Centuries ago the migration of swallows was known to be seasonal and their arrival a good predictor of the changing of seasons. The proverb about one swallow was a caution against generalizing from a single instance.  Hundreds of years after its common

At the end of last year, UNICEF released a new report, Preventing A Lost Decade: Urgent action to reverse the devastating impact of COVID- 19 on children and young people.  While it is easy for reports released in December to get lost in the end of the

The Build Back Better Framework offers a historic evidence-based opportunity to transform early education in the United States before the end of this decade. No proposal, including the national investment in Head Start that began more than 50 years ago

For the past month, we have talked to state leaders about how they are working within their states to strategically plan for allocating and disseminating federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to strengthen their early care and education s

South Carolina’s First Steps is a unique public-private hybrid focused on supporting children’s readiness for school. We spoke with Georgia Mjartan, executive director of First Steps in early May 2021 about their plans to use the federal American Rescu

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE)’s Division of Early Childhood (DEC) has administrative oversight for all the major programs for children birth through Kindergarten entry, including the state funded preschool program, child care, and f

Boosted by its federal Preschool Development Birth to Five Grant (PDG B-5), the State of Virginia has been moving toward a unified birth to five system. In response to Governor Northam’s 2019 directive, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) will

Since 2012, Louisiana’s birth-to-five early care and education (ECE) system has been consolidated within the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) and includes oversight of the Ready Start Network initiative, which supports local infrastructure that

In the end of May 2021, we had a conversation with Director Tonya Williams of the Division of Child Care and Early Education at the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) about her initial planning for the use of federal dollars to achieve the sta

Canada’s Budget 2021 is focused on pandemic recovery, including the  intention to develop a country-wide system of early learning and child care. The convergence of COVID-19, a finance minister who is herself a working mother, and decades of research a

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, families with young children struggled to find the right early learning setting for their child.  Parents want settings that are affordable, convenient, and where their child will be loved and appreciated.  When those

Like every parent, I found myself in March both working from home and scaffolding and supporting my kids every day of their remote schooling. After the summer break, the juggling resumed and continues still today. My school district’s remote learning p

During these times of limited access to in-person preschool classrooms, families are searching for ideas to support their children’s learning at home. Many websites have been created and some adapted to address remote learning including Common Sense Me

Like preschool children in many countries dealing with the pandemic, preschoolers in China have needed to learn from home instead of in school with their friends. And like parents in many countries, parents in China were not prepared to provide a child

By Jason Hustedt With NIEER and University of Delaware colleagues, I recently looked at effects of the New Mexico PreK program in an Early Childhood Research Quarterly journal article. Results of our study show good news for young children in New Mexic

With four children under the age of 9, I am among our nation’s millions of parents dramatically affected by school closures due to the pandemic. Our old normal was replaced by a new normal of uncertainty and chaos. What comes next? How do we support ou

As the saying goes, those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it.  Living in the present COVID-19 environment, we’d be foolish not to revisit our history lessons to see how they might guide post-COVID policy responses.  Fortune recently

Having dealt with COVID-19 longer than any nation, China’s experience offers important lessons for American early care and education policymakers. China responded to the virus’ impact on children in two broad moves: (1) closing school and child care cl

Billowing across the tide of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic is a beginning tidal wave of need for emergency child care, especially for essential workers and low-income and homeless families. Child care, Head Start, Pre-K and other educators and leader

As a full-time working mom of a not-quite two-year-old, I have lots of “mom guilt” over leaving my toddler at child care for nine-ish hours each day. I’ve always wished for more time with him and am sad when I think about all the hours he spends at “sc