The Race to The Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development and close the achievement gap for children with high needs. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services define high needs to include children who are English learners, often referred to as English Language…

In a randomized control study, Head Start teachers were assigned to either an intervention group that received intensive, ongoing professional development (PD) or to a comparison group that received the "business as usual" PD provided by Head Start. The PD intervention provided teachers with conceptual knowledge and instructional…

The image of a carer "minding" babies and toddlers has been transformed with the professionalisation of care in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This occurred with the introduction of the national early childhood curriculum, "Te Wha-riki", in 1996 (Ministry of Education, 1996). Another…

The aim of this article is to initiate a change of view on quality that goes beyond assumed dichotomies of subjectivity and objectivity. In the view presented here, pedagogical quality is seen as an educational phenomenon of "sustainable dynamism," that is a phenomenon that has structural characteristics and is culturally sensitive. The…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) programs has a positive effect on the retention of quality preschool teachers in Los Angeles County. In prior work, preschool teacher retention is associated with wages, program structure, program process, professional development, and…

Early-care and education research, relative to positive outcomes for young children, birth through age five, enrolled in high quality early-care and education programs is compelling. This same research also names the classroom teacher as pivotal in establishing and maintaining high quality within their classrooms and practices. Currently, within…

This report was produced for the 2012 Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting in Mauritius. Its main purpose is to track the historical progress and likelihood of attainment of Education For All and education-specific Millennium Development Goals while also critically reviewing the methods used to track this progress. The analyses…

The purpose of this study is to describe what data preschools in a mid-sized city in the Northeast collect, how they use that data, and the challenges they face. The study focuses on three types of data: early learning outcomes, dosage (i.e., the amount of exposure to early childhood education), and classroom quality. The report further…

This "Stated Briefly" report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. This study explores how seven early childhood education programs in a mid-sized city in the Northeast region are collecting and using data, how they would like to use data, how they could use the data that they have, and the…

The following article introduces an exploratory study that was designed to measure the quality of early childhood education within its ever changing sociocultural context utilizing the Early Childhood Learning Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) in 40 classrooms in Beijing, China. Implications for early childhood teacher education,…

This paper reports on the first phase of a case study that investigated how early childhood teachers experience organisational change. As one of three levels of quality improvement, State government-funded curriculum initiatives were developed with an aim to promote change. Three curriculum documents, one each focusing on literacy, pedagogy and…

With over 12 million children enrolled in early care and education programming across the U.S., families with children under the age of 5 years old are dependent on these programs. Although highly important, little regulation exists regarding qualifications necessary for individuals to work in these programs. Consequently, individuals in the field…

What incentives can the administrators of early childhood education facilities offer their staff in order to retain them? In light of research identifying low staff turnover as a key component of high quality early childhood education, the answer to this question has ramifications beyond human-resources management. This paper presents the results…

Researchers have investigated the impact of teacher education and experience on child care quality; however, findings have been inconsistent. This study used archived data originating from Pennsylvania's Keystone STARS program. The sample included 617 infant or toddler classrooms with 1356 teachers and 887 preschool classrooms with 1915 teachers.…

The purpose of this article is to describe the professional development (PD) model for preschool literacy and language instruction that took place in a 3-year, 2-tiered Early Reading First project in 9 Head Start and community-based school classrooms. In our tiered model, the Tier 1 level was classroom instruction and Tier 2 was intervention…