New teaching methods for DC’s children: CEO

The CEO of one of the largest educators for three- and four-year-olds in D.C. says new tech methods are changing the pre-school education.

AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation has schools throughout the city, educates about 2,500 children and features a research institute.

AppleTree researches, develops and applies structural models for early learning. The models include “what to teach, how to teach, and how to know it’s working,” said Jack McCarthy, CEO and president.

“We educate about 2,500 kids out of the 14,000 three- and four-year-olds in the city,” said McCarthy, adding that because of the sheer number of children influenced by his plans, he feels a responsibility to teach not just information, but positive values, attitudes and life skills.

“The thing that we’re trying to do is ensure that more kids — regardless of the background in which they grew up — get to fully participate in education, careers, and life,” he said. The key to that, said McCarthy, is developing language, literacy, and vocabulary skills, along with life skills like attention, direction, sharing, and persistence.

“I think quality education really depends on the environment in which it takes place,” said McCarthy. The schools using AppleTree’s plans are staffed with “well-prepared adults that really have a well-articulated program of instruction, and they receive a lot of support and coaching,” McCarthy told What’s Working in Washington.

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“It’s not one or two big levers. It’s more like one hundred one-percent solutions, choreographed and organized in a setting where it can be done successfully, again and again.”

While a typical education model lets kids “get moved along whether they’ve mastered the standards or not,” McCarthy said, AppleTree’s model is based on competency. Under this model, “kids make progress and they advance when they’ve mastered the material,” he said.

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