On a cold day in February 1982, a new mom hesitantly dropped her three-month old baby off at the home of a child care provider who had been recommended to her by other moms in the community. Though the provider was otherwise unknown to the mom, they ha

Have you found yourself tapping your foot to music or maybe singing out loud to a song on the radio?  Music can stir up specific memories, energize, calm, and  even offer a sense of healing.  Music brings movement to our bodies and emotions to our awar

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

Since March, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools to close their doors and shift from in-person instruction to remote or hybrid instruction for pre-K-12th grade students. This shift brought to light the number of students without access to a comput

Child care has become a higher profile public policy priority as politicians have taken notice of Americans’ child care concerns. Last year, Congress passed the largest ever increase—$2.37 billion—in the federal government’s major child care program. F

Infants and toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary-aged children encompass the field of early childhood education, giving the impression that all children from birth through age 8, fit neatly into one of three categories. But state policies sugge

As voters consider whether to continue investing public dollars in the  Seattle Preschool Program, our multi-year evaluation indicates that, so far, it has been money well spent. Four years ago, Seattle voters approved a $58 million property tax levy t

Family involvement programs can look great on paper and yet fail miserably. Programs can have defined goals, a well-defined time frame and program structure, research-based curricula, proven results for a specific target population, and still fail to p

The State of Preschool 2016 yearbook released this week found more states–43 plus the District of Columbia and Guam–funding public preschool programs, more children enrolled and more quality standards benchmarks met. Since we began surveying states i

The 2015 Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s (IOM & NRC) Transforming the Workforce report highlights the state’s role in creating a pathway for early care and education (ECE) teachers to acquire education and professional develop

In a report published by the Center for American Progress, NIEER researchers find that providing high-quality prekindergarten to all children nationally would dramatically reduce inequality in academic preparedness at kindergarten entry. Here we provid

Creating conditions in which people are more likely to change. This phrase really stuck with me when I heard it recently at a session on systems thinking at the CEELO Leadership Academy, led by Tracy Benson from the Waters Foundation because it applied

A pediatrician friend speaking to me about a child’s health was careful to point out the difference between a label and a diagnosis. “Labels are not helpful; diagnoses are.” When asked for further explanation, she said four characteristics found in a d

At CEELO we believe all organizations benefit from a continuous improvement process based on evaluation. That’s why we’re not only engaged in providing Technical Assistance (TA) to states across the country, but we also evaluate our own work and act up

Inquiring minds often want to know which states offer “universal pre-K.” As states vary in what they define as universal pre-K (UPK) and in how far they have progressed toward fully implementing a universal program as intended, the answer is somewhat c

Looking back over 2015, it’s been a year packed with action around early childhood education at NIEER, in the states, and across the country. US News wrote here about their 5 biggest stories in early education, including the expansion of NYC UPK (we ad

By Valora Washington and Jeffrey Gross. Valora Washington is the Founder and Director of the CAYL Institute (www.cayl.org) and CEO of the Council for Professional Recognition (www.cdacouncil.org). Jeffrey Gross is Director of the New Americans Integrat

More than one-fifth of children in the United States are living in poverty. Children growing up in poverty face numerous adversities that can negatively affect their learning and development, starting at a very early age. For example, these children ar

John T. Bruer, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Center on Children and Families, recently wrote about the seductive appeal of brain science in assuring optimal brain development and life-long wellbeing. He noted that “The advocacy

The NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook collects data on a variety of topics relating to early childhood, including how states are serving dual language learners. According to Child Trends, nearly 22 percent of U.S. children live in a household that spea