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New Brief: An English-Only Mandate for Head Start Will Harm Children

NIEER’s new brief, An English-Only Mandate for Head Start Will Harm Children, by Alexandra Figueras-Daniel and Christina Stephens, summarizes what policy makers should know about the research examining best practices for supporting Dual Language Learners, who account for 36 percent of Head Start enrollment and 40 percent of Early Head Start enrollment across the U.S. 

Findings from the new brief include:

• Emergent bilingual children served in programs that use the home language for instruction grow in their academic skills and learning outcomes faster and better than those that are served in English-only settings.
• Further, research suggests that 4-year-old children with stronger proficiency in their home language are more quickly able to learn English language skills. The faster children acquire English, the better their outcomes for later academic achievement.

Check out the new brief.

Review NIEER’s research on supporting young Dual Language Learners.

23 Years of State Pre-K Expansion: How States Balance Investment, Access, and Quality in the Modern Era

Casey Moran, Mindy L. Rosengarten, Eunho Cha, Jade M. Jenkins, Kenneth A. Dodge, and Tyler W. Watts, along with NIEER’s Allison Friedman-Krauss and Steven Barnett, examined the expansion of state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States from 2002 to 2024 in an EdWorkingPaper. The study found that state pre-K enrollment doubled while average per-pupil spending also rose by 21%, demonstrating that states expanded access without reducing investments in quality. Although universal and means-tested programs achieved similar overall preschool enrollment rates and comparable participation among low-income children, universal programs enrolled a larger share of children overall.

A quick summary of the 5 things you need to know from the study can be found here.

Webinar: Innovations in Parenting Programs: Evidence, Scale, and Impact

Parenting programs support mothers, fathers, and other caregivers during the first years of a child’s life, strengthening parenting practices to promote child development. These programs include home visits, guidance, and play and stimulation activities. The challenge is to expand reach, adapt to different contexts, and maintain quality.

On August 25, a webinar hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the leading source of financing and knowledge for improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean, will explore three innovative solutions developed in the region to reach different populations and respond to diverse contexts:

• The implementation of Primeros Pasos, a program for children with developmental delays in Argentina.
  
• The cultural adaptation of the Reach Up program for Indigenous communities in Panama.
  
• The use of technological tools to support families and teach mothers and fathers how to stimulate their children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development in Jamaica.
   

Register here.

NIEER Activity 

The race to the bottom: What replacing Head Start ratios standards with state child care minimums will mean for children in poverty

Head Start’s current ratio standards are based on expert consensus and empirical evidence that pre-K quality is higher and children’s safety and development improved when there are reasonable limits to the number of young children per staffer in the classroom. Current Head Start standards limit staff:child ratios to 1:4 for babies and toddlers under age 3, 1:8 for 3 year olds and 1:10 for 4 year olds. In contrast, state child care licensing ratios are less salutary and vary enormously.

NIEER’s brief, The race to the bottom: What replacing Head Start ratios standards with state child care minimums will mean for children in poverty, by Morgan Healy and Steve Barnett, compares Head Start ratio standards as they are currently written to state child care regulations across all 50 states and DC, and asks: if Head Start programs defaulted to state child care licensing minimums, what would change? And how do state child care ratio requirements compare to those of public pre-K in the same state?

Read the new brief.

Check out NIEER’s additional briefs summarizing what the research says about proposed changes to Head Start teacher salaries and the proposed English-only mandate.

Beyond Benchmarks: The Future of Quality in Pre-K

What if we’ve been trying to improve early childhood quality by optimizing the parts, when we should be strengthening the system that connects them?

NIEER’s Allison Friedman-Krauss and Praidea’s Crystal Xu Rose have proposed a fireside conversation at SXSW EDU 2027 that explores how standards, curriculum, assessment, accountability, and evidence can work together to create more coherent early learning systems—and what happens when the evidence we rely on isn’t designed to support the decisions we’re making.

If this is a conversation you’d like to see next year in Austin, vote for the session in the SXSW EDU PanelPicker by August 23! You must create a free universal SXSW online account (or sign in with an existing one) to vote, which prevents duplicate voting.

Voting ends August 23!


 

Focus on New Jersey Weekly Feature 

Understanding New Jersey’s Child Care Landscape: Findings from the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative

Join leaders from research, government, philanthropy, advocacy, and the early childhood community for a day of presentations and discussion examining findings from the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative. Together, we will explore what the research tells us about New Jersey's child care landscape and consider how these findings can inform policy, practice, and future research. 

The Center for Women and Work (CWW), the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development (Heldrich), and the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) have joined together to form the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative. Funding for the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative is provided by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. 

Click here to register.

International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (IJCCEP) Weekly Feature 
 

From Head Start to Kindergarten: The Role of Formal Cross-System Agreements to Support School Transitions

Kyle DeMeo Cook, Mitchell R. Barrows, Van-Kim Lin, Stacy Ehrlich Loewe, Kristie Kauerz, and Tamara Halle examined how formal agreements between Head Start programs and local education agencies (LEAs) support children's transitions from preschool to kindergarten. The authors conducted a content analysis of 23 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and found that kindergarten transitions were rarely the primary focus of these agreements. When transitions were explicitly addressed, the MOUs emphasized three key federal priorities: establishing cross-system communication, strengthening family engagement and collaboration, and facilitating the transfer and sharing of student records and data. The findings suggest that although formal agreements currently underutilize opportunities to support kindergarten transitions, they have significant potential to strengthen collaboration between Head Start programs and school districts through intentional planning, coordinated practices, and shared accountability for children's successful entry into kindergarten.
 

Publish in the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (IJCCEP)   

• It’s FREE – article processing charges for all articles published in the journal are fully sponsored.   
• The journal is indexed by Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and by Scopus.
• All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. Authors will retain copyright.

ECE Research
 

Form Design of Preschool Educational Toys: A User Perception Driven Approach

Minda Fan, Jie Li, Shan Zhang, and Junhua Huang, in research published by IEEE, examined how preschool children's perceptions and preferences can inform the design of educational toys. Using a Kansei Engineering approach, the researchers analyzed children's psychological and perceptual characteristics, collected representative toy designs and descriptive terms, and used questionnaire data and factor analysis to identify design features associated with children's preferences. These findings were then incorporated into an educational toy prototype that more effectively combined engaging and educational characteristics. The study suggests that incorporating young children's perceptions into the design process can increase the appeal of educational toys while strengthening their potential to support early cognitive development.

Cost Effectiveness of Hearing Screening in Preschool Children: A Systematic Review

Seyedeh Faezeh Fazelian, Aliakbar Fazaeli, Sara Kaveh, Hossein Hossinifard, Sajjad Dorri, and Nashmil Ghadimi, writing in the International Journal of Audiology, conducted a systematic review of four economic evaluation studies examining the cost effectiveness of hearing screening for preschool children and children approaching primary school entry. Three studies found preschool hearing screening to be cost effective, while one did not, with results varying substantially according to screening technology, existing universal newborn hearing screening coverage, the outcome measure used, and the length of the economic evaluation period. Longer time horizons substantially improved estimated cost effectiveness in some analyses, illustrating the importance of considering the longer-term benefits of early identification. The findings suggest that preschool hearing screening can be an economically viable strategy for detecting hearing loss missed during newborn screening, but policymakers should consider local healthcare infrastructure, screening methods, and long- term costs and benefits when designing programs.

Opportunities

Data Collector, NIEER

Research Scientist, Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL), University of Virginia

Lead Advocacy Officer, ZERO TO THREE

Project Manager, ZERO TO THREE

Postdoctoral Associate in Early Literacy Research and Development, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Program Officer, Children and Families, The David & Lucile Packard Foundation

Chief of Early Learning, First Steps, State of South Carolina

Early Learning Services Research and Evaluation Scientist, Children Youth & Families Department State of Minnesota

Vice President, Early Childhood Policy, Center for American Progress

Director of Community Impact, Early Matters Texas

Director of Rural Initiatives, Early Matters Texas

Early Childhood Policy Manager, Zero To Five Montana

Director of Early Childhood Policy, Colorado Children’s Campaign