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San Antonio Voters Overwhelmingly Approve Pre-K 4 SA Through 2049

While major national races and historic statewide shifts dominated headlines, you may have missed this crucial news in this week’s elections buzz: Voters in San Antonio, Texas, overwhelmingly reauthorized their city’s nationally-recognized preschool program to serve families through 2049. The 20-year sales tax renewal extends the previous eight-year renewal that goes through 2029. Advocates said the longer timeline will give educators more stability and allow for investments in partnerships and facilities.

Pre-K 4 SA is one of just six city preschool programs that meet all 10 of NIEER’s research-based benchmarks for quality. NIEER and CityHealth track pre-k progress in America’s 75 largest cities annually. As well as standing out among other cities, Pre-K 4 SA far exceeds the quality standards of Texas’ state-funded preschool program.

GG Weisenfeld, co-author of NIEER and City Health’s 2026 brief, "An Updated Look at Pre-K in Large American Cities," said “Pre-K 4 SA benefits from strong leadership, funding, and political will, as well as a real focus on professional development, salary parity with K-12 educators, and using data for continuous improvement.”

View NIEER’s research on city-based preschool.

Learn more about the history of Pre-K 4 SA.

Nature and success: Outdoor play is linked to school readiness

Outdoor play is widely acknowledged for its benefits to physical health, psychological well-being, and education. A new study in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice investigated how outdoor play relates to cognitive and psychosocial development among a nationally representative sample of preschoolers.

In their study of 10,682 U.S. preschoolers, Weijia Zhu, Xun Luo, André Oliveira Werneck, Dominika Pindus Laurie Kramer, Arthur F. Kramer, Charles H. Hillman, Fabian Herold, Zhihao Zhang, Liye Zou found that:

• Only 33 percent of preschoolers engaged in over 3 hours of outdoor play on weekdays compared to 57 % on weekends;
• Outdoor play is positively associated with improved school readiness, including cognitive and psychosocial development; and
• More than 3 hours of outdoor play per day yields better school readiness and developmental outcomes.

Read the new article.

For more research and actionable strategies, check out NIEER’s policy brief, “State Policies and Guidance Relating to Outdoor and Nature-Based Experiences in Preschool.”

When Robots Malfunction: Children’s and Teachers’ Responses in Korean Preschool Classrooms

Soojung Kim and Boram Lee, writing in Learning, Media and Technology, examined how five-year-old children and teachers responded when AI powered humanoid robots malfunctioned during naturalistic preschool play. Over three months, two robots were incorporated into classroom activities, and the researchers analyzed the interactional sequences surrounding breakdowns. Children responded by repeating themselves, changing their phrasing, calling the robot by name, laughing, or disengaging, indicating that they actively tried to repair or manage the interaction. Breakdowns also frequently drew in peers and teachers, turning technical failures into shared social events rather than isolated problems between a child and a robot. The findings suggest that preschool children may treat educational robots as socially responsive partners and that robot malfunctions can become meaningful parts of classroom interaction, with implications for how AI technologies are designed and introduced in early childhood settings.

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

The Role of Length of Maternity Leave in Supporting Mother–Child Interactions and Attachment Security Among American Mothers and Their Infants

Raquel Plotka and Nancy A. Busch-Rossnagel examine the relationship between maternity leave duration, mother–infant interactions, and attachment security in the US. The study addresses the importance of parental leave policies for early childhood development, particularly during infancy, when responsive caregiving and secure attachment relationships are developing. The authors analyzed nationally representative data from approximately 3,850 working mothers and their infants participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort to investigate associations between maternity leave duration, mother–child interactions, and attachment security.

Using path analysis and controlling for socioeconomic status, the researchers found that longer maternity leave was directly associated with higher-quality mother–child interactions at nine months and indirectly associated with greater attachment security at age two through the quality of those interactions. The findings suggest that maternity leave policies may support infants' social and emotional development by providing opportunities for responsive caregiving and strengthening early relationships. The authors emphasize the importance of family leave policies that address the developmental needs of infants and the circumstances of working mothers.
 

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ECE Research

Preschool Physical Activity Policy and Children’s Physical Activity: A Pragmatic Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial

In JAMA Network Open, Chu Chen, Jairo H. Migueles, Viktor H. Ahlqvist, Pablo Campos-Garzón, Pontus Henriksson, Martin Neovius, Maria Rosaria Galanti, Kyriaki Kosidou, Nicola Orsini, Anton Lager, and Daniel Berglind evaluated whether a physical activity policy could increase children’s physical activity during the preschool day. The cluster randomized clinical trial included 124 public preschools in Stockholm, Sweden, and 3,751 children ages 3 to 5, with intervention preschools implementing a cocreated physical activity policy for six months and control preschools continuing usual practice. Accelerometer data showed that moderate to vigorous physical activity, total physical activity, and daily steps increased over time in both groups, but there were no significant differences between intervention and control preschools. For example, moderate to vigorous activity increased to about 33 minutes per day in both groups. The findings suggest that adopting a preschool physical activity policy alone may not be sufficient to produce measurable increases in children’s activity, highlighting the challenge of translating policy changes into sustained behavioral change in early childhood settings.

Comparing Live and Video Observations in Preschool Classrooms: Evidence from Within Observation CLASS Scores

Anne Partika, Todd Grindal, Sarah Gerard, and Gullnar Syed, writing in Child Development, examined whether live and video-based classroom observations produce comparable scores using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. The study included 101 paired observations conducted in 59 preschool classrooms serving children ages 3 to 5 across five U.S. states, with one observer scoring live while another later scored the same observation from video. Video scores were lower than live scores for Emotional Support, and differences between formats varied according to classroom quality and language context. In higher quality observations, video scores tended to be lower across CLASS domains, while in lower quality observations video scores were sometimes higher for Classroom Organization and Instructional Support; video scores for Instructional Support were also higher in multilingual Spanish English classrooms than in live observations. The findings suggest that live and video CLASS observations should not automatically be treated as interchangeable, with important implications for early childhood research, coaching, and accountability systems that rely on classroom observation scores.

Children’s Rights in Early Childhood Education: A Systematic Review of Classroom Based Research on Teaching and Learning Practices

Meriam Boulahrouz Lahmidi, writing in Early Childhood Education Journal, systematically reviewed classroom-based research on how children’s rights are taught and supported in early childhood education. From an initial pool of 2,029 peer reviewed articles, 18 studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed for the ways children’s rights were incorporated into teaching and learning practices. The synthesis identified four interconnected areas: children’s experiences of participation and rights, educators’ conceptions and practices, pedagogical strategies, and the institutional and policy conditions shaping implementation. Across studies, the evidence showed both growing attention to rights-based approaches and substantial variation in how children’s rights are understood and enacted in classrooms. The review highlights the need for stronger empirical research and more clearly developed pedagogies that help educators translate children’s rights principles into everyday early childhood practice.



Opportunities

Data Collector, NIEER

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Early Childhood, University of Michigan Ford School Education Policy Initiative

Founding Generation Summer Fellowship for Undergraduates, International Congress of Infant Studies

Senior Research Associate, Annenberg Institute, Brown University

Assistant Director for Program Evaluation, Harlem Children’s Zone

Sr. Project Manager of ECE Strategy, Policy, and Planning, City of Philadelphia 

Vice President, Early Childhood Policy, Center for American Progress

National Sales Manager, Professional Development, ZERO TO THREE

Sr. Professional Development Specialist, ZERO TO THREE

Advisory Services Analyst, Early Childhood Programs, Mathematica

Analyst, Research and Evaluation, Illinois Action for Children



Early Learning Policy Associate, Texans Care for Children