The early care and education (ECE) system has been under-resourced and undervalued since well before the pandemic. Low pay and poor working environment have long plagued the ECE industry as key drivers of chronic high turnover rates and teacher staffing shortages in the field. Additional disparities within the system place providers on vastly…

By April 15, 20 states had ordered child care centers to close in the wake of COVID-19, with exceptions for programs serving the children of essential workers such as health care professionals. Other states modified regulations, with some reducing class sizes to 10 or fewer. Especially for struggling providers, the emergency presents real…

The study examined whether preschoolers who were exposed to a media-rich literacy curriculum had better early reading skills than preschoolers who were exposed to a media-rich science curriculum. The study randomly assigned 80 preschool classes to incorporate either a media-rich literacy curriculum or a media-rich science curriculum. The final…

Research shows that children benefit when they are served by stable and highly trained center-based staff and caregivers. Responding to the unequal distribution of child-care supply across the state and a need for well-trained caregivers, First 5 California approved an initiative to train early care and education (ECE) staff using different…

Over half of this nation's children 5 years and under are in nonparental care while their parents work. Research indicates that children benefit from being with well-trained, consistent early care and education staff. Staff retention is crucial because frequent turnover impedes the formation of positive nurturing relationships between caregivers…

Attendance in preschool centers can yield short-term benefits for children from poor or middle-class families. Yet debate persists in Europe and the United States over whether centers yield gains of sufficient magnitude to sustain children's cognitive or social advantages as they move through primary school. We report on child care and home…