This week the PNC Grow Up Great program marked its seventh anniversary. The program was launched by the PNC Financial Services Group in 2004 as a 10-year, $100 million school readiness program to help prepare at-risk children for school and life. Since

This week we saw on PBS Newshour an important installment in John Merrow’s continuing and exemplary pursuit of answers to what ails education in this country. Learning Matters, the nonprofit production company he founded traveled to Chicago where they

New Jersey Republicans are floating a proposal to cut the state’s highly effective Abbott Preschool Program from a full day of services to half a day. This, they say, would free up about $300 million in school funding that could be “more equitably” dis

Guest post by Tim Bartik, Senior Economist, Upjohn Institute for Employment Research As Steve Barnett’s recent post indicated, the U.S. faces a prolonged labor market recovery. As of today, the U.S. would need more than 10 million additional jobs to re

Growing and Learning in Preschool NIEER’s five-minute video, Growing and Learning in Preschool, shows the essential features of a high-quality preschool program. You’ll see how a preschool curriculum based on solid research builds school and life-relat

While investors are celebrating brighter prospects, the news from the hinterlands continues in a much darker vein. The Wall Street Journal reports that wages for a broad swath of the labor force have taken a “sharp and swift” fall to an extent rarely s

In the next several years, those of us who believe government policies can and should help children and families are going to be in a tough fight.  We need to be clear that this is not so much a fight for money as it is a fight for learning and develop

There is much talk in Finland these days about the country’s showing in the recent international comparison of PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) scores — not the self-congratulation one might expect from a country that topped yet agai

The New Mexico PreK initiative expanded quickly when it began in 2005.  Five years later it was serving upwards of 5,000 children. Unlike other state programs with speedy ramp-up times, this one has undergone rigorous examination throughout its early g

It’s Time We Heed The Words of John Donne The latest Census Bureau data (collected in 2009 and early this year) show the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is the widest on record. Last year, the top 20 percent of households—those earning more than

Perhaps because the Perry Preschool study is cited so often to demonstrate the long-term benefits of preschool, it seems the landmark study is often criticized – or at least its flaws underscored in an attempt to discredit its findings as relevant to t

As the recession drags on, it becomes ever-more-obvious the ABC (across-the-board cuts) approach to controlling government expenditures is harming our chances for a robust economy in the future. That’s because ABC looks at everything as a cost, ignorin

In this era of Tea Party discontent, a group of Floridians who have had it up to their eyeballs with the way Florida treats its children is kicking off its own series of Milk Parties to register their determination to elevate children on the state’s li

It’s no surprise that the K-12 Common Core State Standards posted for comments by the Center for Best Practices at the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers received plenty of them from early childhood profession

Over the years, the ranks of those advocating for expanding public pre-K have grown as economists and business leaders made the case that providing all kids with a high-quality early education is essential to America’s future competitiveness. Now a gro

Preschool: America’s Best Investment Can investing in high-quality early education reduce the demand for high-cost special education, social welfare and criminal justice systems? NIEER Director Steve Barnett makes this point in this new video, which fe

In the past, too many school reform conversations have begun at the kindergarten door, but that is changing. We think it particularly noteworthy that the latest issue of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) quarterly journal American Educator feat

Sue Bredekamp, one of the foremost authors on early childhood teaching practice, is out with a timely new book. Few are as qualified to write a primer on effective practice as she. Many may recall Sue is the primary author of NAEYC’s Developmentally Ap

Although I have long championed a big boost in the federal commitment for early care and education, I have a major concern with the FY 2011 early care and education budget increases President Obama proposed this week. The funding increases the presiden

One prediction I make confidently is that most responses to the new report on Head Start’s effects will be wrong. Advocates of Head Start will try to “kill the messenger” by attacking the study and rejecting any notion that Head Start needs serious ref