Weekly E-News
October 16, 2026
Hot Topics
In a new Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative report, Milagros Nores, Christina Stephens, Allison Friedman-Krauss, Andrea Kent and Karin Garver analyze revenue sources and operating costs for New Jersey child care centers. The findings offer insights into licensed center-based providers in NJ that may be useful for identifying supports and policies to strengthen and improve access to the state’s ECE system:
- Most centers received tuition payments from families (80%), about 2 out of 3 responding centers reported receiving funding from the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP; 61%), and 18% received state pre-k funding.
- The NJ provider landscape appears largely divided (with some overlap) between those receiving mostly CCAP and a smaller share receiving state pre-K funding. That is, CCAP and state pre-K mostly support different segments of the ECE market, functioning as complementary policy levers.
- Staff salaries represented the largest share of centers’ total operating expenditures, accounting for two-thirds of total expenses (66%).
“It’s critical that we understand the financial structure of child care,” said the report’s lead author Milagros Nores. “We should be reviewing the fiscal state of the child care system regularly to understand how its doing and inform policy decisions accordingly.”
The Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative is a partnership between NIEER, the Center for Women and Work, and the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, made possible through funding and support from the New Jersey Department of Children and Families.
Harvard Center on the Developing Child Reflects on 20 Years of Impact in Podcast
The Center on the Developing Child is relaunching its podcast, “What Shapes Us,” with a new season exploring how understanding of early childhood development continues to evolve and what that means for children, caregivers, and the systems that shape their lives.
The first episode features Faculty Director, Stephanie Jones and co-Executive Directors, Tassy Warren and Gillian Najarian. They reflect on how the field of early childhood development has evolved over the last 20 years, and on the Center’s role in shifting the narrative around early childhood.
To fix teacher shortage, try pay, prestige and working conditions, University of Missouri researcher says
In his new book, “Ending Teacher Shortages,” Tuan Nguyen, a Mizzou Forward associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development aims to help policymakers, researchers, and others better understand teacher shortages and what can be done to reverse them.
“A nation that doesn’t support teachers is on a losing track,” said Nguyen. “We are no longer going to be able to compete globally or have people who become professors, invent the next big thing, cure cancer or become an astronaut.”
The book, published Sept. 29 by Johns Hopkins University Press, was written with Christopher Redding, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Florida. Over the past four years, Nguyen and Redding have scrutinized teacher labor markets and what drives teachers in and out of the classroom.
NIEER Activity
University of South Florida, NIEER to Strengthen Partnership to Support Dual Language Learners
The University of South Florida's College of Education has received a $4.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen how educators across Tampa Bay are prepared to support young English learners in pre-K through third grade. The five-year initiative is an interdisciplinary effort with support from the USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. Partners include Hillsborough County Public Schools, Redlands Christian Migrant Association, the Early Learning Coalition of Hillsborough County and the Early Learning Coalition of Pinellas County.
The project will allow USF to partner with NIEER to build on a NIEER-developed classroom observation tool designed for settings serving bilingual children. The team plans to extend the tool through third grade. The work could help researchers better connect specific teaching practices with student outcomes and identify where educators may need additional support.
"There's a huge need in the field for an expanded observational tool for multilingual learners, and that's part of what we're doing," said Lisa Lopez, professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education. "Being able to build on that work is also critical from a nationwide perspective, because that tool can really help evaluate teacher practices, and that'll really open up the science for us to be able to understand what's going on in the classroom and what works and what doesn't work.”
Learn more about NIEER’s work to support Dual Language Learners.
How State Policies Relate to Public Pre-K Teachers’ Curriculum Use
As many states expand pre-K, policymakers are focused on better understanding the role of curriculum in ensuring students receive high-quality early childhood education.
By combining data from NIEER’s State of Preschool Yearbook with data from RAND's American Pre-K Teacher Survey, NIEER’s Jennifer Duer and Allison Friedman-Krauss and RAND’s Anna Shapiro and Elizabeth D. Steiner investigated the role that state policies related to preschool curriculum play in public school pre-K teachers’ reported curricula use across the United States.
The authors found substantial variation in the curricula that teachers report using across states, and some differences across pre-K programs within states. In addition, specific state curriculum guidance appears to influence classroom curriculum use. When states require that teachers use specific curricula (rather than recommending curricula), teachers reported combining fewer curricula in their classrooms.
Curriculum and Family Child Care: Guidance for Mixed-Delivery Pre-K Programs
With the support of Home Grown, NIEER launched the Enriching Public Pre-K Through Inclusion of Family Child Care (EPIC FCC) initiative in 2024. Through this effort, we worked with pre-K system leaders and FCC educators in Alabama, Nevada, Durham, North Carolina, and Michigan as the established advisory groups, examined their pre-K and FCC systems, and/or developed policies and funding streams to support FCCs in their pre-K systems. NIEER’s FCC & Pre-K Policy Data Snapshots were developed as a result of some of the discussions that occurred during the EPIC FCC initiative.
Check out our latest data snapshot, "Curriculum and Family Child Care: Guidance for Mixed-Delivery Pre-K Programs," and the full FCC & Pre-K Policy Data Snapshots series, here.
International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (IJCCEP) Weekly Feature
Clarissa M. Corkins, Amanda W. Harrist, Isaac J. Washburn, Larisa Callaway-Cole, Jennifer B. Stepp, and Robin L. Fuxa examined the roles of paraprofessional assistant teachers working in U.S. public Pre K classrooms for 4-year-olds. Using a mixed methods design, the researchers first analyzed 12 assistant teacher job descriptions and then surveyed 118 assistant teachers about their characteristics, experiences, and classroom duties. Analyses identified two social role profiles and two patterns of classroom responsibilities reflecting more hierarchical versus co teaching structures, although assistant teachers’ characteristics and contexts did not significantly predict which duty pattern they experienced. The findings highlight substantial variation in how assistant teachers are used across Pre K settings.
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ECE Research
Serap Aktemur Gürler and Ayşe Duran Yilmaz, writing in SAGE Open, examined factors associated with preschool teachers’ intentions to adopt Learning Analytics systems for developmental monitoring and data informed decision making. Using survey data from 303 preschool teachers and structural equation modeling, the researchers combined the Task Technology Fit Model with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2. Teachers were more likely to intend to use Learning Analytics when the technology fit their instructional tasks and when they perceived it as useful, easy to use, enjoyable, socially supported, familiar, and backed by adequate facilitating conditions. The integrated model explained 61 percent of the variation in adoption intentions, outperforming either theoretical model used alone. The findings suggest that successful introduction of Learning Analytics in preschool settings will depend not only on the technology itself but also on its fit with teachers’ everyday work and the professional and organizational supports available to them.
Deborah A. Phillips, Anna Wright, Anne Martin, Diane Horm, Anna D. Johnson, and the Tulsa SEED Study Team, writing in Social Development, examined whether participation in public preschool was associated with children’s social emotional development in kindergarten and fourth grade. Using propensity score methods, the researchers compared children from racially and ethnically diverse low-income families who attended school based pre-K or Head Start with children who did not attend preschool. The analyses included 907 children in kindergarten and 595 children in fourth grade. Preschool attendance was not significantly associated with social skills or emotional development at either the end of kindergarten or in fourth grade.
Reference Values for Mobility in Typically Developing Preschool Children: A Cross Sectional Study
Hsiu-Ching Chiu, Louise Ada, and Theofani Bania, writing in Physiotherapy, established reference values for everyday mobility among 749 typically developing children ages 3 to 5 attending eight preschools in Taiwan. Children completed measures of standing from a chair, preferred and fast walking speed, three-minute walking endurance, and stair climbing. Mobility improved substantially from ages 3 to 5, with gains ranging from 8 percent for preferred walking speed to 77 percent for stair performance. Age was the strongest predictor of stair climbing and walking endurance, while height was more strongly associated with walking speed, and no significant sex differences were found. The findings provide practical benchmarks that can help identify possible mobility delays in preschool children and evaluate outcomes of pediatric physical therapy and other movement interventions.
Carlos D. Gómez-Carmona, Daniel González-Devesa, Bruno da Costa, and Markel Rico-González, writing in Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, systematically reviewed 27 studies evaluating accelerometers for measuring physical activity and sedentary behavior among preschool children up to age 6 in everyday settings. Accelerometers showed moderate to high validity for identifying sedentary behavior and moderate to vigorous physical activity, but were less accurate for measuring light intensity activity. Reliability improved as monitoring time increased, reaching high stability when children wore the devices for seven days. Findings were generally consistent across ActiGraph and other accelerometer devices, although results varied according to activity intensity and the cut points used to classify movement. The authors recommend monitoring for at least seven consecutive days, using short measurement intervals of 5 to 15 seconds and developmentally appropriate cut points, while calling for greater standardization of data processing procedures to improve comparability across studies.
Opportunities
Senior Research Associate, Annenberg Institute, Brown University
Assistant Director for Program Evaluation, Harlem Children’s Zone
Enrollment Research, Analytics, and Policy (ERAP) 2-K Analyst, NYC Public Schools
Sr. Project Manager of ECE Strategy, Policy, and Planning, City of Philadelphia
Evaluation Manager, Children’s Council of San Francisco
Vice President, Early Childhood Policy, Center for American Progress
National Sales Manager, Professional Development, ZERO TO THREE
Advisory Services Analyst, Early Childhood Programs, Mathematica
Analyst, Research and Evaluation, Illinois Action for Children
The Authors
Allison Muhlendorf manages external affairs for NIEER, including communications, earned and owned media, government relations, partnerships, and outreach.
About NIEER
The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, conducts and disseminates independent research and analysis to inform early childhood education policy.
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