Elliot’s Provocations

There is a concept, variously used in science and business, known as the “valley of death.” In essence, this is the dangerous period between research & development and on-the-ground adoption where many ideas and ventures fail.

Linking early child care and school-aged care is a good idea both on the merits and the politics. I’m hardly the first one to point this out, but I want to highlight the opportunity here as we head into summer break and the acute headache it causes for many families.

While there is much to celebrate about the Inflation Reduction Act, one group was left on the outside looking in: parents with young children.

Elliot’s Provocations unpacks current events in the early learning world and explores how we can chart a path to a...

If you’ve been following my work at all, you know I bristle at many “incremental” solutions to child care challenges.

Last month, I wrote about how child care’s lack of salience in the public imagination is holding back its political opportunities. The absence of mass public pressure is one piece of the puzzle. Another piece is that by and large, child care lacks a strong inside game.

Last year, I wrote a column on five trends to look for in 2023 (which I think in retrospect were mostly apt, though the answer to ‘is bipartisanship possible’ seems to have been ‘outlook not so good’), and thought it would be worthwhile to do it again as the calendar gets ready to turn.

For my last column of the year, I want to touch on a less-discussed but not-unimportant question: what in the heck should we call the care and education of children during the first five years of their life?

The child care movement needs a broad base of support in order to win an effective, publicly-funded system. Now, a new research paper is opening another door by showing how child care is impacting that most respected of American icons: farmers.