Compared to unpaid leave, paid family leave may better help working parents balance the competing needs of job and family early in a child's life, among other advantages. Yet the United States remains one of only two countries in the world without a statutory national paid maternity leave policy, and one of the only high-income countries that…

There are currently 2 principal models of publicly funded prekindergarten programs (pre-K): targeted pre-K, which is means-tested, and universal pre-K. These programs often differ in terms of the economic characteristics of the preschoolers enrolled. Studies have documented links between individual achievement in school-age children and the…

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…

This article presents a demographic portrait of young Hispanic children compared to young non-Hispanic Whites. New results from Census 2000 describe family and economic circumstances of children aged 08, as well as pre-K/nursery school and kindergarten enrollment for the United States, and for the 9 states with the largest number of young Hispanic…

This report assesses hardship among children of immigrants nationwide and in states with large immigrant populations (California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington). Data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families show that hardship is greater for children of immigrants than for the children of…