The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Family Economic Success-Early Childhood Education (FES-ECE) initiative, launched in October 2013, is rooted in the belief that families do better when programs can offer simultaneous support to children and parents. The report, designed to aid funders, is part of the Casey Foundation's ongoing commitment to sharing…

The majority of students in Maryland spent at least a portion of the last school year learning virtually, from public prekindergarten through college. Throughout the year, jurisdictions made individual decisions to allow for a gradual return to in-person school in a variety of ways. Lessons learned from the earliest stages of the pandemic made it…

In Maryland, one way children's wellbeing is measured is by looking at the data from the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). While the data can illustrate how children perform on various indicators across literacy, math, social-emotional development and physical well-being, it's really a reflection of the "readiness" of Maryland…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program, authorized by Congress in 2011, is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development programs for children from birth through age 5. This discretionary grant program is administered jointly by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services…

The Head Start program, overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services and administered by the Office of Head Start, provides child development services primarily to low-income families and their children. Federal law allows up to 10 percent of enrolled families to have incomes above 130 percent of the poverty line--GAO (Government…

For the past 21 years, the KIDS COUNT project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation has tracked the well-being of children at the national, state, and local levels. Over the years, the foundation's work has documented both great progress in child well-being and periodic setbacks. The 10 key indicators tracked in the KIDS COUNT Data Book over the past…

Policymakers and education leaders in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have been working since 2002 to meet all 12 "Challenge to Lead" Goals for Education. At the same time, SREB states have had to struggle with the toughest economic challenges in decades. Even so, SREB states have succeeded in achieving many of the goals…