Playful Learning Landscapes Meeting Children Where They Are with What They Need K.C. Compton·Dec 10, 2019·6 min readPlaza. Piazza. Town square. The names may differ region to region, but they describe similar spaces: a place where residents... Read More
Alabama First Class Pre-K: Setting the Standard Nationally for 14 Years – and CountingK.C. Compton·Dec 7, 2020·8 min readWhen the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit this spring, Alabama’s First Class Pre-K turned on a dime to... Read More
Growing the Pipeline of Early Childhood Educators Neighborhood Villages Apprenticeship Program Graduates First Cohort and Continues to Grow Rebecca Gale·Apr 12, 2024·5 min readCassandra Antoine always knew she wanted to work with children. Her goal was to open her own child care center,... Read More
This Book Is Cool! Program Fights the Summer Slide and the COVID-19 SlumpK.C. Compton·Sep 3, 2020·8 min readMost of us have heard of the “summer slide” in which children lose some of the lessons they’ve learned during... Read More
Gardening with Kids: Get Those Little Hands in the Dirt and Embrace All the SensesClaire Raffel·May 6, 2021·6 min read“His name is Spencer,” declared the kindergartner proudly holding out her hand. “Spencer the Slug.” Other students jostled for a... Read More
A New Documentary Makes the Case for Early InvestmentMark Swartz·Sep 10, 2020·3 min readThe Founding Fathers built competition among the states into our system of government. With 50-plus laboratories for democracy, we’re bound... Read More
OPINION: How a Faulty Generalization is Sabotaging Early Childhood PolicyKatharine B. Stevens·Apr 9, 2021·4 min readMaking incorrect generalizations about a phenomenon based on just one or two instances of that phenomenon is a common error... Read More
More Bad News for Child Care: The Importance of Not Looking Away Our Broken Child Care System and How to Fix It, Part 2 The Editors·May 20, 2020·8 min readIn this three-part series, Dr. Laura Justice—executive director of the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The... Read More
Lack of High-Quality, Affordable Childcare Takes Its Toll on Parents, Workplaces, EconomyTom Kertscher·Mar 10, 2020·4 min readIn each year from 2016 through 2018, more than 2 million parents of children age 5 and younger suffered “job... Read More
Asking Big Questions in Kansas to Guide Decision-Making for Early-Learning Communities, Providers and ParentsMark Swartz·Jan 8, 2021·5 min readJackie Counts, director of Kansas University’s Center for Public Partnerships and Research (CPPR), likens the early childhood continuum to the... Read More
A New Start for New Mexico’s Native FamiliesMark Swartz·Dec 7, 2021·3 min read“What some may see as a gap,” says Jovanna Archuleta, “that’s not necessarily a gap. We can learn a lot... Read More
Maria Montessori’s Influence on Early Education Part 1 of a 3-Part Series Mark Swartz·Sep 15, 2022·6 min readPart I: From Italy to the World Maria Montessori (1870-1952) might not be quite as famous as her near contemporaries... Read More