This 19th annual edition of "Quality Counts" takes a broad look at the issues and forces shaping the discussion around early-childhood education. It examines how new academic demands and the push for accountability are changing the nature of early-childhood education for school administrators, teachers, and children alike. Reporters…

This year's joint report highlights the progress made in education since the special session of the 106th General Assembly (2010), which included passage of the First to the Top and Complete College Tennessee Acts. Both Acts provide a framework for collaboration between all state systems of education, addressing the overarching need to produce a…

In the fall of 2008, a coalition of Minnesota foundations commissioned a local research organization to assess the state's ability to undertake a major improvement in school readiness and early learning services for disadvantaged children. The findings were discouraging. Richard Chase, working at the research arm of St. Paul's Amherst H. Wilder…

The main goal of this paper is to analyse factors (accessibility, attendance rates and quality of preschools) that may be affecting the educational readiness of China's rural children before they enter the formal school system. Using data from a survey of 82 preschools and 492 households in six counties in three provinces of China, this paper…

A challenge noted in a number of endangered language contexts is the need to mix second-language (L2) learners of the target language with first-language (L1) speakers of that language in a less planned way than is found in the two-way immersion approach. Such mixing of L1 speakers of the target language with L2 learners arises from the difficulty…

This report provides a literature review of the evidence on the quality of early childhood education and care for children under three. It considers the implications for policy and practice, particularly for the Government's programme of free early years provision for disadvantaged two year-olds. The review of the research evidence identified four…

High-quality prekindergarten programs not only are important for decreasing the school-readiness gaps between low-income and middle-income children, they also benefit wealthier children and decrease dropout and retention rates. Thus, in the last decade, many states have committed resources to providing high-quality preK programs for all children,…

In Serbia, as in the other countries of the Western Balkans and South-Eastern Europe, the most disadvantaged communities belong to the Roma minority. The present paper demonstrates the conditions of Roma preschool children in Serbia: primarily their early education, but also habitation and health in Roma settlements. The data highlight the…

Background: This study investigated parental decision making about non-parental child care programs based on the technological and quality components of the program, both child-focused and parent-focused. Child-focused variables related to children's access to technology such as computers, educational television programming, and the internet.…

This article describes how the Portuguese National Council for Education initiated a participatory process that gave rise to the development of a "public statement", "The Education for Children from Zero to Six Years". This statement and its 11 recommendations were directed towards the Ministry of Education and called for a…

The expansion of publicly-funded preschool education is currently the focus of a prominent debate. At present, 42% of 4-year-olds attend publicly funded preschool (28% attend public prekindergarten programs, 11% Head Start, and 3% special education preschool programs). A vigorous debate about the merits of preschool education is underway, although…

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at the University of California, Berkeley, is assisting the New Jersey Council for Young Children (Council) in collecting and analyzing information about the state's early learning professional preparation and development system. The project consists of two phases: a Mapping Phase and a…

This article focuses on three pieces of research and explores what these studies tell about the effects of home and early education on scientific development in young children as they move into and through primary education. The first piece of research was a longitudinal study that took place between 1997 and 2004; the EPPE (Effective Provision of…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of early educational quality on children's cortisol levels. It was hypothesised that the environmental stressors might load children's immature stress regulative systems thus affecting their diurnal cortisol levels. The study sample consisted of 146 preschool-aged children. Cortisol was measured…

"The State of Preschool 2016" is the latest edition of our annual yearbook report profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. NIEER's [National Institute for Early Education Research's] "State Preschool Yearbook" is the only national report on state-funded preschool programs with detailed information…