In concert, state bodies governing public pre-K through Ph.D. students are implementing policies addressing safety and classroom use of artificial intelligence.

Next week, the Florida Board of Governors, which controls Florida’s 12 state universities, will review language directing each campus to “establish policies requiring all course syllabi to include a disclosure of faculty use and permitted student use of artificial intelligence.”

The decision starts with the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, which the Board of Governors created earlier this year to address the emerging technology’s permeation into higher education.

Policy proposals extend to Florida’s youngest students, too.

The Florida Board of Education, which oversees preK-12 and the Florida College System, has a vote scheduled to direct K-12 public and charter schools and colleges to regulate AI use.

The Board of Education will vote Sept. 16 during its meeting at Polk State College whether to require public school districts and charter school governing boards to amend their internet safety policy to include AI.

The rule is not expected to require legislative ratification and would have to be adopted by school boards by July 1, 2027. 

Districts and charter schools would, at a minimum, make policies to “protect students, parents, and instructional personnel from unlawful, deceptive, unsafe, or unauthorized uses of artificial intelligence systems, services, applications, and tools used in connection with educational programs and operations in Florida public schools,” according to a draft copy of the rule. 

The idea is to “ensure that any approved use of artificial intelligence protects education records and student information, while supporting student achievement, civic literacy, academic excellence, and workforce preparedness.”

More specifically, schools would notify parents when teachers approve an AI instructional tool for use, including the name of the platform and classes in which it would be used and the nature of student interaction.

Parental protection

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration did not return a request for comment.

The Florida Education Association supports guidelines for protecting children.

“Every parent and guardian wants their child to succeed in their public schools. In today’s world, technology is a key part of what and how our students learn, and, like with all new technology, there must be rules and guidelines that center on protecting our children,” FEA President Andrew Spar wrote in an emailed statement to the Phoenix.

The policy must require a process for parents to object to AI use and provide alternatives to the tool.

Schools would be required to conduct additional reviews for AI tools used in PreK-5 to ensure it is age appropriate. 

The measure includes language aiming to protect the teaching profession from being replaced by computers. It would “ensure that the use of AI instructional tools is limited to supplementing, and not replacing, the professional judgment of teachers and the primary right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”

Further, the policy must ensure AI is “accurate, transparent, viewpoint neutral, accessible to students and educators with disabilities.”

Schools must make publicly available approved AI instructional tools and policies. Also, the tools must maintain student interaction for at least 30 days in the interest of accessibility to parents and district administrators.

However, the data collected on students must not be used for profit or to profile students to train commercial AI models. 

The state is proposing, the regulation draft says, that schools not deploy AI to:

• Meet a student’s social or emotional needs, including Social Emotional Learning.
• Simulate friendship, companionship, or an emotional relationship with a student.
• Employ relationship-building or anthropomorphic design features for the purpose of encouraging a student to continue interacting with the system or tool.

The rule would impose training for teachers and administrators on the safety, risks, and compliance regarding AI. 

The policy must address plagiarism, permissible classroom use, verifying student work, and demonstrating mastery without use of AI.

“At the Florida Education Association, we believe that any policy the state of Florida enacts must ensure parents and guardians are advised of all potential uses of AI in a public school, that student data is protected, that the use of AI and new technologies is safe, that use of technology in the classroom is age and need appropriate, and that educators are protected and that additional work is not placed on them without additional support,” Spar said.

College system

The 28 state colleges have AI rules on the Board of Education docket, too. 

Those rules would place responsibility to create AI policies with college system boards of trustees

The Board of Education expects the 28 boards of trustees to create policies “that provide for the use and limitations of use of artificial intelligence tools in order to ensure quality of education for students, efficiency of operations, and a safe learning environment for the whole college community.”

As with the pre-K-12 policy, the college policy would distinguish between instructional AI tools and other technologies. 

AI instructional tools could not “meet a student’s social needs; simulate friendship, companionship, or an emotional relationship with a student; or employ relationship-building or anthropomorphic design features for the purpose of encouraging a student to continue interacting with the system.”

The policy calls on colleges to protect student privacy with AI, allow notification of parents of minors taking college classes whether their courses involve AI, and factor for academic integrity and dishonesty.

The policy calls, too, for building a framework to helps students understand what AI is and how it incorporates into their education and building AI skills.

This was originally published by Florida Phoenix.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

The program, which comes at no cost to families, added a new, pre-kindergarten grade level to public school districts throughout the state. The 2026-27 school year marks the second full year that all 4-year-olds in California are eligible for TK. 

It is, in many respects, a boon for families and the state. But for early care and education providers — many of whom have long depended on the lower cost of serving preschoolers to help offset the more expensive work of caring for infants and toddlers — the siphoning of 4-year-olds from their enrollment represents an existential threat to their businesses and, they say, the health of the sector and variety of options available to families statewide. 

Already, some private preschools have closed their doors permanently; others are trying — and often struggling — to pivot to serve younger children. 

“Parents will likely have fewer choices for pre-K in the long run,” said Anna Powell, associate director of research and policy at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. “If we sort of accept that the 4s and 5s will move into TK, many providers will not be able to serve 3s and younger. If that happens, we could see fewer options for younger children as well.”

Details of the challenges that TK has created for California providers are captured in her organization’s , which used data collected from a survey of 10,000 early childhood educators and focus groups with center directors and family childcare providers. 

TK expansion is just one piece of California’s — it’s even just one element in the Master Plan to achieve universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds — but it is the one that has received the most attention and investment by far, said Powell, lead author of the report. 

“TK has reached critical mass,” she said. “What started as a trickle is now a tidal wave of movement. We have to reckon with that as a state.”

In the 2025-26 school year, when all California children who turned 4 years old by Sept. 1 became eligible, about 52% of the eligible TK population had — more than 200,000 children, according to the California Budget and Policy Center. 

“This might seem like not a big deal,” Powell added, noting that many people wonder why early care and education programs who have lost 4- and 5-year-olds can’t just pivot to care for more infants and toddlers. “The business model has been calibrated where 4s and 5s are the biggest and most stable group. When you start to tinker with that, it can really raise problems for providers.”

California is to roll out free, universal preschool for 4-year-olds, although no program ends up looking the same, given the fragmented system of early care and education in the United States, noted Powell. California’s approach of adding a new grade level to schools and making that the “one free choice” for families inevitably pits the public option versus the private ones. 

An alternative, such as one , supports the mixed-delivery system of early care and education; the state pays licensed providers across a range of settings — such as centers, homes and schools — to serve 4-year-olds and lets families choose which setting best fits their needs. 

So when the public option is free, it becomes hard for private providers to find a winning argument with the families of 4-year-olds. 

That was true for Heather Posner. 

Posner is the former director of the , which closed permanently on June 12 after losing too much of its enrollment to the public TK program, she said. In the three years leading up to its full implementation in fall 2025, “I lost a preschool classroom every year,” Posner said. Her enrollment went from 30 kids one year, to 20 the next, and finally to 10 children last school year, she said. When the spring term ended, the school shut down. 

The garden school was licensed to serve children from age 2 to 6. Posner’s plan had been to “pick up extra 2s,” creating classrooms for younger 2-year-olds and older ones. But between a low birth rate, hiring extra staff and all of the changes she would have had to make to the space to comply with licensing requirements for serving younger children, it just didn’t seem feasible. 

“It was kind of a double whammy,” Posner said of losing older kids and being unable to adapt easily to serve the younger ones. 

In early care and education, staffing makes up the vast majority of a program’s costs. States set requirements for adult-to-child ratios based on age, since younger children typically need more attention and care. At a center-based program in California, three adults are required to care for 12 infants, while only one adult is needed to care for 12 4-year-olds. While childcare costs for infants tend to be higher than for preschoolers, it is not three times as high. As a result, older children help subsidize the cost of caring for younger children in many programs. 

Because of the challenges inherent in caring for infants and toddlers (defined as children under age 3), only one quarter of childcare centers in California are licensed to serve that age group, CSCCE found. The majority of programs, including the now-closed Carquinez Garden School, focus on serving older kids. 

Programs cannot pivot to serving infants and toddlers overnight, providers told CSCCE. Not only does it require more staff, it requires staff with different expertise and experience. 

“Our past research shows becoming an infant/toddler teacher is not a priority for preschool teachers,” said Powell. “Preschool teaching is an identity.”

Even for center-based administrators who want to make the switch, it’s not as simple as saying yes. Programs designed for older children typically have playground equipment higher off the ground that is not safe for children crawling or new to walking. They have fewer changing areas than would be needed for younger children. Prices would also need to be raised on parents to help afford the additional teachers. “All of those things would be necessary along the way,” Powell explained. Several program leaders who have applied for a license to serve younger children told CSCCE they’re still in a queue with the state licensing division, waiting to get approved.

Family child care providers, who work out of their homes, face another set of constraints.

Rachel Bymun is the owner and director of Luv Muffins Preschool & Childcare, which she has run with her husband for the past 17 years. It is licensed as a large family childcare, meaning they can serve up to 14 kids. Only four of those children, however, can be under age 2, according to state licensing requirements. 

So even if Bymun wanted to transition to serving more infants and toddlers, she and other home-based providers are strictly limited in how many they can take. 

“Really everyone is struggling, maybe for slightly different reasons,” Powell said of providers. “None of them can beat the trend and keep their 4-year-olds.”

Many are trying anyway, though. Bymun is one of the California providers who has been dabbling in marketing and education with families, she said. 

“We are trying to be more diligent about how we explain our program and what we do,” she said, adding that she feels strongly that her program has several advantages over TK, even if the public program is free. 

For one, most traditional early care and education programs have smaller class sizes than TK. That means each child gets more attention and engagement from teachers, Bymun said. Another is that many children start in Bymun’s program and have “continuity of care from 0 to 5,” which she finds meaningful. Then there’s the fact that most TK programs are half-day, which is not a childcare solution for working parents; they still need to find another arrangement for their child for the second part of the day. 

TK is also more structured and academic. Some families now believe that, by age 4, that’s what their child needs to be “kindergarten ready,” Bymun said. But she rejects the idea that “a kid needs to be able to do a worksheet, sit at a desk and be quiet. We all know that’s not how kids learn, and it’s not best practice.” 

Bymun’s program is nature-based and takes place primarily outdoors. Everything from reading, to dramatic play, to math instruction is held outside. That creates a stark contrast between her program setting and a school-based one, she said. 

Still, what Bymun and countless other California providers have found is that, even with their upsides, it’s hard to compete with free. Bymun’s preschool program is $360 per week for a 4-year-old, or about $18,000 a year. That’s a hard pill to swallow for a family who could otherwise choose the no-cost public TK option. 

“There’s going to be a lot more of us closing down, as it gets harder and harder to compete with ‘free’ and compete with the marketing of, ‘Your kids should go to TK,’” Bymun said. 

Bymun was able to make inroads with her current families this year. She has 13 kids enrolled and is considered “full.” One is school-aged, four are under age 2, and the rest are in that 2- to 5-year range, she said. This is the first year that she’d been able to convince her families with 4-year-olds to stay in her program instead of leaving for TK, she said. Next year, she said, could be a different story. 

“People are ultimately price sensitive,” said Powell of CSCCE. “Even if they had a wonderful experience when their child was 3, it ends up not being much of a choice after all.”

It’s not too late for the state and counties to step in to support providers during this period of upheaval and transition, Powell said. They could provide grants so teachers can get trained on working with children from birth to age 3 and programs can convert their facilities and equipment to better serve younger children. The state could focus on reducing turnaround times for centers that need to update their licensing to serve younger children. The state could increase reimbursement rates for providers who accept children whose families pay with subsidies. And the state could give more attention to the other pillars of its universal preschool strategy — not just TK. 

The impact on providers throughout the state is already being felt, Powell said, but “California doesn’t have to sit back and let this happen.”

Michigan’s initiative to offer free pre-kindergarten for all is paying off, state educators said Wednesday, as the Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential, also known as MiLEAP, touted nearly 53,000 applications on file since June.

Emily Laidlaw, MiLEAP’s deputy director, said during a virtual news conference that the figure had grown by 700 applications in one month and by 16% compared with the same time last year, when applications totaled more than 45,000 children.

“Our children’s futures are the most important thing we can invest in, and we’re proud of our statewide efforts to get more students enrolled in high-quality pre-K programs,” Laidlaw told reporters Wednesday on a Zoom webinar to announce the Great Start Readiness program’s progress. “In May, we saw over 55,000 children enrolled for the 2025-26 school year, which was an all-time high for pre-K for all. This initiative is being embraced by families across the state because it provides a high-quality early education opportunity at no cost.”

Laidlaw added that with just one child enrolled in the program, families could save $14,000 a year on childcare costs. Those savings were crucial for families navigating high costs of living and a stagnating economy.

The is Michigan’s solution toward getting more kids in classrooms as early as possible, offering free pre-K programs for eligible four-year-olds across the state. It is ranked nationally as a premier pre-K program, offering math, reading and thinking skills training with a mix of play and hands-on activities.

Enrollment priority is given to families at or below 400% of the federal poverty limit, or approximately $128,000 for a family of four.

Laidlaw said that the program is open to all Michiganders, not just low- and middle-income families.

Synthia Britton, MiLEAP’s interim deputy director of early education, said that children who start ahead, stay ahead.

“Pre-K for All is improving hundreds of thousands of lives, which is why we must get the word out about these programs,” Britton said. “As we achieve record-breaking enrollment and applications, we know our efforts are paying off. There are more families across the state that can benefit from Pre-K for All who have not yet enrolled, so we must continue to spread the word about this amazing opportunity.”

Families can learn more about the programs by visiting the state’s Pre-K For All website, or by checking with their local intermediate school districts for enrollment timelines and deadlines.

JoAnne Elkin, an early childhood and early literacy consultant with the Macomb Intermediate School District, said her ISD has more than 4,500 children already enrolled for the upcoming 2026-27 academic year.

“We know from research that when children have a strong start and access to high-quality early learning, they are positioned to reach their full potential throughout their entire educational journey,” Elkin said. “High-quality pre-K promotes consistent attendance and positive school engagement, and it contributes to their success well beyond the early learning years.”

Elkin said that emerging research shows that by age 5, a child’s brain has developed to nearly 90% of adult size, making those early years so important to develop literacy and other key skills.

“Highlighting access to high-quality pre-K is so very important,” Elkin added. “It means that families can go to work knowing their child is in a safe, nurturing environment with caring adults who support their growth and development.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

The Trump administration is pushing a total overhaul of Head Start that could fundamentally reshape the 60-year-old program that has provided childcare and key support for America’s lowest-income families.

A released last week put more than 1,400 regulatory provisions that govern how Head Start is implemented on the chopping block. Across the country, 1,600 Head Start grant recipients provide quality care for disadvantaged children, as well as support for families by connecting them to health insurance, job training, developmental screenings, specialist referrals and postpartum support.

This latest proposal is aimed at cutting red tape and allowing more flexibility in the programs, the administration said.

“There’s 1,600 providers across the country facing different conditions, and our proposed rule will reduce their paperwork. It will streamline duplicative statutory requirements and give them flexibility for things like personnel and workforce decisions, as well as licensing relief,” said Alex Adams, the assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), on a call with reporters.

But Head Start providers and experts say the proposal may actually make it harder for programs to operate and transform Head Start to look more like commercial childcare than an anti-poverty program.

“Families lose the assurance that Head Start means the same thing everywhere, and taxpayers lose a clear measure of impact that Head Start funding should have,” said Celena Roldan Sarillo, the president of Start Early, a nonprofit that advocates for quality early learning.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on a call with reporters to announce the changes that “it is important to protect” Head Start, which is administered by HHS and was created in part by Kennedy’s uncle Sargent Shriver during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Kennedy wants to see more nutrition and physical activity requirements added to Head Start, and agrees the new rules could streamline it and open seats for more children.

That messaging, however, is misleading, said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, the senior vice president at Start Early.

“At first glance, these proposed changes might not seem so terrible, but as you dig deeper into it, what we will find is that there really are a lot of changes that will impact what is the heart of Head Start,” Sanchez Fuentes said, adding that the performance standards are not just red tape, “they really are the foundation for how we ensure that programs across the country are supporting children, families and communities in the way that they want best.”

Here is a breakdown of what the administration is proposing to change for Head Start.

Overall, how is this proposal changing Head Start? 

Fundamentally, the changes would have Head Start operate much more like other childcare centers under state and local rules. Because quality is such an important benchmark in Head Start, its rules are more stringent than the rules governing other childcare options — in many places, those differences would disappear.

“States didn’t design their childcare programs to serve the population that Head Start serves. They design those to regulate private businesses and set a floor for safety, like they regulate hospitals or restaurants, not to prepare a high-need community for school,” said Katie Hamm, who oversaw the Head Start program under the Biden administration.

Are there any immediate impacts to my child’s Head Start program? 

No. The public has until October 6 to comment on the proposed rule before HHS reviews the comments and issues a final rule. That review process can take time — months or longer — in addition to any legal challenges that may arise, so it’s unlikely, though not impossible, for changes to happen this year.

How would classrooms change? 

One of the biggest changes in the proposal is eliminating Head Start’s teacher-to-student ratios. One of Head Start’s quality initiatives is that it offers more individualized care — each teacher is in charge of a smaller number of students than in most other childcare settings. The policy is both about safety and support for low-income kids, some of whom need more focused attention.

Under the proposed changes, an estimated of children currently in Head Start would be subject to worse ratios. The maximum number of toddlers per teacher in nine states: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas.

The proposal also removes the cap on group sizes, so it’s likely classrooms would have more children.

Another big change: All instruction will have to take place in English instead of offering bilingual support to children who are not native speakers. in Head Start come from homes where a language other than English is spoken.

The only exception is for Head Start programs on Tribal lands.

Are there any changes that impact health and safety? 

Yes.

Detailed requirements on how to prevent lead exposure are gone and replaced with a broader requirement that programs prevent children from being exposed to lead in water and paint in however way they see fit.

A requirement that a bus monitor be on board any buses transporting children at all times has also been removed.

Other detailed rules on facilities, safety training, hygiene, disaster preparedness and equipment and materials are also gone; instead programs are instructed to follow state laws in those areas.

Is discipline changing under the new regulations? 

Currently, children generally cannot be expelled from Head Start. The proposed rule would remove that prohibition and allow programs to set their own disciplinary rules, as long as they align with state and local requirements. Head Start would still need to provide children with any behavioral problems with screenings and referral services.

The administration said it made these changes because when the expulsion and suspension rules were first implemented in 2016, many states did not have their own rules governing those issues. Since then, many states have adopted their own.

“These proposed changes are not an endorsement of suspension and expulsion as approaches to address persistent and serious behavioral concerns; rather, the intent is to allow programs to determine their own discipline policies, within the context of state and local licensing requirements,” the rule says.

Are there changes related to health support? 

Head Start typically offers a variety of mental health and health screenings as part of its program requirements. For example, of enrollment, programs have to check that a family has insurance or ongoing medical care; within 45 days it needs to check for or conduct vision and hearing screenings; within 90 days, it needs to check on whether children have immunizations up to date, have had their well-child pediatrician checkup and had dental visits. Programs also require that children brush their teeth at school. All of those specific requirements are gone under the proposed rule.

Many mental health supports, such as a monthly mental health consultation, would go away.

So while the requirement from the Head Start Act — that programs support families with a comprehensive array of health services — remains, the set rules on how to achieve that, like the timeline requirements, disappear. Advocates say this could lead to inconsistent care and less accountability.

How does this impact children with disabilities? 

Similarly, the proposed rules require that Head Start programs comply with all applicable federal and state regulations in providing services to children with disabilities, but eliminates much of the structure for how to provide those services.

What about impacts on unhoused children? 

The proposed rule removes a provision that allows families experiencing homelessness to simply confirm their situation and thus qualify for Head Start. Families that are unhoused may also be in situations where they are living with someone else or in a temporary structure — situations they could rarely prove through documentation.

Under the new rules, families and children would have to provide some documentation.

Would newborn and pregnancy services be impacted? 

Yes. Early Head Start, which services low-income pregnant people and children under the age of 3, would lose a lot of tailored requirements. Newborn home visits would still be required, for example, but the requirement that they happen within two weeks of birth was dropped.

Also gone is a requirement around addressing racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes. Currently, programs must track demographic data on pregnant people, identify any disparities and provide services to close those gaps. The administration said cutting that requirement is in line with its mission to cut back on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and claims programs said it was beyond the scope of what they could reasonably be expected to do.

Would parent involvement change? 

Possibly.

The way Head Start works now, parents are actively engaged with much of the decision making at individual centers. Each center is required to have a parent committee that has power in advising the school on activities, policies and services, and the regulations determine how those must function.

Under the proposed rule, those committees would be optional, and the rules that govern how they operate would also be eliminated, which the administration said were designed to give programs more flexibility.

Are there any new rules being suggested? 

Yes, and they largely have to do with nutrition and physical activity.

Programs will be required to offer 30 minutes of physical activity, ideally outside, for every three and a half hours of classroom instruction. That would expand the existing that programs “recognize physical activity as important to learning and integrate intentional movement and physical activity into curricular activities and daily routines.”

require that programs generally fulfill a third to a half of children’s daily nutritional needs with meals at Head Start. Three- to 5-year-olds must get healthy meals and snacks that conform to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, and meals should be culturally appropriate as well as developmentally appropriate — infants and toddlers are fed according to their individual needs and readiness.

Under the new proposal, they will also be required to offer nutrient-dense whole foods within the framework of the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program meal standard, ensuring that “all the meals are aligned with the dietary guidelines,” Kennedy said.

What is the new addition around “healthy marriage”?

One of the less-talked-about additions the administration is proposing is providing educational material to children that “demonstrates healthy marriage as a positive good,” in concert with new strategies to engage parents in their kids’ learning, and particularly fathers, the rule says.

“This proposed change to current requirements reflects ACF’s commitment to supporting strong families as the cornerstone of a healthy society,” the administration said.

If the rule is finalized, do programs have to adhere to it? 

It’s unclear.

Adams emphasized that programs can continue to operate as they currently are if they wish to. In the areas where the administration is adding new requirements, however, such as nutrition and physical activity, programs would have to make changes.

“If a program likes its ratio, it can keep its ratio. If a program likes its group size, it can keep its group size. This does not require them to do anything different. As I said, flexibility is permission; it’s not a mandate,” Adams said.

But the actual regulations that would be part of the final rule — — don’t specify that most of this is optional.

“If they truly mean, for example, a program can decide to keep the ratios that exist in the regulations today, the regulation should say that. It should say programs have a choice,” Hamm said. “It doesn’t say that, and so that’s a problem for a lot of reasons.”

Head Start centers receive grants from the federal government to offer services — it’s unclear what assurance there is that the administration will offer grants to programs that choose to adhere to prior rules.

There’s already some evidence HHS could target programs it deems to be in misalignment with  the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the agency to Head Start programs that used words like “women” and “race” in their grant applications, what it perceived to be diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have been a target of the administration.

Head Start programs in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin sued and a judge granted them a preliminary injunction, blocking the Trump administration from cutting funding while the case is litigated.

“When grants get negotiated or when there are grant competitions, and HHS is selecting a grantee, they have a lot of power in that,” Hamm said. “Oftentimes, a Head Start grant feels like they need to comply with what’s being asked of them.”

Why is the administration pursuing these changes? 

Since the start of the Trump administration, Head Start has .

Project 2025, the for President Donald Trump’s second term, advised eliminating the program, claiming it lacked positive outcomes and was rife with abuse. A leaked White House budget in early 2025 showed the administration was hoping to eliminate it altogether before massive backlash from Head Start parents and alumni persuaded the administration to change course.

But programs continued to face financial challenges. Funding was cut off at the start of 2025 as part of a government-wide freeze, leading some to close their doors. Then in April of last year, the administration closed five of the 10 regional offices that support Head Start programs.

Last summer, the administration released a proposed rule that would bar undocumented children from Head Start entirely. The proposal is on pause due to ongoing litigation.

Adams said the goal of the proposed rule is to provide flexibility in the program, not dismantle it.

“In broad strokes, what we are trying to accomplish is we built this rule around trusting local leaders to make the decisions that are best for their local communities,” he said.

If the changes were enacted across programs, the administration estimates a savings of $2.2 billion that would be reinvested in the program to open as many as 236,000 new Head Start spots. There is no national repository of waitlist data on Head Start, though programs are required to be filled and maintain an active waiting list.

“We’re trying to ensure that programs have the flexibility not just to meet their community needs, but to start clearing out some of their waitlists, ensuring more children are served,” Adams said.

How could these changes impact childcare staff? 

The administration is proposing a reduction in how much money programs can spend on administrative overhead, lowering it from 15 percent to 5 percent.

The justification, Adams said, is “so that more money is reaching children and families, and less is going to administrative overhead, like administrator salaries or administrative offices.”

But childcare providers have argued that the reduction will actually mean less money to operate Head Start — money that goes to things like buses and human resources, or to conduct background checks and fix the refrigerator when it breaks.

“Don’t believe that somehow that 15 percent makes our Head Start directors rich. It does not. Everyone I know in Head Start, including myself, has never become rich from being a Head Start employee,” said Lori Pittman, the co-founder of the Washington State Parent Ambassador Program and a former Head Start parent.

By the administration’s own analysis, the changes could lead to at centers across the country. Other workforces that : home visit staff, health and mental health personnel, child development specialists and bus monitoring staff.

Is there any new money for Head Start under the proposal? 

No. Funding for Head Start has remained flat for the past three years — about $12 billion — even though operating costs and inflation have risen.

How can I comment on the regulations? 

Comments in the federal registrar . The open comment period will close October 6.

was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of . .

Roughly 2,000 families received offers for a spot in the inaugural year of 2-K, New York City’s new free childcare program for 2-year-olds, officials announced Tuesday.

Around 5,700 families applied for the , which were restricted to priority neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

“Today represents a monumental step on the path to universal childcare here in New York City,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference Tuesday morning in the Bronx. Mamdani made a key campaign pledge.

“We are writing a better chapter for … the generations of New Yorkers many years from now who will start families here in our city and who will not need to worry about leaving their job or moving out of the neighborhood they love to make it all work,” he said.

The release of the offers comes after city officials spent months spreading the word about the new program with events such as a “ in Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park and a judged by Cardi B and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The initial interest in 2-K comes as welcome news for Mamdani after his administration’s efforts to boost publicity for the city’s 3-K and prekindergarten programs Those programs, while wildly popular and oversubscribed in some neighborhoods, have in other parts of the city.

Officials didn’t share any details about how the initial round of applications and offers were distributed between the priority neighborhoods: Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan, Canarsie and Brownsville in Brooklyn, Ozone Park and the Rockaways in Queens, and Fordham, Belmont, Riverdale and other nearby neighborhoods in the Bronx.

Emmy Liss, the executive director of the mayor’s Office for Childcare and Early Childhood Education, said the “majority” of the children who received offers live in the priority districts. Officials prioritized applicants who have siblings at the program they applied to, or were already attending that program, and those who live in the same district, Liss said.

More than 80% of applicants got into one of their top three choices, and more than half got into their first choice, officials said. Families that applied and didn’t get an offer will automatically be added to waitlists.

In a press release Tuesday morning, officials said that the application results from this year would help guide the expansion of the program next year. Mamdani has pledged that the program will grow to 12,000 seats next year and expand citywide by the end of his first term, though Gov. Kathy Hochul has only committed funding for the first two years. A found that it will likely cost around $9 billion to provide free universal childcare for all children under age 5, about $5 billion more than the city is currently spending,

Officials haven’t yet shared where the additional 10,000 2-K seats for next year will be located, except that they will likely add seats in the priority neighborhoods and some of the new seats will be in Staten Island, the only borough not a part of this year’s 2-K rollout.v

Seats are split between center and . Unlike 3-K and pre-K, which mostly follow the K-12 school calendar, .

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After the birth of her son, Rex, in 2019, Jasmin Almendarez realized childcare costs in central Texas were so high that returning to work no longer made economic sense. 

“I didn’t want to spend that much time away, pay all of that, and then get minimal time for my first baby.” But by the time Rex was 3, she noticed signs of a speech delay, so she decided it would be best to send him to an early learning program to increase his interactions with peers. She began researching local options and reached out to Pre-K 4 SA, a preschool not far from her home in San Antonio. 

She visited the program, which was in a brand new building with a spacious outdoor play area. The staff was friendly, she said, and meals were included. She didn’t think such an in-demand location would have an opening for Rex, but they did — and she was surprised to learn that he could attend at no cost to her. 

Pre-K 4 SA is a citywide early childhood education initiative that operates multiple preschools across San Antonio. Rex, like 80% of children enrolled in the program, qualified for a full scholarship.

After one year, Almendarez said she noticed improvements in his speech. Rex learned his letters and how to count, and even how to swim. When her second son, Raiden, turned 3, she enrolled him as well. Now, pregnant with her third child, she hopes to enroll the baby in the Pre-K 4 SA pilot program for infants and toddlers. She also hopes to put her degree in early childhood education to use and be hired as a teacher in the program. 

Like Almendarez, Mariana Rios was hesitant to send her daughter Emma to preschool. Her husband’s family is Salvadoran and believed young children should stay home with a parent or relative. But Rios and her husband were intrigued by the quality of education that Pre-K 4 SA offered and decided to enroll Emma in 2023. Because of the sliding-scale cost model, Emma’s tuition was only $128 per month. 

When Emma began kindergarten after two years at the preschool, Rios recalled her teacher saying she could spot the kids who had attended Pre-K 4 SA based on their exemplary behavioral and social skills. Her mother-in-law, once a vocal skeptic of preschool, now encourages other family members to talk to Rios about the benefits of the program.

From modest backing to broad support for early childhood 

Emma, Rex and Raiden are just three of more than 23,000 children who have gone through Pre-K 4 SA since the program began in 2013. The first two locations opened their doors to 4-year-olds shortly after San Antonio voters in 2012 to add a ⅛-cent city sales tax to fund early childhood programs. One-eight of a cent was the maximum increase the city could make, according to Texas law, which caps sales tax at .��

The sales tax revenue, which has steadily grown, has come to serve as a dedicated revenue source for the program’s five locations. At the time of its proposal, the tax was estimated to . In 2025, it brought in , the bulk of Pre-K 4 SA’s $61.2 million annual revenue. 

The path to building a designated funding source for early childhood education was complicated. The idea for Pre-K 4 SA came from then-Mayor Julián Castro, who created a , featuring prominent local business leaders, to address some of the issues plaguing San Antonio. Those included the city’s , its and . The city was also facing a : Young people were moving to Austin for college and then staying there. 

The task force came up with a plan to improve San Antonio: , and allocate a specified revenue source to do so. 

In March 2012, in his State of the City address, Castro to put a sales tax increase directed to Pre-K 4 SA on the ballot, but he wasn’t sure how it would go since any change to the sales tax .

In November 2012, many community members were unconvinced that 4-year-olds belonged in schools, said Sarah Baray, CEO of Pre-K 4 SA. “There were a lot of questions about whether the city belonged in education at all.” The plan faced opposition from some residents in the business community, from higher-income residents and even from leaders in local school districts, who viewed the city’s plan to establish pre-K centers as competition for their own publicly funded pre-K programs. 

“Texas is a state that doesn’t like to pay taxes,” said Baray. Ultimately a sales tax was the path of least resistance. 

“Property taxes tend to be highly visible and directly tied to household finances,” said Larrisa Wilkinson, deputy CEO of Pre-K 4 SA. “Sales taxes, although regressive, are smaller costs spread across many people in everyday purchases, so they’re less noticeable and less likely to trigger strong pushback,” she said. 

The 2012 measure passed with . Within a year, Pre-K 4 SA opened two centers. A year later,

By 2020, when the sales tax was up for renewal, the initiative had been underway for seven years and had . By that time, there was evidence of success. conducted by University of Texas at San Antonio found that by third grade, Pre-K 4 SA students had higher math and reading scores as compared to their peers. The most pronounced effects were for children from low-income families and those with limited English proficiency. A cost-benefit of Pre-K 4 SA found that families enrolled in its extended-day program earned an average of $240 more per week than families who did not participate. For many families in San Antonio, a city with one of the , those funds can make the difference between living in financial security or hovering close to the poverty line. 

These data points made going back to the community and asking for support easier the second time, said Paul Chapman, who had been the chief communications officer at the time and now serves as chief operating officer at Pre-K 4 SA. “We could communicate to the community the status of what they have invested in and how we are doing.” In 2020, the ballot measure .

Along the way, the program continued to grow, adding a fifth center in 2019, which opened in partnership with a local school district.

As part of its mission to improve the quality of childcare, the program also provides shared services, training and education for more than 90 childcare providers in San Antonio. In 2025, Pre-K 4 SA spent over of its annual revenue on grants for external childcare providers in San Antonio, which has helped neutralize some of their earlier opposition that had viewed the program as a competitor. 

While sales tax revenue can vary year to year, it has provided enough stability to continue expanding. One of its locations, South Education Center, opened a new building in August 2025, as part of a with HOLT Group, a large, local manufacturing company. HOLT paid to build the center, which expanded capacity to serve more families, and the intention is that Pre-K 4 SA will buy it back over time, said Tonda Brown, Pre-K 4 SA’s chief of schools.

Astonishing teacher retention in a field with high turnover

Pre-K 4 SA has made deep investments in its workforce: All teachers and support staff are city employees with benefits including health insurance, paid time off and a retirement plan. 

The average pay for the program’s lead teachers is between $71,743 and $90,396, well over the of $65,000, and some lead teachers with extensive experience make over $100,000, Brown said. (Nationally, preschool teachers have of $32,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.) 

In April 2026, 324 teachers were offered a contract to return in 2026-27, Brown said. All but two submitted a letter of intent to return — an astonishing feat in the U.S. early care and education sector, which struggles with .

“What makes San Antonio different is quality,” Wilkinson said. “No program nationally does the comprehensive work that Pre-K 4 SA does,” she added, referring to the combination of direct services, family engagement and professional learning opportunities. In her experience, she said, many states and localities prioritize access to early care and education over quality. “If you do not have a quality program, what is the point? Mediocre programs can have negative impacts,” she said. 

As widespread budget cuts have strained the early care and education sector, some states and localities have been exploring how best to invest in early childhood programs. While some efforts have yielded progress — , and broadening — many have relied on a temporary windfall, such as federal relief aid or a one-time budget surplus. That can create long-term expectations for providers and families that become difficult to sustain once the funding expires.

San Antonio bucked that trend by identifying that a sales tax could offer a dedicated, protected revenue source to provide more stability and consistency for childcare programs.

“Funding innovation is happening on the local level,” Wilkinson said. “Communities are saying ‘we want this, we need this, we are not going to be able to rely on state funding on its own.’ ”

The sales tax used to fund early childhood in San Antonio will be up for a vote again in 2028, and Baray said she is “cautiously optimistic” for its passage. Baray has witnessed a shift in mindsets about 4-year-olds in preschool, with more families, like Rios’, realizing how beneficial such programs can be for young learners. It helps, Chapman said, that family engagement, especially in the Hispanic community, was such a large part of their program.

“It didn’t negate the role of family in early education. It brought it in,” said Chapman. “Our goal is that Pre-K 4 SA earns that place of inevitability in the mind of the community that we serve.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the ages served when the program launched and the opening date of the fifth center.

So said Steve Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, which has just published its examining state-funded preschools. 

“That’s the story this year — that the race is highly uneven,” said Barnett. “Even as some states are racing toward the finish line, more states are moving in the wrong direction. A few states never entered the race. They’re not running.”

The research center has been publishing the State of Preschool Yearbook since 2003, measuring state-funded preschool programs against a set of quality standards and tracking programs’ enrollment and funding. For the first time, six states hit all 10 of NIEER’s , which measure factors such as teacher credentials, staff professional development, curriculum supports, class sizes and staff-to-child ratios. One of those states, Georgia, became the first with a universal preschool program to meet all 10 quality indicators — a feat that NIEER is touting widely and which Barnett said made the Peach State a “symbol” for everyone else. 

“You don’t have to choose between serving all the kids and building a high-quality program,” he said. “Georgia shows you can do it and not break the bank.”

In the 2024-25 school year, state-funded preschools saw record high enrollment and funding, though the pace slowed considerably from the prior year, according to NIEER’s findings. 

State-supported preschool programs now serve a combined 1.8 million children nationally, including 37% of 4-year-olds and 9% of 3-year-olds. The states that contributed most to the enrollment gains are California, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri, adding more than 52,000 new preschool seats.

Federal, state and local governments spent a combined $17.7 billion on preschool, with more than $14 billion of that amount coming from states. More than half of states increased their funding for preschool, including Michigan and New Jersey, which increased spending by more than $100 million each. Meanwhile, 17 states spent less, with Arizona, North Carolina and Texas among those seeing the biggest declines. Another six states do not have a state-funded preschool program, as defined by NIEER: Idaho, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Thus, the high-stakes race metaphor. 

“You have states moving ahead,” Barnett reiterated. “But you have states faltering, states that didn’t make much progress.”

Part of the explanation for the faltering states, he said, is that they have less federal funding to prop up these programs than they used to. But that’s not the full story, since even in some states with budget deficits, , they managed to increase funding for pre-K. “It is about how you set your priorities,” Barnett said. 

This report found that enrollment for 3-year-olds in public pre-K is at an all-time-high, though Allison Friedman-Krauss, lead author of the report, clarified that it’s only marginally higher than it was the previous year and that it still lags far behind enrollment for 4-year-olds. 

Several states have pledged to serve all 3-year-olds, including less populous ones like Vermont and New Mexico and more populous ones such as Illinois and New Jersey. 

It takes time to build those programs, though, Friedman-Krauss and Barnett said, so the progress on serving 3-year-olds is expected to be slow and incremental. 

As for Georgia, it joins an elite group of states that are lauded by NIEER for quality, including Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Michigan and Rhode Island.  

Each of the 10 quality benchmarks represents an improvement in preschool quality that can be felt by children and families, Barnett said. 

“Children’s experiences can be tremendously different between programs that have all of this in place and programs that have little in place,” he said. 

For example, he added, “one of the keys to good early childhood education is the teacher-child relationship.” It is much more likely for that relationship to be strong and for children to get individualized support for their learning and development when a teacher has fewer children in her care.  

And better-prepared teachers, he said, are going to have more realistic expectations about what the job entails and will be more likely to stay in their positions for longer. That matters for young children, who benefit from consistent, stable caregivers and teachers. 

To meet all 10 benchmarks, Georgia its staff-to-child ratios and maximum classroom sizes, said Susan Adams, deputy commissioner for pre-K and instructional support at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

As of fall 2024, Georgia has reduced maximum preschool class sizes to 20 and set ratios at one adult to 10 children, Adams said. The state has also achieved salary parity for preschool teachers, so that they now align with the earnings of K-12 teachers, she added. 

What sets Georgia’s preschool program apart is that it is maintaining a high-quality learning environment while serving more than 70,000 children per year across Georgia’s 159 counties. 

The changes to ratios and maximum classroom sizes did reduce the number of preschool slots statewide, but the state is midway through a four-year effort to build back that capacity, by adding 100 new classrooms each year, Adams said. 

NIEER is tracking a number of other states that, with just a few changes, could join Georgia in providing universal access to high-quality pre-K, including New Mexico, which will be on par with Georgia once it meets the benchmark that requires all lead teachers to have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. 

While Barnett believes NIEER’s close tracking of state-funded preschool programs helps with accountability, he clarified that Georgia and other states are not improving their programs just so they can check another box in a report. 

“The rationale for the leadership is not to get the acclaim or recognition from us,” he said. “Their rationale, really, is we need to provide a better program for kids.”

To a child in their care, their roles may be indistinguishable. Both teachers play with them, read to them, sing to them and guide them throughout the day. 

But each pair consists of a lead teacher — the senior professional in the classroom — and an assistant teacher, who may serve in more of a supporting role but, in many programs, acts as a co-teacher. 

Assistant teachers, despite their status as the junior educator, are “an integral part of the teaching team,” said GG Weisenfeld, associate director of technical assistance at the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). They are participating in children’s brain-building, actively contributing to their learning and development, she said. 

Yet in most early care and education settings, and in most states, the policies and pay for assistant teachers do not align with that reality. 

When it comes to teacher qualifications, NIEER recommends that, at minimum, assistant teachers hold a Child Development Association (CDA), a nationally recognized credential for entry-level early childhood educators, or have equivalent preparation from at least nine credits of coursework. This benchmark for teacher qualifications is accepted by other leading organizations in the field. 

Often the first credential in an early educator’s career, the CDA introduces teachers to foundational child development concepts, the conditions of a safe learning environment, how to establish healthy relationships with families and more. 

“Having that basis,” Weisenfeld said, “allows that person some comfort and knowledge to be able to” serve confidently in an early learning setting.

But only one-third of state-funded preschool programs have policies in place that require these minimum qualifications for assistant teachers, NIEER found in a . 

Weisenfeld, who authored the report on assistant teachers, said the findings were “troubling,” noting that having low or no qualifications can justify low wages and trap teachers in a cycle where they can’t afford the education needed to advance in their careers. 

It’s critical to have skilled teachers working with young children, Weisenfeld added. “If we want the child outcomes … they need to be qualified and then they need to be supported once in the classroom.”

The report also found that only 30% of state-funded preschool programs met NIEER’s minimum standard for professional development of at least 15 hours of in-service training for assistant teachers. 

In a field where low wages and scant benefits affect early childhood educators in every role, assistant teachers fare worst of all, earning an average of $11.88 per hour as of 2022, according to . 

That financial reality makes it difficult for states to set higher standards for assistant teachers. Instead, it’s becoming increasingly common, Weisenfeld noted, for states to see that they aren’t filling open positions for early childhood educators and to respond by — allowing teenagers to fill teaching positions, instituting higher adult-to-child ratios and loosening training and licensing requirements.

“Cutting qualifications so you can justify inadequate salaries is not a good thing,” Weisenfeld said. 

She added: “To me, the strategy should be to help people raise their qualifications, help support people getting the qualifications, and ensure they are adequately compensated for their work.”

It’s not the norm, but a few states are pursuing that strategy. New Mexico is one of them. 

Assistant teachers in New Mexico’s state-funded pre-K classrooms are required to have an associate degree in early childhood education (or be actively enrolled in a program to earn one). If they have an associate degree in another field, they must earn 12 college credits in early childhood education, said Elizabeth Groginsky, the secretary of New Mexico’s Early Childhood Care and Education Department. 

To work in one of the state-funded pre-K classrooms, assistant teachers must also complete 44 hours of mandatory foundational training and an additional 24 hours of training annually. 

Lead teachers in these classrooms, in contrast, must hold a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and complete additional hours of professional development. They also earn more money, as is typical for more seniority across professions. 

“The important thing,” Groginsky said, “is they are both considered teachers and are both bringing a full set of knowledge and skills to advance the education of young children.”

Across early care and education settings in New Mexico, assistant teachers must earn a minimum wage of $18 an hour (about $37,000 per year for a full-time teacher), the secretary shared. Assistant teachers in state-funded, community-based pre-K classrooms are also eligible for the , which ensures that teachers with an associate degree and up to three years of experience earn $45,000 and teachers with an associate degree and more than three years of experience earn $50,000.

“The idea is we’re moving up the compensation to reflect the level of education and the skills that both the lead teacher and the assistant teacher bring to the classroom,” Groginsky said. 

Alabama is another state that meets NIEER’s benchmarks for assistant teacher qualifications and professional development and that Weisenfeld praised for its “brilliant” approach to building a pipeline of assistant teachers in high school.

Assistant teachers in Alabama’s First Class Pre-K Program are required to have a CDA credential or equivalent coursework in child development, and complete at least 20 hours of professional development each year. 

A number of K-12 schools in Alabama offer a pathway for high school students to pursue and complete their CDA, qualifying them for assistant teaching positions in the state’s preschool program upon graduation, said Milanda Dean, director of workforce development at the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education. From there, teachers can participate in Alabama’s to earn their associate degree and even bachelor’s degree.

“We’re helping them earn their credentials,” Dean said, “and growing our workforce.”

Although the exact roles and responsibilities of assistant teachers do vary from program to program, it is important that these educators are recognized for the strengths and skills they bring to the classroom, said Ami Brooks, secretary of the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education. Assistant teachers are not there just to wipe the tables, walk kids to the bathroom or put the cots out for naptime, she said. 

“We want to honor the early childhood development knowledge he or she is coming in with,” said Brooks, “and use that to partner with the lead teacher so they can work together to help the children develop.”

“I love my job,” is one of the first things Ashley Ross says, as she sits down to talk about a looming pay cut that she might be facing. She’s worked at Gan HaYeled, an early childhood program in Northwest D.C., for almost 20 years, and was recently promoted to split her time between two roles: a pre-K classroom teacher and a teacher resource coordinator, who works with other educators to solve problems that arise in the classroom or at home. 

Throughout her career, Ross said she has seen a number of incremental pay bumps, including an increase after she earned an associate degree in 2021. That year, her salary was about $47,000. But the most significant change in her income came in 2022, she said, when Washington began implementing the D.C. Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund in an effort to boost wages in the child care sector. The initiative provided funds to make early educators’ salaries equivalent to K-12 public school educators. 

Ross received an additional $14,000 that year and her pay has continued to increase. Today, she makes around $67,000. The additional income has allowed her to buy a home and enroll her children in after school activities like boxing and gymnastics. 

The Pay Equity Fund — the first program of its kind in the United States — has been as a model for improving early educator retention, creating stability for a workforce largely made up of women, , in an industry with one of the in the country. 

But despite its popularity with educators and advocates, the fund has faced instability over the years and now it’s on the chopping block. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday, April 10 that included a to the Pay Equity Fund, which would eliminate the wage supplements that provided the city’s early childhood teachers with higher salaries. 

Bowser that what she hears most from families is that they want more opportunities for child care and they want it to be less expensive. But the Pay Equity Fund is “not a child care affordability fund, it’s more of an income support fund for child care workers,” she said. “It does not respond to what people are saying.”

Ross is one of more than in D.C., who would be drastically impacted by this change. Without the extra dollars she receives through the program, her salary would drop precariously, to the point that making the commute to work in D.C. wouldn’t make much economic or logistical sense. She lives over an hour away by car, and with her experience, education and credentials, she could likely find a job in the public school system where she lives in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland. A job like that would bring benefits and a stable salary, she said. 

“Yes, everyone loves the Gan,” she said, referring to the early childhood center where she works. “It’s a special place. But everyone has to live in the real world. They have to pick between the love for their job or their income. Without pay equity, it doesn’t make any sense,” Ross said. Her partner has encouraged her to think about the long term, but she said she’s having a hard time asking herself,“If they cut the money for me, what is the plan?”

The Struggle for Consistent Funding

Created through the District’s budget and administered by the , the Pay Equity Fund initially delivered direct payments to eligible educators. During its first year, early childhood teachers received a one-time payment of , depending on their role and employment status. In 2023, the fund offered teachers up to four quarterly payments of up to $3,500 each. Then , the model shifted: instead of educators applying individually and receiving direct payments, licensed child care programs that met the requirements could opt in and receive funding through a payroll formula. 

The voluntary program was designed to help providers recruit and retain staff by offering more competitive wages, and its reach has been substantial. was distributed to over 4,000 home- and center-based child care providers during the initiative’s first two years, and went to 365 child care facilities in 2024.

This isn’t the first time the program has faced instability. In April 2024, Bowser suggested fter a , the D.C. Council , but advocates warned that with the increase in participation, more money was needed. That same year, to make budget recommendations for the program, which led to the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Amendment Act of 2025, a measure that for early educators. 

Some centers in the city, including the Gan, absorbed the cuts so that the teachers’ paychecks would be unchanged, said Noah Hichenberg, director of Gan HaYeled. 

To be fully funded in fiscal year 2027, the Pay Equity Fund , said Anne Gunderson, a senior policy analyst at D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. The program has grown more expensive because of its success, she noted. While the program had lower participation in its first few years, it has since grown in popularity. from Mathematica shows that after the first two years of implementation, there was an in D.C., about 7% higher than the estimated levels in the absence of the program. 

Gunderson said more teachers have enrolled in the program, stayed in their positions and gone back to school to pursue an associate or bachelor degree, with the goal of being able to earn a higher income upon graduation. 

“The fact that we’re able to increase utilization is a good thing,” said Gunderson. “Normally this would be something that would be celebrated.” Instead, it has resulted in a more expensive program, limiting the number of educators who are able to take part. 

LaVonda Butler-Means, an assistant teacher at Gan YaHeled, is one of the teachers who was motivated to pursue a higher level of education. The first year of Pay Equity her salary jumped from $43,000 to over $50,000. Encouraged, she enrolled in an accelerated program to get an associate degree, for which she estimated cost her around $26,000 out of pocket. Her goal was to become a lead teacher at the Gan after graduating in May, a move that would bring her a $10,000 raise. If the fund is eliminated and the increase doesn’t come through, she said she will have to look for another job.

“There is no way I can go back to make what I was making and sustain life,” Butler-Means said.  

One of the challenges of building a sustainable funding pathway for the Pay Equity Fund, explained Jamal Berry, president of Educare DC, an early learning program, is that it takes time to see the impact. that access to high-quality child care is a worthwhile investment, but the success of programs are often realized across a child’s education, which do not always translate into an immediate win. 

But leaders at programs participating in the Pay Equity Fund do report benefits, including lower staff turnover. 

Hichenberg credits the Pay Equity Fund with elevating the quality of care and stabilizing the workforce at his program. Of the 27 educators who work at the Gan, 23 have been there for more than three years since the Pay Equity Fund began. He anticipates it will be much harder to hire people at a lower salary level if the program gets cut. “Its’ not just a burden or headache, it’s a more volatile experience for our youngest learners,” he said.  

Staff turnover at Educare DC has also fallen since the Pay Equity Fund was implemented, and more staff are receiving additional education credentials, said Ronnell Nathaniel, the program’s vice president. Like at the Gan, her staff has benefited from the pay increase. Some teachers have shared that they’re purchasing their first home, she said, though the fact that the funding is in jeopardy has worked to undercut the staff’s sense of security and stability. “The inconsistency is every year,” she said. “You have to be concerned about that.”

Gunderson anticipates that the impact of gutting the Pay Equity Fund would be felt most keenly in programs serving infants and toddlers, which are the most expensive to maintain because of high staffing ratios. “They’re the first to go,” she said. Without a dedicated funding stream for the Pay Equity Fund, each budget cycle poses tough choices about which programs to fund and which to cut.  

“We’ve scored a touchdown and now we’re fumbling the ball,” said Berry. “States like New Mexico and New York are moving in this direction,” he gestured forward with his hands, “and we are moving backwards.”

Advocates Prepare to Push Back

Advocates are gearing up for a fight to save the program. Ahead of the budget release, educators and supporters turned out in protest at the John A. Wilson building in downtown D.C., where the local government is headquartered, as part of a . The national is slated for May 11, and advocates are encouraging child care providers to close or operate on a reduced schedule to show the impact of their services. 

But as compared to 2024, when the program first came under fire, it’s been harder to galvanize support for saving the program. LaDon Love works at Spaces in Action, a grassroots advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. that played a significant role in the 2024 effort to save the Pay Equity Fund and is involved again this year. Love said that when she goes and speaks to early childhood educators, they think the major fight is behind them. “We won, right?” she said. Many do not realize their salaries are on the line again.  

When asked if the parents feel some outrage at the cuts and how it could impact the teachers who look after their children, Butler-Means shrugs. “Some take it really seriously,” she said. “Others it doesn’t matter to them as long as their kids have somewhere to go.” 

There are a few options that advocates and policymakers are exploring to keep the fund intact. One route involves creating a dedicated funding stream for it, similar to what has done in shoring up their own early childhood infrastructure. Another solution is to develop a new for Washington, D.C., which would increase revenue by adding a broad-based value-added tax to businesses. Experts believe this tax could raise as much as $500 million, and could be routed to social services programs that are on the chopping block, like the Pay Equity Fund. But, a tax like this would likely require a phase-in or implementation lag of a year, meaning that programs that could be funded by it would face a shortfall in the interim. An indefinite pay cut may loom too large for Ross and Butler-Means, pushing them out of their current roles, even with the possibility of a more stable funding source in the future. 

But there is something positive to have come from all of this, said Hichenberg, the Gan’s director. “The Pay Equity Fund has given all of us a gift of what is possible when pay is raised, and that has been beautiful to see,” he said. 

“It’s a stabilized workforce, more content teachers, more robust work-life balance and vacations,” he added. “It has allowed our core group of educators to stay stable for a number of years and allowed us to move forward as a school, improving quality in the classroom and smoother transitions for the parents. These have always been our goals. But the Pay Equity Fund has been the element of stability that has allowed for it.”

For Emily Knox and her wife, Forever Young Child Care Learning Center in Manchester was a dependable cornerstone of their daily routine for more than two years. But on March 5, her wife arrived to pick up their son and found the center’s staff in tears. It would be, they abruptly learned, the center’s final day, as staff members rushed about, packing up children’s art projects and medical paperwork to give to parents.

“It was surreal, honestly,” Knox said. She was aware of the pressures that the early childhood education industry faced in Connecticut, from a lack of available spots to an underpaid workforce, but watching her son’s own facility suddenly shutter, seemingly without warning, was “an eye-opening experience.” 

The closure of Forever Young hits as vanishing federal aid and runaway Medicaid costs threaten an ambitious new initiative to expand affordable child care.

The Early Childhood Education Endowment, as a vehicle to create thousands of new affordable child care program slots by the early 2030s, is projected to receive $30 million from the budget surplus after Connecticut’s fiscal year ends June 30 — less than a tenth of what lawmakers pledged last June.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration said Monday it’s unclear whether the fiscal bleeding has stopped.

“It is too early to speculate,” Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said Monday, adding that while global economic instability is a concern, the administration remains committed to supporting affordable child care.

“Gov. Lamont has taken a leading role both locally and nationally to increase investment in early childhood education,” Collibee said. “He’s fully dedicated to making sure that we deliver on that vision and promise.”

“I think we are all committed to the vision that we’ve set forth, and we stand ready to take the action that we need to take based upon the funding that is available to us,” added Elena Trueworthy, commissioner of Office of Early Childhood Education.

The state already opened 1,000 Early Start program slots in January and has earmarked nearly  from the endowment for various expenditures, including grants for local school districts to expand their preschools, increasing the rate that providers are paid and a planned study that will assess the need for a health insurance subsidy for employees.

Eva Bermúdez Zimmerman, executive director of Child Care For CT, said that the Manchester closure reflects broader pressures eroding the existing care infrastructure.

“The system is interconnected,” and the network’s financial needs are greater than even the hoped-for deposit in the hundreds of millions, she said. “I really do hope that elected leaders understand that you can’t build up a system and ignore the pressure that’s gotten us to here.” 

CT still forecasting big surpluses – but not for child care

Lamont responded to the child care crisis with a big step 13 months ago, proposing that Connecticut dedicate a portion of the massive budget surplus it generates annually toward early childhood education.

But much of that surplus is already accounted for. Using a series of aggressive caps set in 2017, Connecticut has since left an average of $1.9 billion unspent each year, which represents 8% to 9% of the General Fund.

About three-quarters of that, roughly $1.4 billion, involves certain income and business tax receipts lawmakers cannot spend easily. These protected dollars are immediately stripped from the budget and used chiefly to whittle down Connecticut’s pension debt, a that ranks among the largest, per capita, in the nation.

The remaining tax and fee receipts, federal grants and other revenues flow into the budget, where additional spending controls typically force hundreds of millions in additional savings each year.

And — with an initial investment of $300 million — they and Lamont stipulated much of this second-tier savings would be dedicated to the child care initiative each year.

that would translate into a $309 million deposit in the summer of 2026 and almost $560 million 12 months after that.

Medicaid spending plagues CT finances for 3^rd year in a row

But while the program that saves funds to reduce pension debt continues to save big dollars, the second-tier savings effort is in jeopardy. And some of the problems that shrank this year’s estimated payment to the child care program could get much worse.

One big obstacle is Medicaid, a federal health care program run in partnership with states. Medicaid demand has remained greater than pre-pandemic levels, even though enhanced federal aid ordered in response to COVID expired in 2023.

the state Department of Social Services will overspend its $3.7 billion Medicaid line item by $85 million this fiscal year. The department overspent on Medicaid by  last year and almost  two fiscal years ago.

Congress last July ordered cuts to Medicaid and other programs worth more than $1 trillion by 2034 to help finance big federal tax cuts aimed chiefly at high-earning households.

The Lamont administration hasn’t projected yet what Connecticut could lose next fiscal year. But , a New Haven-based policy group, estimated in January that federal Medicaid grants and aid sent directly to households — such as health care-related tax credits — would be down about $579 million in the next state budget cycle.

That federal tax relief also has softened state tax revenues.

Connecticut links its corporate tax system to the federal code, as do several other states. So, when Congress extended federal corporate tax breaks set to expire, Connecticut lost hundreds of millions in expected revenues from big business.

CT has options to bolster child care services

But this doesn’t mean Connecticut lacks options to bolster funding for child care.

Analysts estimate the state program that forces lawmakers to save a portion of income and business tax receipts will have a banner year, grabbing to pay down pension debt.

Lamont already has proposed scaling back these savings rules — albeit just once — to return $500 million to 2.2 million Connecticut residents in the form of a $200-per-person state tax rebate.

The checks would be sent in late October, just days before the gubernatorial election, and some Republicans have charged the Democratic governor’s proposal is merely a political stunt to help him win reelection to a third term.

But many of Lamont’s fellow Democrats in the House and Senate majorities have said those savings rules should be rolled back somewhat to permit greater investments year after year in child care and other core services, including health care, education and municipal aid.

Legislators from both parties have advocated big ongoing tax cuts this year, which also would necessitate saving less to reduce the state’s pension debt.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, a proponent of the Early Childhood Education Endowment, has said a modest amount of tax relief could be considered, but said nothing should be allowed to jeopardize a program that could benefit thousands of children from low- and middle-income households.

“It’s a reminder we’re going to have to prioritize at some point,” he said. “I personally think that, before we start implementing new tax changes to the tax code, we ought to be very mindful of how important this child care endowment could be in the long term.”

But House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, who also supports greater state investment in affordable child care, said Lamont and the General Assembly aren’t doing enough to trim spending in other areas.

Republican lawmakers have said Connecticut should look to tighten raises for state workers, cut Medicaid programs for undocumented residents and seek greater efficiencies at public colleges and universities.

“Democrats were more interested [last year] in a press release than creating a sustainable early childhood program,” Candelora said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

New York City received more than 50,000 applications for its free preschool programs in just two weeks, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Friday.

That number is about half of the total applications the city received last year for its 3-K and prekindergarten programs — some 94,840. But families of 3- and 4-year-olds still have nearly a month to apply, and many families often wait until the end of the application window since applications are not accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Applications remain open through Feb. 27.

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“Every child deserves access to free, high quality childcare – and we’re making sure families across the city know that now is the time to enroll in 3-k and pre-K,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Mamdani seems to be taking a page from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s playbook, when the former mayor launched the city’s massive free pre-K program a decade ago and made outreach a major focal point. De Blasio’s administration to get the word out, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where families were less familiar with the city’s new offerings, and staffers called families of 4-year-olds across the city to encourage them to apply.

Former Mayor Eric Adams, however, did not focus as much on outreach, complained City Council members, who fought for more funding to to families. Last year, about 1 in every 5 seats for the city’s free child care programs for children ages 4 and under, or more than 27,000 of roughly 136,000 seats, went unfilled,

The new mayor has a vested interest in making sure : Not only did he vow to strengthen the city’s 3-K program and ensure that it’s truly universal, showing the demand for the city’s existing programs will help shore up support for his 2-Care program for the city’s 2-year-olds.

In her recent executive budget proposal, Gov. Kathy Hochul to help New York City roll out its 2-Care program and committed to invest $500 million over two years in the program. The city is aiming to create 2,000 new child care seats for 2-year-olds in high-need areas of the city in the fall, then grow to 8,000 seats the following year, and reach all of the city’s 2-year-olds by the end of Mamdani’s first term.

On Friday, Mamdani visited a home-based child care provider in Manhattan’s Chinatown as a way to show his commitment to the providers who operate out of home and often offer care that is culturally and linguistically responsive to families in their communities.

The administration will likely have to rely heavily on home-based providers to scale up its 2-Care program, which will pose many logistical hurdles. That from losing kids to 3-K and pre-K programs and the COVID pandemic. More recently, the Trump administration’s have affected the immigrant-heavy workforce, advocates and providers have said.

Emmy Liss, a former de Blasio administration staffer who is heading the mayor’s Office of Child Care, acknowledged that not all home-based providers fared well in the rollout of the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs.

“We want to work closely in partnership with them in this next phase of work, because we cannot do this work without them,”

Families can apply to 3-K and pre-K online through or by calling 718-935-2009. City officials said any family that applies by the deadline will receive an offer.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Prekindergarten teachers have been slower to adopt these tools. Our recent of 1,586 public school pre-K teachers found that only 29% used gen AI in 2024–2025. Does this lower usage rate matter? It does if AI can help pre-K teachers manage their work more efficiently or improve learning without exposing children to risks. Insights from teachers — through surveys and focus groups — provide some answers.

Why the big gap in AI adoption? One possibility is that pre-K teachers might be resistant to using technology in general. A second is that gen AI might be less useful for their daily tasks. Compared to teachers for older students, many pre-K teachers are less likely to grade papers, write complex assessments or develop lessons with extensive written material. A third possibility is that pre-K teachers might worry that AI tools are not developmentally appropriate for young children.

Our research shows that general technology resistance does not appear to be driving their lower use of gen AI among these teachers. About 80% of pre-K teachers surveyed regularly use interactive whiteboards, digital platforms to communicate with families and digital resources included with curricula.

It’s possible that gen AI is less useful to pre-K teachers, but that is not the full story. Teachers in our survey held positive views of technology’s potential benefits — including for tasks that gen AI could support. More than 80% agreed that technology could help with instructional planning, administrative work, communicating with families and exposing children to experiences beyond the classroom.

Furthermore, gen AI might be helpful for differentiating instructional materials for students with wide-ranging needs and interests. Already, to adjust the rigor of classroom activities, adapt lessons to fit the individualized education program goals of students with disabilities, and create engaging content tailored to students’ interests and skill gaps. Gen AI could be useful in similar ways for pre-K classrooms.

The biggest source of teachers’ hesitation regarding gen AI appears to be concerns about developmental appropriateness for young children. AI-based tools often rely on computers or tablets. In focus groups, teachers voiced concern about young children spending too much time on screens, potentially limiting opportunities to build social and communication skills. Reflecting these concerns, only 37% of pre-K teachers reported using tablet- or computer-based educational programs with their students.

Many child development experts share teachers’ reservations, but there are no clear answers. Some caution about too much or warn that excessive AI interaction may interfere with the young children need, while others emphasize AI’s .

This is a pivotal moment. Policymakers and educators have an opportunity to ensure that technology supports both the professional needs of pre-K teachers and the developmental needs of students. Education technology companies can help by working with independent researchers to examine how AI interactions affect child development and by integrating the research findings into product design.

Meanwhile, pre-K leaders face immediate choices about which technologies to allow and how often to use them. They should pay careful attention to how well tech products align with instructional goals, and they should make determinations about developmental appropriateness in close consultation with teachers and parents.

Some next steps are clearer. District and school leaders should provide robust training for teachers, specifically on how technology use in preschool settings should account for developmental needs. Leaders should also offer guidance on evaluating the quality of tech products for supporting learning. Only 37% of pre-K teachers in our survey had received such training — a critical gap.

Decisions about gen AI in pre-K require caution and collaboration. Expanding use without understanding its developmental implications could pose risks, while ignoring its potential benefits could miss opportunities. The choices educators make now will shape how technology influences young children’s learning for years to come.

 Disclosure: Gates Foundation, which supported the RAND research, also provides financial support to �鶹��Ʒ.

But when filmmaker Rob Reiner latched onto the science about how young children develop, he not only used his moviemaking platform to convince the public of the importance of kids’ early years, he became a real-life policymaker to champion the cause. 

After successfully steering the passage of a 1998 tobacco tax in California to fund programs for kids from birth to 5, he chaired the statewide commission overseeing how some of the funds were spent. The entertainment community remembered Reiner’s legacy as a director this week, after he and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner were found dead in their home. But others reflected on how he kept early-childhood development in the spotlight. 

“There are plenty of Hollywood actors, directors and leaders who engage in politics, write reasonably sized checks and do their best to make a difference. That was not Rob,” said Ben Austin, a former Clinton White House staffer who handled communications for the California Children and Families Commission and quickly rebranded it as First 5. Twenty-seven years later, the work continues. “This was not a side hustle.”

For an education reporter, it was a big deal. I first interviewed Reiner and his wife in a suite at what was then the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 1997. Early-childhood education was my beat, and he was there to talk to the nation’s governors about his I Am Your Child campaign. He wanted to start a movement and had the high-level connections to do it. The effort kicked off earlier that year with and a featuring celebrities such as Tom Hanks and Billy Crystal. With big-name corporate sponsors like Johnson & Johnson and AT&T, the initiative included a special edition of Newsweek and a series of parent-focused videos that translated the latest science on early brain development to a general audience.  

As a new mom, I couldn’t help but feel a personal connection to the topic. I reported on the policy goals of the campaign, like parent education and improving the quality of child care, while taking in the advice about reading and having back-and-forth conversations with my infant daughter. 

It was a 1994 report called , from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, that sparked Reiner’s activism. The authors explained how the first three years of life were a critical period of both risk and opportunity. 

“An adverse environment can compromise a young child’s brain function and overall development,” the authors wrote. “A good start in life can do more to promote learning and prevent damage than we ever imagined.”

Michael Levine, a co-author, remembers sitting in the Reiners’ home theater in 1995, presenting the research to a small group, including actor Warren Beatty, actress Kate Capshaw and then-Disney Channel President John Cooke. Reiner, Levine said, wanted to replicate a Hawaii program called , which promoted understanding of child development and parents’ relationships with their babies. Then Beatty spoke up.

“He said something to the effect of ‘I’ve been listening to this whole conversation about programs and philanthropy. What we can do is sell early childhood to America,’ ” Levine recalled.

That pivotal moment took place in the same home where police said the Reiners were stabbed to death. The Reiners’ young children were there at the time, Levine said. On Sunday, their son , 32, was arrested for the murder. On Monday, police said their daughter found their bodies.

Despite being a far-left Democrat, Reiner found agreement with Republican governors, like Pennsylvania’s and of Ohio, over early-childhood issues, Levine said.��

While I Am Your Child was a nationwide effort, Reiner kept his political strategy focused on California. In November 1998, voters narrowly passed his ballot measure, creating a 50-cent tax on tobacco products, beating back a $30 million effort from cigarette makers to defeat it. The revenue would fund programs to improve the health, school readiness and well-being of young children.

Reiner’s ability to combine his creative talent with political mobilization was “unprecedented in the early-childhood field,” Levine said. 

, I met Reiner in his Castle Rock Entertainment office in Beverly Hills, where posters of his hit movies, like “A Few Good Men,” and “When Harry Met Sally” line the walls.

First 5 was facing legal challenges, including a repeal effort sponsored by the president of a business called Cigarettes Cheaper. An author, , was also poking holes in the whole idea behind First 5, arguing that Reiner was oversimplifying the science and creating stress for parents about making the most of their kids’ early years. Reiner brushed off the criticism.

“Let’s say there is no evidence,” he told me. “Would you then say, ‘Let’s not invest in child care for young children; let’s not invest in health care for young children?’ ”

The repeal effort failed and until 2006, First 5 occupied almost as much of Reiner’s time as his movies. He presided over statewide commission meetings, and could “code switch” between directing a scene and handling First 5 business, Austin said. In 2002, Austin remembers grabbing some time with Reiner on the set of “Alex and Emma,” a love story starring Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson.

“We’d schedule with the producer like 15 minutes for me to talk to Rob in his trailer about early-childhood policy,” he said. 

One of Reiner’s biggest wins during that period was getting First 5 leaders in Los Angeles County to toward expanding preschool.

“This is a historic day for the children, not only of L.A. County, but of the country,” he said at the time. “This is going to be the model.”

He didn’t want to stop there. In 2006, he got a measure on the ballot that would tax California’s wealthiest residents to pay for pre-K for all 4-year-olds. With “strong will and enormous confidence,” he had little patience for those who might hurt the initiative’s chances of passing, said Bruce Fuller, a University of California Berkeley professor who advised Reiner’s team on the proposal. 

“Reiner was not necessarily the world’s greatest listener,” Fuller told me. The plan called for the California Department of Education to set standards for the program and county school superintendents to run it. Fuller thought that was a mistake because it would take kids away from private providers — an opinion Reiner’s team rejected. But Fuller described Reiner as someone “who committed a ton of time and had a big heart to advance the issue.”

Voters rejected the pre-K plan. But today, despite , First 5 continues to fund the statewide commission and 58 county-level agencies. They pay for a broad range of services, from home visiting for teen parents to training preschool providers. In 2018, I wrote of articles marking the 20th anniversary of the ballot measure. 

Reiner didn’t agree to an interview that time. But First 5 L.A. shared some of his as he reflected on what drew him to become an early-childhood education advocate. 

He was partly motivated by his own early experiences.

“As somebody who went through therapy, I started thinking about my early years and how they affected me,” he said. 

But he also saw a political opportunity. 

“Goals 2000 had just come out,” he said, referring to the . “The first goal was ‘All children will start school ready to learn.’ And I looked at all this and I said, you know, it seems to me if you could meet that one goal, if you could just make sure that every child has what they need to be healthy and ready to experience kindergarten, maybe all those other goals would kind of fall into line.”

Since then, schools across the state have wanted to offer pre-K, but many lack the facility space to add classrooms or the expertise to hire and manage pre-K teachers. At the same time, child care centers in their communities often lacked the training and resources needed to get students ready for kindergarten.

So in Kansas City, the education nonprofit created the KC Pre-K Cooperative in 2019 to connect traditional public schools and charters with early childhood centers. This systems-level, approach has expanded local access to high-quality early learning, currently collaborating with 28 partners serving approximately 700 students a year. 

In addition to adding pre-K seats, our goal has been to improve kindergarten readiness as measured by a tool known as the , which was developed by a regional council serving Missouri and Kansas. Readiness is not about mastering every skill before school begins. It’s about being prepared to learn, connect and thrive in a classroom setting. The observation form or PKOF identifies five areas of development that help determine if a child is ready for kindergarten: language and literacy development, cognitive development, social and emotional development; physical development and health and approaches to learning, also known as self-regulation.

SchoolSmart KC leads the pre-K co-op, uniting schools and early childhood providers to expand access to high-quality pre-K education and align funding across the system. We support partners by offering them resources they wouldn’t otherwise have. This includes professional development and instructional coaching, grants to help “mom-and-pop” centers raise standards, and technical support to help centers become accredited with the state.

We then connect these early childhood care providers with schools. Together, they coordinate enrollment and instruction through ongoing, combined professional development with pre-K and kindergarten teachers. The goal is preparing students for kindergarten and ensuring a smooth transition into our local school system.

An example of the co-op’s success is Kids in Christ Academy, founded and directed by Christina Puckett. The child care center serves children from 6 weeks old to age 5, and has distinguished itself by providing expanded hours to support working families and offering specialized care for children on the autism spectrum. Puckett’s dedication to early childhood education and her collaborative approach have helped the academy serve a diverse community and grow, recently opening a location that offers a larger space and more seats. SchoolSmart KC helped her gain accreditation for her site, as well as funding for the process. The staff received training.

The co-op has had an impact across the city. At the beginning of last school year, 23% of Kansas City’s pre-K students were kindergarten-ready. By the end of the year, that number had skyrocketed to 74%. Our goal is to achieve 90% kindergartner readiness citywide by 2027.

To achieve that goal, we recently launched a pilot to gauge the impact of providing early intervention services to pre-K students who need additional resources such as speech or occupational therapy. So far, we’ve seen a noticeable difference in students’ behavior, as well as their cognitive and academic abilities.

All of these students receive hearing, vision and developmental screenings. If any flags arise, their pre-K provider can institute a response to intervention before the student reaches kindergarten. We look forward to learning more from the data to strengthen our support for students with learning challenges.

The co-op has created shared success in a city where families seek more affordable pre-K options, child care providers have both capacity and expertise, and schools want students ready for kindergarten. SchoolSmart KC was an early champion of this collaborative model to expand pre-K access, and our approach can serve as a blueprint for other communities. It begins by connecting schools and early childhood providers, then aligning their strengths to deliver high-quality pre-K through joint enrollment and coordinated instruction.

And bedrock attitudes about attendance seem to be changing. A recent noted that one in four students now doesn’t think being chronically absent from school “is a problem.” The study found that about 40% of school districts consider reducing chronic absenteeism among their top three most pressing challenges. One in 12 ranks it as their biggest challenge. 

As school districts push to lower absenteeism rates, the software company , which helps schools keep track of students and communicate with parents, examined four years of its own attendance intervention data across hundreds of school districts. It analyzed 3.3 million text messages across 15 states, representing 88,000 students and 22,000 educators. 

In a , it finds that improving attendance often comes down to a handful of basic tasks. Here’s a breakdown of the key takeaways:

1: Early intervention works

Contacting families before students become chronically absent is crucial. Once a student crosses the 10% threshold, fixing their attendance becomes much harder, so intervening when students register just three to five absences is most effective. Contacting parents early with a letter improved attendance dramatically, reducing absence rates by 28%.

Researchers found that 51% of students whose families receive just one letter don’t need a second one. The “save rate” for these students suggests that many families simply don’t realize how quickly absences accumulate. 

2: Timing and communication methods matter

Parents are highly responsive to text messages, researchers found, with 73% of texts garnering a response from parents in just 11 minutes. They’ll engage with schools when communication is “accessible, timely and specific.”

“The method does matter,” said Joy Smithson, a SchoolStatus data scientist. “We get a lot higher rates of response with text messages.” Placing a phone call, on the other hand, is “for those more critical conversations,” she said.

Kara Stern, the company’s director of education, agreed. “Not every parent is in a position where they can pick up a phone call during the day. For many people, it might jeopardize your work situation, and so to assume that that’s the best way to reach a parent is not necessarily to be in tune with the actual realities of the parents in your community.”

The best times to text families, the data suggests, are either around 8 a.m., when parents and students are preparing for school, or 2-4 p.m., typically during pickup times. These align with natural breaks in parents’ daily routines, when they’re most likely to check their phones.

The best time of year to engage families is August or September. Parents who hear from schools early maintain higher response rates throughout the year — 77% vs. 71% — and respond, on average, one minute faster. By January, 33% of these parents are still engaging with schools, compared to just 16% of parents who first heard from schools later in the fall term. 

That suggests that early conversations “do extra work,” researchers maintain, establishing trust, opening communication channels and signaling to families that working together matters.

“It’s important to reach out at the beginning of the year, so that you’re not waiting for a crisis,” said Smithson, “because it’s too late to build a relationship at that point.”

3. Plain language outperforms edu-jargon

Researchers found that being specific about how much school a student has missed outperforms vague messages such as, “We’ve noticed some absences.” 

Direct offers of help, such as “Reply if you need support with transportation or health concerns,” also outperform lengthy explanations of attendance policy.

And when students are older, direct messages can be very effective.

“What this data shows us is that connection is really driving so much of a student’s experience,” said Stern. “When a school is able to reach out to the kid and say, ‘Hey, Greg, we missed you today, what’s going on? What do you need to help you come to school?’ that’s a really different experience than having a form letter appear at your house saying, ‘Greg has missed school six days.’” 

She added, “What I hope districts will take away from this report is that communication is intervention,” she said. “It’s not extra work. It’s the work that makes everything else stick.”

4: Three key moments merit extra attention

Students at three moments in their school careers are more likely to be chronically absent: in pre-K, sixth grade and high school. Stern called them “high alert moments.”

Surprisingly, pre-K students have the highest chronic absenteeism rates of any group, mostly due to the high frequency of illness and families underestimating the impact of missing school. 

Sixth grade is “the tipping point,” said Stern, with chronic absenteeism spiking by 3.3 percentage points from fifth to sixth grade, the sharpest increase across all grades.

Smithson said middle-schoolers typically have more autonomy. They’re often getting their first mobile phones. And current sixth-graders, she said, were in kindergarten when COVID hit in 2020. “So just imagine knowing that patterns get established in kindergarten,” she said. For those kindergartners in 2020, school “really got disrupted,” with their baseline experience of school being “categorically different” from what it should have been.

And for many students, the transition from elementary school to middle school represents a shift from a safe, contained environment, where both students and parents are highly engaged, to a less personal one, with less consistency and connectivity, said Stern. Students “don’t know that there is someone who’s really paying attention, who cares that they’re there, who knows what’s happening with them, and so maybe it doesn’t really matter if they’re there or not.”

And middle school can also be the place where many students first experience bullying, which also worsens attendance.

In high school, chronic absence rates more than double, and students have lower response rates to traditional methods like letters, suggesting that schools should contact students directly — actually, they found that direct student messaging could work for students as young as 11. 

A text message to a high school freshman can start a conversation that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Pairing these messages with notes to parents can improve response rates in these critical years, researchers found.

“The chronic absenteeism numbers in high school suggest that kids are really voting with their feet,” said Stern. “And so one way to get them back would be to invite them in to be part of the solution, to say, ‘What is it that is not meeting your needs? How can we include your voice in the process of making high school what you want it to be?’”

In many ways, the new findings echo what researchers like Johns Hopkins University’s and have long suggested. Chang, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit , said Wednesday’s report “reflects what we know from common sense and research. Improving attendance is possible when we use data to take early action as well as determine where we should invest in building relationships so we can partner with students and families to encourage showing up, monitor absences, and address barriers to getting to school.”

But Chang said that while timely, data-informed engagement of families is essential, “it is not always sufficient and should be combined with other strategies for identifying and addressing barriers to getting to school.” Those barriers could exist in the community or in schools and should be addressed in “a comprehensive, systemic approach.”

She suggested that of interventions is sometimes necessary, including “intensive interventions” for students who miss more than 20% of school days. It could include housing supports, a student attendance review board, a community-based, non-criminal truancy court, individualized learning and success plans and even, as a last resort, legal intervention.

Stern and Smithson said the findings boil down, in a larger sense, to the importance of what they call “active noticing” about attendance. 

“I really think that it would be a big plus for faculties to actively notice every week and go through their rosters,” said Stern. “‘Who do we not know? Who can’t speak about this child? Who doesn’t know anything about this student’s life after school? We have someone that we need to actually pay attention to learning more about — who’s suddenly not coming to school, who’s turned it around and suddenly being there?’ ” 

Smithson said the biggest takeaway for educators is that “Timing is everything. Do not wait. Act with urgency. It’s about building those relationships, and it’s just so important — and it’s so important to start right away.”

In a who work in public schools across the country, conducted in March and April 2024, respondents reported experiencing work-based stress at nearly twice the rate of comparable working adults in other kinds of jobs — those of prime working age with bachelor’s degrees who put in at least 35 hours a week. “Teachers of public school-based pre-K were generally more stressed,” noted Elizabeth Steiner, senior policy researcher at RAND and a lead author on the report. Two top stressors the teachers mentioned were dealing with student behavior and addressing students’ mental health.

Another top stressor they named was low compensation. And indeed, the survey found that pre-K teachers earned nearly $7,000 less, on average, than teachers in K-12 positions and $24,000 less than similar adults in other kinds of jobs. Steiner said that finding was “a little more surprising” given that the school-based pre-K teachers in their sample had similar educational backgrounds as K-12 teachers. But teachers overall face long-standing wage gaps with other fields. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the difference in pay, adjusted for factors like education and work history, hit a record in 2023.

Pre-K teachers also reported working eight more hours, on average, each week than they were contracted for. Perhaps it’s little surprise, then, that another top challenge they named was administrative work that fell outside of teaching.

All of that stress while working for low pay seems to have pushed a lot of teachers to question their jobs. Nearly one in five survey respondents said that they intended to leave their jobs by the end of the 2023-24 school year. That’s “commensurate,” Steiner said, with rates of other workers, but it could still signal trouble. While Steiner noted that not all teachers who say they’re going to quit actually follow through, she said “it’s a measure of teachers’ job satisfaction” and “an early marker of attrition.” Other data has found high actual turnover rates among early childhood teachers. In Virginia, of teachers serving children from birth through 5 years old left between fall 2023 and fall 2024. In Louisiana, of early childhood educators working one school year are gone by the following one, according to a working paper published by Annenberg Institute. 

And while the turnover rate for pre-K teachers may look similar to other occupations, it has a greater impact when they leave their jobs. “Teachers gain a lot of experience and skill the longer they’re in a position,” said Anna Shapiro, associate policy researcher at RAND and co-author of the survey, and there has been “a lot of research on the importance of having stable environments for children in particular.” Losing experienced teachers who have connected with children is highly disruptive. It “can have knock on effects on quality,” Shapiro said. 

These troubling findings about how pre-K teachers feel about their work come at the same time that states are heavily investing in preschool. The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)’s reported that the share of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool for the 2022-23 school year reached an all-time high of more than 1.6 million, and 35% of 4-year-olds now attend a program. States that have enacted new universal preschool programs helped to “push the nation to these record high percentages,” the report says. The enrollment highs came on the back of record funding: States spent $11.73 billion on preschool in 2022-23, an all-time high. 

There are plenty of challenges to continuing to expand preschool enrollment if states want to make further progress. One is finding physical space for new students; another is developing quality curriculum and standards. But “the biggest expense is teachers,” Shapiro said, and “one of the biggest barriers. You can only have so many children enrolled if you have a limited number of teachers.”

A particularly troubling trend that emerged in the RAND survey, then, is that teachers with five or fewer years of experience were more likely to say they intended to leave their jobs than those with more years under their belts. States that want to expand are going to need to recruit more new teachers and hold onto them. “Those numbers feel cautionary,” Steiner said. “States considering expanding pre-K might wish to think carefully about how they’re supporting and thinking about retaining their newest teachers so that the negative impacts on students in the classroom environment can be mitigated.”

“If you want to have a big staff pool, you need to have people who want to stay,” Shapiro added. “Well-being is really important in that retention.”

Shapiro noted that states will also have to contend with teacher pay gaps. The survey data suggests that “potentially for a teacher who has a similar level of experience and education that being a pre-K teacher is maybe less attractive than being a K-5 teacher,” she said. “It’s a very similar job but you’re getting paid less to do it.” That won’t just make it more difficult to recruit qualified and talented teachers, but to hold onto them once they gain more experience and keep them from seeking a better paying job in the K-12 setting. Tackling pay parity, then, is “an important policy step” to take to recruit more teachers, Shapiro said. 

There may also be a temptation for states to expand part-day preschool programs, serving twice as many students with the same pot of money, given limited resources. But the survey data shows that could be a poor direction to take. Part-day pre-K teachers, who report the same number of work hours so are therefore likely saddled with teaching two different groups of children every day, reported higher levels of stress and intentions to leave in the survey than full-day teachers. “Our data does caution against attempting to do more with less,” Shapiro said.

The RAND findings are all the more troubling because, as Steiner noted, “public school-based pre-K teachers are just one piece of the overall pre-K landscape.” Teachers in other settings, such as center- or home-based child care programs, which cities and states sometimes include in their preschool systems, are likely to be faring even more poorly. “This sample of teachers is probably the ceiling,” Shapiro said. “We’re probably talking to the teachers that have the most resources in terms of pay and benefits.” 

If states want to expand preschool enrollment, “part of a successful expansion would be supporting staff and ensuring that they are retained in their jobs to get the best benefits for students,” Steiner said.

But those increases are skewed by a small number of states making progress; others are not doing as well. Quality remains uneven from state to state and even within states, quality and availability often are a matter of ZIP code. While some states have increased funding, enrolled more students, and worked to meet national quality benchmarks, others have lagged, offering programs that meet fewer national quality benchmarks — or none at all.

Shifting sands at the federal level have left much of the sector uncertain about what the future might hold and how the Trump administration’s  to the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies might affect  and other early childhood programs. NIEER reports that eliminating Head Start funding would mean a decline of more than 10 percentage points in access to public preschool in several states and more than 20 percentage points in some. 

The 2024 State of Preschool Yearbook underscores how essential it is for states to proactively prioritize and expand investments in early childhood, and a special section highlights four states — Alabama, Michigan, New Mexico and Oklahoma — a bipartisan mix that NIEER identifies as pre-K leaders and strong examples others can emulate.  

Though this might seem like a clarion call for states to step up, W. Steven Barnett, NIEER’s senior director and founder, says it is not that simple. For many states, Head Start is the  foundation their preschool programs are built on and it is on the . 

“Federal Head Start money is about the same magnitude of all state pre-K spending,” he says. “The notion that states could replace that funding, especially overnight, is not realistic. If you had said, ‘Over 10 years, this is going to go away,’ maybe. But overnight? It would be a disaster.” In some states, like Mississippi and West Virginia, 23% of 3- and 4-year-olds are in a Head Start program. 

“We don’t know if they’re going to zero out the program, but if they do, the money to serve a half a million 3- and 4-year-olds disappears. In some states that’s almost a quarter of the kids who benefit the most,” Barnett adds. “They say, ‘You need to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps,’ but also, ‘I’m taking your boots away.’ Where are these states going to find the money to replace that?”

Setting New Records

The 2023-24 school year saw new records set for funding and enrollment for state-funded preschool programs. Across the country, enrollment increased by more than 111,000 children nationally to reach 1,750,995 children, an increase of 7% from the previous year. This marked an all-time enrollment high with 37% of 4-year-olds and 8% of 3-year-olds enrolled. Despite the increase for 3-year-olds though, most state pre-K programs continued to serve primarily (or only) 4-year-olds.

States spent more than $13.6 billion on preschool in the 2023-24 school year, which included $257 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds, an increase of nearly $2 billion over the prior year. State spending on preschool increased in all but five states that have a public preschool program. California, New Jersey, New York and Texas led funding, spending $1 billion or more on preschool. Together, these four states accounted for 51% of all state spending on preschool. 

State spending per child increased in all but eight states with preschool programs. Including state, local and federal sources, spending per child was $8,856, an inflation-adjusted increase of $635 per child that reflects a strong growth in state funding as federal recovery dollars decreased. 

Room for Improvement

Over the past two decades, NIEER’s research has consistently found that higher quality preschool programs yield increased and enduring benefits for children’s learning and development. Based on classroom data, monitoring, surveys and assessments, the institute’s research has developed 10 benchmarks that measure the quality standards for preschool programs that support that growth. 

The 2024 Yearbook finds that 2 1/2 times more children in the U.S. attended lower-quality programs that met five or fewer of those benchmarks than children attending programs that met nine or 10, underscoring again the tremendous variation across states and zip codes. 

According to the report, many states aren’t hitting the quality standards that would set their programs up to provide  that give pre-K its greatest value for children and taxpayers. Five states, for example, have no state-funded program in 2023-24; eight states spent less than half the cost needed to meet minimum quality standards. Others just aren’t serving enough young learners.

“If you do pre-K right, you put in place a foundation for future success in school and in life,” Barnett says. “We have strong causal evidence linking quality pre-K to educational attainment, whether you graduate from high school or go to college, and strong causal evidence that links educational attainment to other positive life outcomes. Not just how much money you make, but good pre-K sets in motion this chain where people will live longer, healthier lives. Taxpayers make out great when that happens.” 

Barnett adds: “If that [foundation] is not there, then we’re focusing much more on remediation, special education, dropout prevention, incarceration — all these negative expenditures rather than positive outcomes. If you’re meeting five or less benchmarks and you’re not spending enough money to pay for a quality program, it may look like you’re saving money, but you’re throwing it away.”

Alabama, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi and Rhode Island are the only states nationwide to meet all 10 benchmarks. Other states come close, meeting nine benchmarks. On the other hand, 21 state-funded preschool programs meet five or fewer of these quality standards. 

Information Gathering

Over the years, the NIEER State of Preschool Yearbook has become a sort of Bible for legislators, school officials, researchers and other early learning stakeholders to understand what’s going on in the sector. Barnett points out that people might hear “survey” and think the reporting is based on sampling. In reality, he says, it’s more like a census because it consists of 300 questions sent to state school administrators. By the time all the appendices are organized, the final report is inches thick. 

“There have been changes in state governments where no one with institutional memory was left,” Barnett says. “They used the Yearbook to figure out what their own policies were — which is fair because they’re the ones that filled it out in the first place. The Yearbooks have been a long-standing partnership with administrators. It’s as much their product as it is ours. We write up the narrative up front, but all the state page narratives are constructed with state administrators to make sure we represent their programs correctly.” 

Going Forward

Preschool spending has reached an all-time high, but fiscal uncertainty could reverse the trend, the report warns. Several top economists  weak growth in the U.S. economy, or even a recession, which, combined with federal cutbacks could create powerful headwinds for state pre-K programs. It wouldn’t be the first time: According to the report, the 2008 recession led to lower pre-K funding for more than half a decade. Barnett says it’s a critical time for states to learn from each other and take proactive steps with policies and programs that prepare their youngest learners for their best possible future. 

That adds up to 70,000 or more pre-K teachers working inside U.S. public schools — a growing workforce that warrants distinct consideration and research as states seek to make the most of early childhood programs.

Policymakers and district and state education leaders often consider public school-based pre-K teachers part of the early care and education workforce. But in fact, they are distinct in several ways from those who work in community-based programs or child care centers. Public school pre-K teachers have and better .

They are required to attain higher degrees, and they . Still, they are often excluded from K-12 education research. Most federal data collection pre-K teachers in with kindergarten teachers or them entirely.�� 

Last year, RAND added teachers to its to learn more about this overlooked population. , revealed that many public schools aren’t yet making the most of their pre-K programs.

For example, our survey found that there is not as much coordination happening between pre-K and elementary grades in the same school building as one might expect. In theory, putting pre-K inside a local school would ease kids’ transition into kindergarten and increase instructional alignment across early elementary grades. We found that only half of pre-K teachers reported having dedicated time to coordinate instruction with early grades; less than one-third had dedicated time to coordinate kindergarten transition. Just sharing a building is not enough, as other research has also shown. Principals and educators have to consciously work at producing the benefits of coordinating with their pre-K program.

Pre-K programs in public schools also need high-quality educators. Yes, school-based pre-K teachers typically earn much higher wages than other early childhood educators. But full-day pre-K teachers were paid, on average, $7,000 less annually than elementary teachers — despite working similar hours and experiencing similar workplace stressors.

States that want to expand pre-K access through school-based programs will need to recruit and retain during a period of already high turnover. They may also have to resolve disparities in pay, benefits, and other working conditions to make sure they don’t lose pre-K teachers to better-paying elementary jobs.

Teachers who lead the of public school-based pre-K programs that are part-day have even greater challenges. Part-day pre-K teachers in our study were less likely to report having adequate time for planning or to complete administrative tasks than those who work a full school day. They were also less likely than full-day teachers to have gotten curriculum-based professional learning, even though both groups use similar materials. These are important differences to consider, especially for states that are expanding their pre-K programs by adding or that guarantee funding for only a few hours per day.

As more young children enroll in school-based pre-K, understanding the experiences and needs of their teachers will be crucial. We hope our ongoing surveys can inform all those working to implement high-quality early learning programs as they consider how to recruit, train and retain pre-K teachers, and how their school will coordinate learning from pre-K through elementary classes.

Pre-K expansion in public schools, a bipartisan policy priority for years, has tremendous potential to . But public school leaders and pre-K program administrators can do more to ensure they’re getting the most out of this investment.

COLUMBIA — Hundreds of 4-year-olds across South Carolina are on waitlists to access state-funded preschool programs, even though there are thousands of open seats, presented Monday to the state Education Oversight Committee.

The state funds a dual system of full-day kindergarten for 4-year-olds deemed “at risk.” Students are eligible under state law if they qualify for Medicaid or free or reduced-price meals, or if they are homeless, in foster care or show developmental delays. Many public school districts use local property tax dollars to expand that eligibility.

The state Department of Education oversees programs in public schools, while First Steps, a separate state agency, oversees state-funded classes in approved private schools and child care centers.

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As of November, 400 4-year-olds were waiting for spots to open up to enroll at their local public school. At the same time, First Steps 4K reported more than 2,300 open seats, often in the same counties as the districts with the longest waitlists, according to the report.

“It’s just a matter of finding an open seat for a child on a waitlist or finding an eligible child for the open seat,” said Jenny May, a committee researcher who presented the report.

Because 4K is a one-year program, students who are on the waitlist are unlikely to end up in a preschool program before starting kindergarten. Children need at least 120 days of preschool to prepare, so even if a slot happens to open up toward the end of the school year, they will start kindergarten less ready than other 5-year-olds, according to the study.

It’s not clear why some 4-year-olds are on a waiting list for a public school when vacancies exist in private programs, May said.

In some cases, the issue could be that another preschool program isn’t available nearby. The four counties with the longest waitlists — Lexington, Anderson, Berkeley and Newberry — all have at least one First Steps 4K program with availability, according to the report. However, that doesn’t account for potential cross-county drives.

Other parents may not know that other options are available, May said. Having a person designated to help direct parents to other preschool options, such as the nearest First Steps 4K program with open seats, could help reduce that waitlist, May said.

“It’s likely that if we had a more efficient process, we could serve most of the 400 kids on a waitlist on one of the First Steps seats,” May said.

The state already has several websites meant to help parents figure out what programs they’re eligible for and how to enroll. , launched in 2020, tells parents whether they’re eligible for state-funded preschool programs. does the same but includes all early childhood programs with federal or state funding.

But having a person parents can call, or who can reach out to families with children on waitlists, could help reach some parents who might not know about the websites or have other concerns, the study suggests. That person, who the committee dubbed a 4K navigator, could then talk parents through the differences in programs, find available seats and answer any other questions parents might have, researchers said.

First Steps 4K has a similar program, in which applicants are directed to a central phone line or website that helps parents find the right fit for their child. That has helped prevent First Steps from having its own waitlist, May said. The 4K navigators, who the study suggested trying out in areas with the largest waitlists first, would have a broader knowledge of pre-K programs, the report said.

If a school district has a persistent waitlist of more than 20 students, that suggests the population has risen in that area, and state officials should consider giving the district more funding to create enough slots for those students, the report suggested.

The waitlisted students represent less than 1% of students who are eligible for the program but not enrolled. More than 18,000 4-year-olds, or about 55% of all eligible, are living in poverty but not enrolled in a 4K program, according to the report.

That’s a decrease from the 2022-2024 school year, when 60% of eligible students were not enrolled in districts. Still, it’s not enough, May said.

Even if every student on a waitlist enrolled in one of the available spots, programs would have space left over to take on at least 1,900 more students, according to the report. That suggests there are barriers other than program space keeping parents from enrolling their students in state-funded preschool, May said.

In many cases, the problem might be that parents don’t know about 4K programs or their benefits, May said.��The state should put more funding and effort into outreach to help those students, the report suggests.

Data shows preschool programs are highly beneficial, helping students learn skills in reading, math and socialization, studies have found. According to the report, at-risk students who attended a state-funded pre-K program were more likely to be prepared for school than their counterparts who didn’t, according to the report.

“So, we want those students who are eligible and not served to be able to access it, and we definitely want those students who are on a waitlist to be able to access the program,” said Dana Yow, executive director of the committee.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

Williams and her children with relatives, but in late November were told they had to find somewhere else to live. She called the city’s homeless response team at least three times seeking help, but her situation wasn’t deemed an emergency, and she never received assistance in finding somewhere to stay; in November she said she was no family rooms were available. So they began living out of a van, frequently parking in the casino garage where her two children died. It was only after that tragedy that she was finally given a spot in a shelter.

Homelessness has seen a sharp uptick across the country in recent years, but the increase has been the most dramatic for families with children age 5 and younger, multiple data sources suggest. “The most common age that someone is in shelter nationally is under the age of 5,” said Henry Love, vice president for public policy & strategy at Win, the largest provider of family shelters in New York City. This trend means more and more families with young children are scrambling to find somewhere to live.

This housing instability can have a lasting impact on children, affecting their cognitive and social-emotional development and leading to learning delays and academic challenges. Those challenges are likely to follow them throughout their education and even later into their lives.

In its of homelessness in America, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported that the number of homeless people increased by 18% last year, reaching the highest level ever recorded. The problem is even more acute for families with children: They experienced the largest single-year increase, with a rate that climbed by 39% between 2023 and 2024. That came after a increase in homelessness for families with children in 2023.

Those numbers are alarming, said Donald H. Whitehead, Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, even as he noted that the department’s data is an undercount due to challenges with identifying homeless people and how they’re classified.

HUD doesn’t break the data down further by children’s age. But other sources indicate that the youngest children are increasingly at risk of living in homelessness. “What we know to be true is more young kids are experiencing homelessness,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit focused on homelessness and education.

According to an estimate generated by SchoolHouse Connection and the Poverty Solutions initiative at the University of Michigan, there were 681,180 children nationally under age 6 experiencing homelessness in the 2022-2023 school year, the most recent data. That represents an approximately 23% increase over the 2021-2022 school year, “twice the increase for school-aged children,” Duffield said in an interview. The nonprofit expects to publish the data in April.

In January, SchoolHouse Connection for the 2022-2023 school year, showing that 451,369 children ages 3 and younger were experiencing homelessness that year. That represents about a 24% increase over the 2021-2022 school year. 

The same trend appears in more recent for children attending Head Start, which provides free early childhood education to low-income children below the age of 4. Homelessness among those children rose nearly 13% between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, the largest increase since the start of the pandemic. Overall, the figure for children attending Head Start is up 28% since the 2021-2022 school year. 

The increases are “unfortunately consistent across data sources,” said Erin Patterson, director of education initiatives at SchoolHouse Connection.

The higher numbers could reflect better efforts to locate children experiencing homelessness. The American Rescue Plan provided $800 million in pandemic-relief funding that to identify more children in unstable housing. Head Start’s former director, Khari Garvin, was particularly on increasing enrollment among homeless children. “If it’s about finding and enrolling and identifying, that’s a good thing,” Duffield said. 

But the increases are also driven by troubling forces. Pandemic-era protections and funding that helped keep people housed have come to an end. Until it was by the Supreme Court in August 2021, a federal eviction moratorium barred eligible tenants from being kicked out of their homes; state and local eviction moratoria lasted longer, with Oakland, California’s in July 2023. Some converted empty hotels to housing for homeless people. States from Congress’s CARES Act to offer rental assistance, and then Congress passed two rounds of rental assistance totaling $46.5 billion. All of those measures have now expired.

In the meantime, the cost of housing has climbed dramatically nationwide. Rents 29% between 2019 and 2023, far outpacing income growth, and last year a record number of American households spent more than 30% of their incomes on housing. Such increases often trigger evictions, and the people of eviction are families with babies and toddlers. 

Homelessness among young children may also have risen with the arrival of migrant families, many of whom had nowhere to stay except shelters. Domestic violence often forces victims and their children to flee their housing situations and enter shelter systems, and there was an in such incidents during the pandemic. Many families have also recently been pushed out of their housing by natural disasters, from the flooding in North Carolina to the fires in Los Angeles. “Those have lingering effects,” Duffield said. “People don’t get their feet right away and the more vulnerable you are the longer it takes.”

Having children is also expensive and can tip families into poverty. Research has that a quarter of all poverty spells start with the birth of a child. “People who are on the cusp can quickly slide into homelessness,” Patterson said. 

Even as homelessness among young children and their families is on the rise, they often get left out of homeless counts and homeless services. The vast majority of these families don’t live on streets or in shelters, but instead double up inside friends’ and families’ homes, which HUD doesn’t count as technically homeless and may be harder to identify. Others live in motels and hotels, which again doesn’t count for HUD’s purposes. 

“The homelessness system itself doesn’t see families with young children and it doesn’t prioritize them,” Duffield said. “They’re often an afterthought.” As Williams’s story showed, they can get turned away if they technically have somewhere to sleep, like a car or a couch.

By contrast, the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which provides school districts with money to support students experiencing homelessness, includes in its count those who are living with other families, in hotels and motels, or in substandard conditions. 

The difference shows up in the data. The U.S. Department of Education’s estimate of the number of homeless students has since 2004, with a spike during Hurricane Katrina and a dip during the pandemic. And yet the number of homeless families reported by HUD has remained relatively flat in comparison over all of those years. 

One thing is clear, though: Homelessness has huge ramifications for young children. “It is a traumatic experience,” Whitehead said.

Research has found that children who experience homelessness are to have developmental delays. It can even interrupt such basics as potty training. Housing instability means many families move frequently between schools, disrupting a child’s education. “As a former teacher, if a child can’t feel safe and is not stabilized, they can’t learn,” Love said. 

Children who experience homelessness are more likely to and suffer from . Once they reach school age, homelessness is tied directly to higher absenteeism rates and lower test scores.

“Any experience of homelessness, even short-lived, can impact a child’s development even after the family has been stably housed,” Patterson said. But, she added, “The younger and longer a child experiences homelessness, the greater the cumulative toll of negative outcomes.”

Enrolling children in safe, high-quality early education programs can mitigate those issues and “help create a sense of normalcy and calm in otherwise tumultuous and toxic circumstances,” Patterson said. But just 7.4% of Head Start eligible children who were homeless in 2023-2024 were actually enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start. Young children in public pre-K classrooms or Head Start programs run by school districts can receive help through the McKinney-Vento Act with transportation, food and other priorities.

Other solutions range from the specific to the systematic. Prioritizing homeless families for services, including early childhood education, could help. More accurate counts would also give a clearer picture of who is homeless. Another solution would be to offer more housing vouchers targeted for this population, similar to those offered to veterans or unaccompanied youth, or simply to provide cash without strings attached.

“Give people money,” Love said. “That’s really the crux of it. People are under-resourced.”

Looks like we’re going to spend 2025 debating which bathrooms different kids should use when they need to relieve themselves and whether we really want to follow through on the administration’s plans to allow armed immigration enforcement actions on school campuses. Jury’s still out on whether or not the U.S. Department of Education survives the year — let alone Trump’s entire term. 

One thing’s certain, though: the biggest issue facing U.S. public schools will remain fiscal. As Chad Aldeman has repeatedly noted here at �鶹��Ʒ, falling enrollment is a problem for local education leaders across the country — and most haven’t confronted the ensuing budget problems because those make for difficult politics. 

This is only going to get worse: the Biden administration’s pandemic recovery funds are and increased public investment in private school choice programs is putting pressure on public K–12 budgets . What’s more, falling birth rates were already producing drops in U.S. K–12 enrollment in communities across the country.

Long story short: whatever’s happening in national education politics, the central education dilemma for many school districts will be trying to attract and retain students so that they don’t face stiff cuts in state and federal funding. suggests that pre-K programs could be a useful tool in that effort. 

The analysis explores whether Washington, D.C.’s universal pre-K system for 3- and 4-year-olds could be part of the reason why “the District of Columbia (DC) stands out as one of the few jurisdictions that did not experience declines in public K–12 enrollment between fall 2019 and fall 2021.” 

D.C.’s pre-K program was a leader that just preceded in public early education investments. It as part of District of Columbia education reforms designed to improve outcomes and raise enrollment. This was years ahead of similar efforts in , , , and . 

The program isn’t just old — it’s compared to its peers. The city per pre-K student than any U.S. state, serves both 3- and 4-year-olds and integrates the large majority of its programs into K–12 campuses. That means that pre-K students generally continue into kindergarten (and first grade, and beyond) classrooms that are overseen by the same leaders who run their pre-K programs. This permits for greater from early childhood into elementary school — and, to drop the jargon, it makes parents’ lives way easier. 

Using D.C. enrollment lottery data, the Urban Institute paper found that students who attended pre-K as 3-year-olds before the pandemic “were 9.8 percentage points more likely to remain enrolled” in D.C. schools between 2020 and 2022 than children who did not attend. This was especially true for students who were in kindergarten or first grade during the pandemic period. Further, the enrollment boost effect was particularly strong for D.C. pre-K alumni from low-income communities; they were 25% more likely to remain enrolled, compared to students from higher-income communities

“Public prekindergarten — especially when starting as early as 3 years old — can promote student persistence by providing early exposure to a classroom setting and fostering foundational academic and nonacademic skills,” the researchers conclude. 

The Urban Institute’s findings also echo prior studies indicating that D.C.’s pre-K program has impacts well beyond improving children’s development and well-being. Others have found that it shapes a wider range of families’ decisions and behaviors. It offers a full-day schedule that matches the city’s K–12 schools and their academic calendars. A 2018 study linked this breadth of coverage to — that is, D.C.’s pre-K investments made it easier for moms to work. 

As noted above, the program is relatively well aligned with research on quality early education, so it’s no surprise that it’s producing a host of positive effects for kids and families. I’ve written about the program from that standpoint. 

But I’m also a father of three D.C. pre-K alumni, and as their primary caregiver (over most of our parenting journey), I’ve gotta tell you: these effects almost assuredly underestimate the program’s benefits. D.C. pre-K has saved our family immeasurable money and stress over the years. By the end of the pandemic — when our youngest was due to enroll — we knew that leaving the city for almost any other community would have meant paying for two more years of private early childhood care. In D.C., average child care costs are , and costs in nearby towns are only slightly lower — staying in the city saved us tens of thousands of dollars. 

Shoot, without the four years (two per child) of child care savings D.C. pre-K had bestowed upon us when we enrolled our two older children, we might never have gone ahead and chosen to have that third kid at all. 

Which, incidentally, brings us back to 2025 education politics and how the country’s shrinking pool of children is going to produce smaller K–12 enrollments and school budgets. While other urban school districts are shrinking, , with a third consecutive year of enrollment growth bringing the total to just shy of 100,000 students. 

If civil rights advocates are able to stop the administration’s from sending ICE agents to K–12 campuses and making LGBTQ students , leaders curious about how to better support families in having children — and enrolling them in public schools — might take a look outside the White House at the innovative pre-K program surrounding them.

“How many do you have? One…two..three…four,” Johnson says, before they place another bear in the row. “What if we add more? What comes after four?”

Johnson smiles when Mayeda replies with “five.” The stealth math lesson is working. Mayeda “added” a bear and is starting to understand, in subtle ways, the very early basics of addition.

“They think it’s play,” Johnson said, stepping away to let Mayeda line up bears on her own.. “They don’t always understand that they’re actually learning things.”

Math lessons like this, disguised as a fun activity playing with colorful bears, should be a regular part of preschool, math experts say, especially as older students across the U.S. struggle with math after the pandemic.

But such lessons are a rarity. Preschools devote just five percent of time to math skills, after observing 77 preschool classrooms in seven states —  Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. 

The researchers from four universities also found math instruction between 2018 and 2020 rarely went beyond the most basic math skills, like learning numbers, counting and identifying shapes, which are important for students to learn, but stop short of what most four-year-olds can do. 

“They’re getting hardly any math,” said Michelle Mazzocco, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development and co-author of the study. 

While some may see doing basic counting for a few minutes a day as the right thing for most preschoolers, Mazzocco and other national math advocates say it’s a lost opportunity.

With falling scores on math tests such as the international Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests – which dropped between 2018 and 2022 by two-thirds of a year’s worth of learning – teaching basic math in preschool, if done well, can make it easier to understand advanced lessons later, Mazzoco said. When presented as games or play, even four-year-olds can learn basic concepts behind math tasks like measurement, geometry,  addition and subtraction.

“Some of those children who struggle with math are struggling because they got off to a slow start,” Mazzocco said. “That can be diminished.”

“We need to make sure that preschoolers have more opportunities to engage their natural inquisitive interest in math, to do so regularly and frequently in developmentally appropriate ways,” she said.

Latrenda Knighten, the president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, agreed students can learn math concepts at a young age and preschools should teach much more of it. She doesn’t expect a math learning revolution similar to the “science of reading” across the country, but wants math to be a priority, even in preschool.

Though there are vigorous debates over how preschool gains in all subjects fade over time, Knighten said. But if students learn more math early on, and kindergarten and later grades build on that knowledge, not just re-teach it, scores should go up, she said. Preschool math also provides an early start on learning critical thinking, problem-solving and recognizing patterns that pays off later, she said.

“You hear a lot about literacy, literacy, literacy,” said Knighten, a former elementary school math coach. “In an ideal world, you maybe turn those wheels and give math the focus that we’ve had on reading for so long.” 

Historically, preschool math has been a low priority, both because of the traditional focus on reading but also because preschool is often viewed as child care or play-based more than an academic program. States don’t require preschool and few pay for it, so just 35 percent of four year olds nationally attend preschool, according to the National Institutes for Early Childhood Research at Rutgers University.

There’s also no national consensus on what students at that age should be taught. The nation’s last attempt at setting national education standards, the Common Core movement, faced opposition to its kindergarten through 12th grade standards and skipped preschool altogether.

Even the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics promoted math skills starting in kindergarten from 1980 to 2000, before adding preschool in 2000.

The council and many states now have specific recommendations about what preschoolers should learn about numbers and shapes and measurement.

Consider counting, for example. Counting can be just memorizing and reciting a list of names assigned to each number. But the council and states also want preschoolers to learn that each number stands for a real quantity of items. They can be taught that each item should be counted once — not a few times or counting several items as one — which is a common mistake four-year-olds can make.

They can also be taught that the count of one group can be more than or less than the count of another. 

Doug Clements, a professor at the University of Denver and co-author of the highly-regarded Building Blocks preschool math curriculum, said it is easy to underestimate what preschoolers can learn.

“There’s a common misunderstanding that in preschool you learn to count, then in kindergarten you count higher, and then in first grade you can learn arithmetic,” he said. If you give students a narrative, a story behind a problem, he said, and let them use objects to see things physically, they can understand math concepts well.

“People think that arithmetic is a vertical – a three, then a plus sign, two, bar under it, then fill in the numeral — which is not what I’m talking about,” he said.

Teachers can ask four-year-olds, for example, if they have five toys and give a friend two, how many they have left.

The colored bears in Johnson’s class, a common tool for preschools,  offer a chance to show, without any lecture or worksheets, that objects can be sorted by color or size, that a row of six bears, for example, is larger than a row of four bears and that “adding” another bear to a row changes the number to a higher one.

It sounds simple, but teachers need to be intentional about how they handle “play” like this, Knighten said.

“It takes the teacher understanding what’s happening and knowing the right questions to pose to student,” she said. “Maybe ask them, ‘What can you tell me about how you’ve arranged these bears or these cars or whatever they’re playing with? Do you have more of one than you have the other? How do you know you have more?  How can you show me?’ And that’s not even bringing out paper or pencil, it’s just understanding the math that a child at ages two, three or four is capable of understanding and how to provide opportunities for them to explore those things.” 

The counting bears are one of dozens of toys and games packed into the math closet at the Fairmount Early Childhood Center in Beachwood, Ohio, just a few miles from Johnson’s Head Start class.

There, students count off jumping jacks and toe touches to reinforce quantity. Children at one table glue decorations to printouts of the number one to reinforce how the number looks. In another classroom, three-year-olds pick through a box of different-colored blocks of different shapes and line them up in rows by shape and color, counting how many they have placed in each row as they go. 

Teacher Rosanne Stark guides students nearby in the earliest stages of another math skill — measurement. Today, three-year-olds pick between shorter and longer rectangles of colored paper and glue them to a sheet under columns labeled “shorter” or “longer.”

“Would you say that’s on a long strip or a short strip?” Stark asks a student. “Long. Good job. So we’re going to glue it on.”

Clements said comparing lengths with activities like this is a good start.

“Then we move on to actual measurement, which is assigning a number to the length of something,” he said. That can happen first by attaching several, say five, blocks together to see if something is longer or shorter than five blocks, then “adding” or subtracting blocks to the right size.

“They can show you in the count of cubes,” he said. “It’s a very concrete measurement. It’s very easy to understand conceptually for kids, because it makes sense to them.”

How much impact preschool math has, though, is unclear. Researchers can point to multiple studies showing preschool math leads to better math performance in kindergarten and in elementary school, sometimes as late as eighth grade. But as with preschool overall, other studies show students taking preschool math don’t end up further ahead than other students in later grades. This so-called “fade” plagues most debates over whether preschool is worth the effort or cost.

Tyler Watts, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who is researching the effects of early math, said advantages sometimes nearly vanish by fifth grade. He and others are trying to figure out why.

“I don’t think it’s totally clear, to be honest with you,” he said. “I think it’s a hard problem to figure out.”

While he’s still a supporter of preschool and preschool math, Watts believes — like Mazzocco and Knighten suggested – that it can be the first of many steps in improving math lessons over several years.

“If the goal is improving, say, math achievement in grade eight, I think you’re going to need to work on that all the way from PreK through grade eight,” he said. “I don’t think PreK is going to work as kind of like a low-cost silver bullet for that problem.”

There’s another challenge to making preschool math better and more common — preparing teachers. Knighten said that in her time as a math coach in Louisiana, she found many gravitate toward teaching reading because they thought they were “bad at math” when they were in school and view it as an ordeal, Knighten said.

That’s why the council partnered with the National Association for the Education of Young Children this year to offer for teachers on topics like and .

“If we actually provide teachers with more confidence in their ability to teach mathematics to students,” Knighten said. “Then, of course, that means that they’ll spend more time on those activities with students, and students will actually get more of those beginning, foundational experiences.”

Parents with children enrolled in a universal pre-kindergarten program in New Haven, Connecticut, increased their earnings by an average of 20.9%, according to a published by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week.

Families had more money because the pre-K reduced their child care costs while also enabling them to work more hours.

The study is sure to be ammunition in Minnesota’s longstanding debate about child care and universal pre-K, which has been a priority of some progressives for years. Former Gov. Mark Dayton made a strong push for pre-K in 2015 but was thwarted by the GOP-controlled House.

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“Universal pre-K” refers to programs that are free and aren’t means-tested, meaning they are available to all families regardless of household income. The New Haven program in the study had a limited number of slots, which were distributed using a lottery system, allowing researchers to compare the outcomes of families in the program to those who didn’t get a slot.

The authors found that for every dollar spent by the government to support the program, parents took home an additional $5.50, a better return on investment than the and the .

The New Haven universal pre-K program offered up to 10 hours of child care per day — which was key to the study’s findings.

Parents whose children were enrolled in the universal pre-K program got an average of 11 more hours of child care coverage per week, compared to parents of children in other child care programs.

The additional child care coverage allowed parents to work an average of 12 hours per week more than parents with other forms of child care — and reap the economic benefits.

Parents with children in other child care programs caught up to the hours and earnings of universal pre-K parents by the time their kids entered middle school.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on and .

An audit of the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care found the agency could benefit from stronger oversight and equity training to improve governance of the state’s early learning system.

Auditors’ findings, issued in a letter from the Secretary of State’s audits division to agency director Alyssa Chatterjee on July 24, align in part with critiques of the department voiced by current and former staff  published in March. Employees sounded alarms — including one who contacted Gov. Tina Kotek — about what they saw as the agency’s failures to foster equity, retain leaders and manage programs that serve Oregon’s lower-income families.

Auditors  to learn more.

Their  urge agency leaders to regularly review disciplinary decisions made by child care licensing investigators to ensure they are being made fairly; expand required equity and bias trainings; and improve coordination between regional and statewide authorities and among the various preschool and child care programs that the department manages.

Agency leaders said they welcome the feedback and are already working to implement some of the recommendations.

“One of DELC’s values is continuous improvement,” said Kate Gonsalves, spokesperson for the Department of Early Learning and Care. “In particular, Director Chatterjee valued the recognition of the intentionality that went into the launch of DELC. We are proud of this intentionality and appreciative of the chance to have this review so early in the agency’s tenure.”

The audit examined how smoothly the early learning division transitioned out of the state education department into an independent agency. The Department of Early Learning and Care launched July 1, 2023, and auditors monitored its performance throughout its first year.

Rather than complete a full audit, which takes longer and typically looks at established government practices and protocols, the audits division conducted its analysis in real time, so the findings would be available to the agency in a time frame that allowed leaders to act on them, said Laura Kerns, spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office.

“The benefit of a real-time analysis is that we can get in at the beginning before too much has happened and provide feedback as programs are being shaped and controls are being established,” she said. “Simply put, we hoped our review would help (the early learning department) get off to a good start as a new state agency.”

“We also decided to send a letter instead of doing a full audit because we found DELC was generally on the right track,” Kerns said. Valeria Atanacio was promoted to tribal affairs director of Oregon’s early learning department in 2022. A year later, she was demoted, with little warning, she said. (Amanda Loman/InvestigateWest)

The letter noted the department’s success in taking over management of programs and responsibilities previously handled by other departments, including the Employment Related Day Care subsidy that helps families afford child care. It is a more than $400 million program that is in high demand; since  thousands of families have been waitlisted. Reducing that waitlist is a high priority for staff.

However, the audit said the agency’s recordkeeping and budgeting practices could be improved: One example auditors pointed out was the decision to pay providers of Preschool Promise, the state’s free preschool program, during the pandemic without any enrollment requirement, in order to prevent closures. Preschool Promise is one of the early learning department’s marquee programs, but has come under fire from legislators and the public for under-enrollment, which some employees told InvestigateWest was partly due to mismanagement.

“When auditors asked for documentation to show when and why the initial decision was made and how it was communicated to providers and the public, DELC staff were unable to provide that information,” the letter states. “The pandemic was a chaotic time; it is in these crucial times agencies should provide assurance and accountability for their decisions.”

In a letter responding to the audit, Chatterjee said the programs division will improve such documentation. The agency also launched  to track Preschool Promise enrollment throughout the year and assist in reallocating spots where they’re most needed, and it reinstated enrollment minimums for providers to receive state money.

The agency also implemented a new equity training program for managers in February, and is considering making the training mandatory for all staff, Chatterjee said. Training is one of several strategies mentioned in the agency’s  that was announced in early July.

The department also is completing a “culture assessment” initiated in the spring shortly after InvestigateWest’s reporting was published “to gain a deeper understanding of our workplace dynamics,” Chatterjee said. Leaders expect to review the results of that assessment in the fall, she said.

This story was originally published by , an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Northwest. Reporter Kaylee Tornay covers labor, youth and health care issues. Reach her at 503-877-4108 or kaylee@invw.org. On Twitter .

The released by ImpactSTATS, Inc. and The BEE Collective used National Center for Education Statistics data to compare how often students were being excluded from school as a disciplinary measure at predominantly white versus Black Charleston schools in the 2022-23 school year.

To zero in on the treatment of young students, researchers considered only those schools that offered pre-kindergarten programs. Of the 42 schools in the study, 33 encompassed grades pre-K through 5; six went from pre-K to grade 8; two were pre-K to kindergarten and one school taught pre-K to second grade.

Of those schools, the ones with more than a 51% Black student population isolated children from learning settings for disciplinary reasons at a rate of 98.2 removals per 1,000 students, according to the report. This was seven times greater than the 14.1 removals per 1,000 students at majority white early-grade and elementary schools — and more than double the districtwide rate of 42.7 per 1,000 students.

Exclusionary discipline could include in-school or out-of-school suspensions and expulsion. When looking just at out-of-school suspensions in Charleston, the racial disparity by school population soared, according to the study released earlier this summer.

Students in majority Black schools faced out-of-school suspension rates of 78.8 per 1,000 students in the 2022-23 school year compared to 11.9 suspensions per 1,000 students for those in predominantly white schools. 

The districtwide rate was 34.8 suspensions per 1,000 students. 

“This tells us that we have a problem and it’s not children’s behavior — but adult action and adult decisions,” said lead researcher Melodie Baker. 

Charleston public schools served 50,312 students at the end of the last school year: 24,978 were white, 14,291 were Black and 7,916 were Hispanic, according to the district. 

Baker said removing a child from a classroom or isolating them from their teachers and peers robs them of an opportunity to learn self-regulation and is particularly damaging to the youngest learners.

“It makes kids feel like they don’t belong,” she said. “They feel ashamed. They feel confused. It affects their overall development.”

The practice is seen as : and are among the states that have banned or strictly limited such removals in the early grades.

Charleston County School District spokesman Andrew Pruitt last week pushed back against the study, which raises issues of racism and implicit bias, noting its data does not include the ages of the suspended students or the reasons why they were punished. 

“We take any report that raises concerns about unconscious bias negatively impacting our children seriously. However, we are incredibly concerned that a specific claim of that magnitude was made in the absence of an analysis of the appropriate and relevant data,” he said in a statement. 

The district didn’t start breaking down its disciplinary data by grade until recently, according to Pruitt. Though records were limited, he cited a total of 49 preschool suspensions in Charleston public schools in the 2022-23 school year. He did not separate that number by race.

Preschoolers across the U.S. are expelled at rates than K-12 students. South Carolina in preschool suspensions by a large margin in 2017-18 with 438 preschoolers suspended, according to the most recent available federal data. 

Those numbers have grown significantly worse in the Palmetto State and were a critical focus of . The Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children showing 928 South Carolina public preschoolers received in-school and out-of-school suspensions in 2023-24; 66% of those 3- and 4-year-olds were children of color and 77% were boys.

The committee’s data for Charleston County schools, the state’s second-largest district, cites that 25 preschoolers received out-of-school suspensions in 2023-24 and fewer than five received an in-school suspension. Eighteen Black Charleston County public preschoolers received an out–of-school suspension and fewer than five white students did. Twenty-one male preschoolers received an out-of-school suspension that year and fewer than five female preschoolers did. Six preschoolers classified as special education students were among those removed from school for disciplinary reasons.

The Charleston County School District has taken steps to address systemic inequalities in discipline, Pruitt said, including professional development training for all its early education teachers that focuses on how to appropriately respond to student behavior while taking into account young learners’ social-emotional well-being. He said the district continues to work with early childhood education organizations throughout the state to adopt best practices.

The report by ImpactSTATS and The BEE Collective notes citing the role of educator bias in harsh discipline, including perceptions of Black children as being older than they are, less innocent, more aggressive and more deserving of punishment for the same behavior displayed by white students.

New York-based was founded by Baker in 2023 to bring more diversity to the research field and to provide technical support and research assistance to grass-roots groups working with underserved communities of color. 

The BEE — Beloved Early Education and Care — Collective is that partly funded the study and collaborated on the research. It seeks to improve maternal and child health in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, including in addressing racism and implicit bias in early child care. 

Black children across all grade levels and those with disabilities have long faced higher rates of exclusionary disciplines than other student groups. According to analyzing data from the 2020-21 school year, Black boys were nearly two times more likely than white boys to receive an out-of-school suspension or an expulsion.

“It’s mostly boys who are being suspended — mostly for rough-and-tumble play,” Baker said, speaking anecdotally of the Charleston suspensions after interviewing those who worked with or observed district students. “But there’s a lot of research out there that talks about the positives of rough-and-tumble play. Males tend to perceive that very differently.”

Of Charleston County schools’ 3,673 teachers in the 2021-22 school year, roughly 2,402 were white females, 556 were white males, 404 were Black females and 103 were Black males, according to .

Cara Kelly, a researcher who observed classrooms within the Charleston district for seven years, ending in 2019, recalled several instances where kindergarten children were made to sit alone and in silence for 30 minutes or more for minor infractions such as talking to other students, calling out while a teacher was speaking or standing up when they were supposed to sit for long stretches of time. 

“It’s OK to give a child five minutes to calm down — but not to be completely excluded,” she said. 

Kelly, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oklahoma’s Early Childhood Education Institute, told �鶹��Ʒ she believed the punishments were not developmentally appropriate and often targeted Black children. 

The report recommends the district recruit more male teachers in the early grades, increase pay for all early childhood educators, decrease student-to-staff ratios and raise awareness about discipline reform legislation that seeks to prohibit suspensions, expulsions and corporal punishment while promoting more effective means of managing student behavior. 

Researchers acknowledge that the report, funded partly by the American Heart Association Voices for Healthy Kids, should be interpreted cautiously because of the data’s limitations regarding race and age.

The BEE Collective has filed a public records request asking the Charleston district to release the suspension records for children 5 and under for the last five years broken down by age, race, gender and school. Noting that the response to that Freedom of Information request is due Aug. 31, Pruitt said it was “unfortunate” that the groups moved ahead with publishing the report without that information in hand. 

Tawanna R. Jennings, an infant and early childhood mental health consultant for South Carolina’s Partners for Early Attuned Relationships Network, called the study’s findings “pretty astounding,” adding she hopes the results will be shared widely and that Charleston teachers receive better training and greater support.

“There needs to be more resources so that [teachers] can understand these behaviors,” she said. “How do you teach these children and how do you be empathetic with what they may be experiencing?”

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to ImpactSTATS and to �鶹��Ʒ.