This article profiles Shirley Chisholm (1924-2205), a 1993 inductee to the National Women's Hall of Fame. Born in New York, she was the oldest of four daughters. Her father was from British Guiana and her mother was from Barbados. In 1927, she was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother. She was educated in the British school system…

Early childhood program directors must juggle many responsibilities while averting one crisis after another. Although directors have to be experts in multitasking, most often they assume their many responsibilities with little or no specialized training. This article describes how the authors created the Directors of the Midlands Development and…

This article presents an interview with the chief executive officer of the Knowledge Learning Corporation, Mr. Thomas Heymann. Recently, KLC has acquired two of the largest learning centers organizations: the KinderCare Learning Centers and the Children's World Learning Centers. As a result of these mergers KLC is now the largest for profit child…

Playgrounds for early childhood programs are places where children can play freely--exploring the natural environment, learning about their bodies, creating friendships, and practicing physical skills. In April, 2000, The National Program for Playground Safety released the results of the most comprehensive national survey of child care, school,…

Researchers conducted focus groups in three Minnesota Head Start programs that provide full-day services. The purpose of this descriptive study was to understand how these programs operated, the strengths and challenges of full-day Head Start programs, and how working parents and those on public assistance described these services. Findings…

China's education system has grown increasingly complex, creating the need for an annual critical review of the education system by China's top scholars. The "Blue Book of Education," as it is known in Chinese, has gained a reputation for offering the most penetrating perspective in China on educational reform and development. In this…

As we enter a new century, Americans are engaged in a serious national debate about the future of education. Much of the policy discussion about educational reform is focused on the school achievement gap between children of low-income families and other children, and on the stated goal of assuring "no child left behind." Research has…

While the early childhood field has formed standards to help in recognizing quality programs for children, practitioners seldom use values to guide in selection of materials or to help plan early childhood environments. This book draws on a variety of educational approaches, including Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia, to outline hundreds of…

Compared the use of color in physical design features associated with the exterior and interior designs of 101 child care centers in Alabama. Found that color was evidenced on the exterior of the centers at just over half of the sample. The interior environments had warm colors and bright accents in the setting; however, the majority of centers…

Maintains that the winter months are an ideal time to review and refine a child care center's marketing program. Highlights the following target areas for review: (1) marketing plan; (2) action plan; (3) center or company identity package; (4) center brochure; (5) photos; (6) web site; (7) advertisements; (8) publicity; (9) voice mail message;…

Distinguishes between training and coaching, asserting that the latter focuses on the staff person as learner. Offers strategies for staff development: clarify when one is supervising versus coaching, identify issues before developing strategies, ask questions that spring from genuine curiosity, offer detailed descriptions of teacher actions,…

Compared parental knowledge of structural and procedural characteristics of their daycare facilities with data provided by center directors. Found that parents answered only 45% of questions correctly and reported a lack of knowledge regarding both general center characteristics and specific group characteristics. Found that parental knowledge…

To better prepare students for kindergarten, the Lafayette County School District in Oxford, Mississippi, provided cost-effective professional development seminars to local day-care workers. Three-day seminars several times a summer for 3 years were offered to all day-care workers and preschool teachers in the county including Head Start staff,…

Research shows that stability is one component of quality child care. We investigate the understudied phenomenon of the stability of child-care facilities over time, focusing on the province of British Columbia, Canada. Although net figures show growth in the number of providers between 1997 and 2001, they obfuscate a dramatic level of closure…

An observational study was conducted to examine teachers' emotional socialization strategies in three child care centers. Qualitative analysis of the data suggests that teachers in child care centers respond to children's emotional expressions with various strategies. Teachers clearly expressed a preference for positive emotion through verbal…