Preschool Matters Today
Child Care is Unaffordable for Working Parents Who Need It Most
February 15, 2019
Our new Data-for-Equity Research Brief, Child Care Affordability for Working Parents , finds that many U.S. parents who are highly attached to the labor force would have a difficult time purchasing full-time center-based care. This finding is especially true for low-income, Hispanic and black parents. Child care is an important work support for parents. However, the cost of market-rate center-based care…
What makes the difference? Understanding implementation issues to inform scaling of early childhood services
February 4, 2019
Imagine you are in charge of developing or implementing a large scale early childhood program to reach a significant number of young children and families across a specific geographic area. Perhaps the plan is to reach several hundred children in a rural neighborhood or thousands of children in a few city blocks, or millions across…
Research Shows High-Quality Pre-K Can Pay Off, Now Let’s Deliver It
January 31, 2019
According to research, the difference in learning resources both within and outside the home for children growing up in low-income households and children from more affluent homes is associated, on average, with gaps in their cognitive development that can increase with each passing year–unless children have early access to high-quality learning opportunities. Preschool programs have…
Too Many Cities Missing Opportunities to Create Lasting Benefits for their Youngest Learners
January 23, 2019
Our new national report , Pre-K in American Cities, finds a growing number of large US cities enacting new local funding streams to establish and support Pre-K, yet many programs fail to meet minimum quality standards or serve only a small percentage of eligible children. Pre-K is a proven policy that every city should employ to ensure all…
Understanding what works and what doesn’t for early child development interventions in Malawi
January 16, 2019 International
As more and more early childhood development programmes are launched globally, we want to be sure they are integrated as well as possible into the very different cultural and contextual settings which exist globally. Many ECD programmes have been created first in WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic) countries. Many of these programmes now…
Tell the World about Your Program: Measure and Report Your Findings
December 21, 2018 International • Outcomes
Most of us want to tell the world about the success of our early childhood program. We especially want to tell others how we built it into a good program, the difficulties we overcame, and the lessons learned. We hope our experience will help others avoid problems if they are forewarned and have some solutions…
Surviving State Government: An Underground Guide
December 13, 2018
When I arrived at the Vermont Department of Education in 1991 to assume responsibilities as the Early Childhood Education Coordinator, I was eager and well-intentioned – but pretty much clueless. Where do I begin as a public servant leader? What do I do? Who do I need to know? Where do I go to get…
A Focus on Teaching and Learning in Pre-K through Second Grade – Lessons from Boston
December 6, 2018
This blog was originally published by New America in conjunction with publication of its policy report A Focus on Teaching and Learning in Pre-K through Second Grade: Lessons from Boston . Despite growing pre-K enrollment across the country, there is an emerging consensus that high-quality pre-K is not enough to give every child what he or she needs to succeed and thrive in school and life. Without reforms to the early…
Engaging Educators in High-Quality Pre-K
November 15, 2018
Our National Teacher of the Year Program (NTOY) recognizes educators across the country and empowers them to participate in policy discussions that will have a direct impact on their students. Through this program and other educator engagement initiatives, we’ve been fortunate to build partnerships with teachers in a variety of ways and welcome their expertise…
Essentials of Quality Public Preschool
November 8, 2018 Quality and Curriculum • State & Local • State Pre-K Evaluations
NIEER’s new state-by-state analysis evaluates how well 59 state-funded preschool programs satisfy a list of “ essential elements ” characterizing high-quality programs—and finds widespread change is needed to provide the high-quality early learning opportunities children need to succeed. Implementing 15 Essential Elements for High-Quality Pre-K: An Updated Scan of State Policies reviews policies in place across 44 states and DC as well as implementation and the enabling environment in which preschool…