Early Childhood Education Resources

Policymakers and researchers gathered in Washington, DC, to attend the forum The Road to High-Quality Early Learning: Lessons From the States to discuss how four states—Michigan, North Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia—devised a set of strategies for delivering high-quality early childhood education programs at scale.

The First Five Years Fund and the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) held an #ECEMatters Twitter Chat discussing national polling on early education and what states/communities are doing to ensure quality early education for all students.

The Learning Policy Institute released Building an Early Learning System that Works: Next Steps for California at this forum. This new report complements LPI’s earlier report on early care and education (ECE), Understanding California’s Early Care and Education System, which provides a comprehensive overview of the state’s ECE system. The earlier report found that California’s ECE system is complex and fragmented, and fails to provide hundreds of thousands of children with the quality early learning experiences they need.

This webinar featured insights from the recently published book, On the Road to High-Quality Early Learning: Changing Children's Lives, and provided a detailed look at how policymakers and practitioners can convert their visions of high-quality early learning into an on-the-ground reality.

Governor-elect Gavin Newsom has pledged to significantly expand early education in California. But with more than 3 million kids aged 5 and under in the state, what would it take? In partnership with EdSource and Policy Analysis for California Education, LPI participated in a discussion with leading early education experts on how to achieve this ambitious goal.

On January 17, LPI hosted this webinar to preview the report, Untangling the Evidence on Preschool Effectiveness: Insights for Policymakers, which reviews the research on preschool’s effectiveness in improving academic and life outcomes of children who participate in pre-K programs. The webinar also included a discussion of state models and how the elements of high-quality early learning can be successfully implemented in public preschool programs.

Between historic bipartisan investments to stabilize and expand access to child care in 2020 and new proposals from Congress and the Biden Administration, the nation is poised to significantly increase access to quality early childhood education. To do this, we need a vision for a new and better system. In this webinar, experts discussed long-term federal policy solutions to build a comprehensive, equitable, and integrated early learning system.

Panel members discuss the policies and practices that can ensure high-quality early childhood education and care for all children. They also discuss five main policy levers, focusing particularly on curriculum and pedagogy, and workforce development. The webinar took place in conjunction with the release of a new OECD report on meaningful interactions in early childhood education and care.

With the return to school in the wake of COVID-19, it is critical that educators and families be able to appropriately and equitably assess young students. At this webinar, we connect and dig deeper into the characteristics of high-quality assessment in the early grades. Presenters share examples of high-quality assessment practices from preschool through the early elementary grades and recommendations to support their implementation.

California's commitment to expand transitional kindergarten (TK) to all 4-year-olds in the state by 2025-26 will require the addition of up to 11,000 new lead teachers. In this webinar, experts from across the state discuss how teacher residencies can play an important role in expanding a well-prepared TK workforce to help meet this need.