Israel's early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy for ages 0-3 has evolved significantly, with the Ministry of Education now overseeing it. However, the policy still emphasizes settings over comprehensive child development, excluding centers with fewer than seven children, and many still need to be registered. This study examines Israel's…

National policies aiming at marketisation and privatisation in welfare sectors such as Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) require governance and organisation to be realised. In Sweden, the municipalities are key but largely under-researched organisers for preschool quasi-market infrastructures. This study explores the different ways in…

Child Trends and Start Early have partnered to better understand what early childhood systems builders need to build and support more equitable systems. The briefs in this series, called Conversation Starters, define a new framework for early childhood systems that center families' experiences and raise key considerations and next steps for…

Currently available measures of PreK classroom quality inconsistently predict gains in children's outcomes. Extant measures may not capture the full range of instructional practices--including the degree to which children are exposed to rich content and cognitively demanding instruction--that are important for supporting the development of early…

The Carole Robertson Center for Learning is one of the largest early childhood and youth development nonprofit organizations in Chicago, serving more than 1,000 children and their families every day, with a significant presence on the city's West Side. The organization's work during the COVID-19 pandemic and a summer grounded in the fight for…

Nearly all states with public prekindergarten programs use mixed-delivery systems, with classrooms in both public schools and community-based settings. However, experts have long raised concerns about systematic inequities by setting within these public systems. We used data from five large-scale such systems that have taken steps to improve…

Communities are investigating new ways to expand access to high-quality early education. A new early care and education partnership initiative in a mid-Atlantic state offered publicly-funded preschool slots to eligible children in private early childhood programs and provided quality supports to participating private programs. This qualitative…

Research Findings: Bug-in-ear coaching implemented under highly controlled situations has a promising research base. Yet few researchers have examined its effects when implemented within less controlled environments using authentic professional development conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the implementation and effects of…

"Excelencia in Education" brings to a national audience evidence-based practices situated at higher education institutions and community-based organizations across the country that are intentionally serving Latino students. The 2023 "Examples of Excelencia: What Works for Latino Students in Higher Education" selection committee…

Given the importance of the early childhood years, innovations to improve programs and services for this age range are vital, particularly for the marginalized populations in society.

Neighborhood North, a play-oriented community museum in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, had just opened when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and schools closed. The museum's mission is to increase educational equity in the community. Neighborhood North leaders immediately saw a need to support students at risk of falling behind in school with academic…

The focus of this study is preschool teachers' perspectives on their experiences during a Pre-K expansion in New York City. The expansion brought on neoliberal approaches to curriculum, child assessment, quality improvement, and instructional support in classrooms, and these changes in turn heightened expectations for accountability. This has…

Purpose: This study responds to major administrative and policy priorities to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by investigating a multi-sector ecosystem of regional organizations that support a STEM pipeline for education and careers. Design/methodology/approach: We use social network analysis to…

In New York City, early childhood education has become the topic of conversation when talking about public education due to Mayor Bill De Blasio's Pre-Kindergarten for All initiative which was introduced in September of 2014. New York City has always invested in early childhood education through Head Start, Early Head Start, Child Care and…

Evidence from the UN World Youth Report (2015) suggests that young people, while increasingly disengaged with formal political processes, are motivated by cause-related social action. Higher Education (HE), through research and partnership, provides ideal learning spaces to explore cause-related social action. However, as HE partnership…