• Why should the United States design a new primary school as children’s first, widely share educational experience?
• How can the educators of the new primary school use new knowledge about how children learn to improve their practice?
• What will it take to create a new primary school that educates all children well?
• How can the design of the new primary school reflect demographic, social, linguistic, and cultural changes and adapt to the requirements of a global economy?

First Things First! reframes the basic structure of traditional primary education, challenging us to get the early years of a 21st-century public education system off to a new and stronger start.

Ruby Takanishi is senior research fellow in the Early & Elementary Education Policy Division at New America in Washington, D.C. She has been honored by the American Education Research Association with the 2014 Distinguished Public Service Award.