A key part of youth advocacy is making sure the adults in the room are listening and taking action. Avinash Verma explains how youths connect with their communities differently than adults, and what that means in terms of needed resources and support. Avinash also explains how his community engagement has helped fuel is interest in aviation, including a work-learning program at the airport and with NASA.
Senior Executive and Director of NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education and Families, Dr. Robert Blaine, says the institute works on many levels: specific programs, cities themselves and the wider population, all to increase outcomes and build more opportunity for children and families. Dr. Blaine’s role also carries an additional benefit: working with the inspiring youth leaders. It’s a blend that requires the skills of an orchestra conductor... and it turns out, Dr. Blaine has those, too.
As part of New America’s Better Life Lab, Brigid Schulte helped drive a landmark report that exposed what’s really happening in America’s child care system – namely, it’s not a system. Instead, “it's a patchwork, it's broken, and it's not working well for anyone.” Schulte calls for us to “begin thinking about early care and education the same way we do about K-12.”
One of “Aesop’s Fables” goes like this: “A group of pigeons, terrified by the appearance of a Kite, called upon...
As a professor, nurse, mom and policymaker, access to efficient, effective and equitable early childhood education is and has been an ongoing top priority of mine.
Elliot’s Provocations unpacks current events in the early learning world and explores how we can chart a path to a...
Does putting young children in a preschool setting harm them? Opponents of publicly funded child care and early education have...
Within a notoriously underpaid workforce, Louisiana’s child care teachers receive some of the lowest wages—making on average $9.77 an hour...
Some companies are responding to the child care crisis in a somewhat predictable way: they’re looking after their own. Stories have been emerging about a proliferation of on-site child care programs; an NPR article a few weeks ago noted that
When Jack Shonkoff speaks, the early childhood field listens. Shonkoff, a pediatrician who leads Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child,...
It’s long been clear that children who grow up in poverty struggle later in their lives, experiencing everything from increased...
2021 was a momentous year for early childhood care & education. The field suffered blow after blow from COVID and then a knock-on staffing crisis; received nearly $50 billion in rescue funds to temporarily patch the gaping leaks; and is ending the year on the precipice of receiving enough public funds through the Build Back Better Act to finally become a stable and healthy sector.














