North Carolina Archives - Early Learning Nation

What We Can Learn From Red States’ Approaches to Child Care Challenges

Which policies have earned cross-partisan support and could be a good fit for North Carolina’s early care and learning landscape?

Katie Dukes and Liz Bell, EducationNC·Feb 12, 2025·13 min read

Policymakers across the political spectrum ran for office on child care issues in 2024. From the presidential campaigns to local...

North Carolina Has Lost More Than 5% of Licensed Child Care Programs Since the Pandemic Began

Closures of licensed child care programs have been outpacing the opening of new programs since at least June 2023

Katie Dukes·Sep 4, 2024·6 min read

This article originally appeared at EdNC.org. Since February 2020, the number of licensed child care programs in North Carolina has...

Seedlings in the Garden: Childhood Food Sovereignty and the Push to Reclaim Indigenous Foodways

After their food systems were systematically destroyed, America’s Indian Tribes are teaching their children the importance of healthy diets through agricultural education

Suzette Brewer·Apr 10, 2024·10 min read

Every weekday morning, Nichole Efird greets her students with a hug and the promise of another adventure. With a curriculum...

Ramie Mack: Helping Adults Understand What Youths Are Experiencing

The Editors·Mar 30, 2022·4 min read

As an NLC Youth Representative, North Carolina High School junior Ramie Mack has the opportunity to talk with adults, including mayors and city councilmembers. And as she advocates for learning, Ramie wants those leaders to understand that youth face challenges, too. That’s just one reason she advocates for making sure students are part of the conversation when learning is being discussed.

Ready Ready: An Early Childhood “Backbone” in North Carolina

Mark Swartz·Jan 25, 2022·5 min read

Guilford, the third largest county in North Carolina, was the site of the 1960 Woolworth counter sit-in that helped spread...

No Longer A “Gym and Swim.” How Three YMCAs Are Helping Their Communities Build Stronger Systems For All

Mark Swartz·Aug 17, 2021·4 min read

Launched in London in 1844 and in Boston seven years later, the YMCA has the benefits and drawbacks of a...

Pacesetter Communities Race for Children’s Literacy in Florida, North Carolina and Iowa

Mark Swartz·Jan 21, 2021·7 min read

Vaccine distribution is under way, but the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic carry on, and the fallout will continue in...

A New Documentary Makes the Case for Early Investment

Mark Swartz·Sep 10, 2020·3 min read

The Founding Fathers built competition among the states into our system of government. With 50-plus laboratories for democracy, we’re bound...

We’re Asking the Wrong Questions About COVID Cases in Child Care

Elliot Haspel·Jul 9, 2020·6 min read

The question that parents and practitioners really want to know is this: How safe are child cares? Or, put another way, how likely is my child (or am I) to catch COVID-19 from a child care center? In order to know that, we need to be able to answer how much transmission is occurring WITHIN child care centers? Until we ask the right questions and demand the right data, we’ll be stumbling in the dark.