State Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS) can effectively support the improvement of school-age childcare programs by leveraging Program Quality Assessments (PQAs) alongside structured improvement planning and professional development. Real-world implementations in Arkansas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania underscore the impact and adaptability…

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…

This resource was prepared in response to a request for information from a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) State about the innovative work with family child care providers that is being done in RTT-ELC Phase 2 States (Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin) and Phase 3 States (Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New…

More than 7.4 million U.S. children ages 5 and under live in a household where a language other than English is spoken by a parent or caregiver. But despite the size and growth of this Dual Language Learner (DLL) population, and these children's distinct linguistic assets and learning needs, standardized policies for identifying them and…

High-quality care in the earliest years of life has been shown to relate to positive developmental outcomes for children, including improved early academic skills, social-emotional competencies, and cognitive functioning. Unfortunately, the early care experiences of many children are not always high quality; rather, research suggests that…

The effects of high- versus low-quality child care during 2 developmental periods (infant-toddlerhood and preschool) were examined using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Propensity score matching was used to account for differences in families who used different combinations of child…

Nationwide, one-third of children ages 5 and under have at least one parent who speaks a language other than English. These Dual Language Learners (DLLs) are an incredibly diverse and growing group of young children, and with the right support these preschoolers have the potential to develop as multilingual and multiliterate individuals. Yet…

A considerable body of literature suggests that children's child-care experiences may impact adrenocortical functioning in early childhood. Yet emerging findings also suggest that the magnitude and sometimes the direction of child-care effects on development may be markedly different for children from higher risk contexts. Using data from a large…

This resource was prepared in response to a request for information from a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) State about how other States are using a Shared Services strategy to support their child care providers, in particular family child care providers. By sharing common management, professional development, and infrastructure…

Care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs) have advanced and matured, a number of states and localities have undertaken evaluations to validate the systems. Such efforts stem from the desire to ensure that the system is designed and operating in the ways envisioned when the system was established. Given that a central component in a QRIS…

This hearing serves as a first in a set of hearings focusing on early learning. In his opening statement, Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, strongly encouraged members of this committee on both sides of the aisle to hold roundtables and have discussions on early learning in their local…

Intervention studies indicate that children's childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children's physiological stress systems may be associated with…

A growing body of evidence indicates that for some children, early incidences of challenging behaviors are predictors of later difficulties. These incidences of challenging behaviors may predict mental health issues, social adjustment issues and/or increased challenging behaviors that will impede school success and impact transition to adult life…

Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement…

Research Findings: Recent work has demonstrated that the changes young children experience in their child care settings before age 5 may be related to subsequent development, especially social development. Several of these studies have included samples of middle-class children, with almost no emphasis on understanding these processes for…