Faced with plummeting student populations — and therefore less state money — Maine school districts are increasingly adding another year of public education. While reams of research highlight the benefits of early childhood education, there has been no widespread discussion in Maine about the addition of a 14th year of public school.

In the final phase of a large-scale randomized, controlled study of nearly 5,000 children, researchers found that the positive impacts on literacy and language development demonstrated by children who entered Head Start at age 4 had dissipated by the end of 3rd grade, and that they were, on average, academically indistinguishable from their peers who had not participated in Head Start.

Los Angeles County lost thousands of licensed child-care spaces during three recession-battered years, jeopardizing the ability of low-income parents to work and give their children an academic head start through early education services, data released Wednesday showed. The elimination of $1.2 billion in state funds earmarked for early child-care and education programs — resulting in the loss of more than 11,200 spaces between 2008 and 2011— represented the biggest reduction in child-care services in more than six decades, according to the Los Angeles Children's Data Network.

Loss—albeit much less tragic—is inevitable, natural, and something we all face. While dealing with a loss is never easy, it can be peculiarly disorienting for children, who are developing emotionally and have fewer past experiences to turn to for context.

All of our neighboring states publicly fund pre-kindergarten to some degree. The concept is not cheap, and its implementation would be complex, given the existing network of private and faith-based preschools, as well as the federally funded Head Start program. Still, the long-term benefits would offset the up-front costs and the logistical hurdles.

Mexican-American preschoolers lag behind their white peers when it comes to early language and literacy development, but their social-emotional skills are just as strong, according to new findings from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

So what do early-childhood experiences, exposures, and speech have to do with health? Several studies have shown that early exposure to words, especially novel words spoken with kindness, improves academic success. That, in turn, promotes a lifetime of improved health. Better health leads back to academic success, which fuels the next generation. The spoken word resonates.

YoungStar got a big boost last week when Wisconsin won a $22.7 million grant in federal Race to the Top funding to be spent in the next four years on expanding the program and improving its data collection system.

A $20 million Race to the Top grant will help parents better determine quality preschool and childcare programs while offering providers a pathway to improve.  Oregon will use the money to develop a rating system that evaluates preschool and daycare programs on a scale of one through five based on criteria including staff training.