Early Childhood Education

In recent years, most states have moved to adopt Quality Rating and Improvement Systems as a market-based approach to improving children's early learning.

How Sequestration Is Scaling Back Early Childhood Education Programs SOURCE: AP/Rogelio V. Solis Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief. As this summer draws to a close, children, parents, and teachers across the country have begun the annual ritual of returning to school.

President Obama's recent proposal to expand Head Start and home visiting programs pushes the needle in the right direction, and Connecticut's new Office of Early Childhood will promote efficiencies and free up resources for state programs that serve our youngest citizens. [...]

Bill de Blasio has hinged his candidacy for mayor on a bold idea: raise taxes on high-earning New Yorkers to pay for a vast expansion of prekindergarten and after-school programs. Mr. de Blasio has portrayed the proposal as a fast-acting antidote to inequality, and he has won endorsements from prominent experts in education and poverty.

The Tlingit-Haida Central Council's Head Start program serves more than 250 Southeast Alaska preschoolers. But they'll have less time in the classroom this year due to budget cuts tied to sequestration. We took a this look at the program and the impacts of lower funding. Listen Now

More than 400 fewer children will be able to take part in Head Start programs in Kansas because of the recent mandatory federal budget cuts, according to figures from the Kansas Head Start Association. Before the federal budget cuts went into effect earlier this year, Kansas Head Start and Early Head Start providers had more than 9,000 slots for children from low-income families.

Once again, sequestration has harmed the people furthest from the massive government spending that a thoughtless mix of across-the-board, arbitrary cuts was supposed to resolve. To deal with the resulting budget cuts, Head Start across the country excluded more than 57,000 children from enrollment in programs that provide preschool to low-income families.

The U.S. Department of Education has released the application for a new round of competitive grants focused on early learning. Nine states split $500 million in the first round of Early Learning Challenge grants, which were awarded in fiscal 2011. The next five highest-rated states from the first competition received $133 million in funding in fiscal 2012.