Early Childhood
The NCES, NIEER, and Spinning Preschool Data
The job of a statistical agency is to provide people with data by which they can judge these things for themselves. On the preschool front, the National Center for Education Statistics has let the country down.
Early Childhood
Now You’re Entitled To Your Own Facts Too
In the preschool realm, the U.S. Department of Education has it outsourced the number-gathering to a prominent interest group in the field and it has allowed that interest group to add its own spin.
Early Childhood
Can Pre-K Blaze the Way to Disruption?
Because half of 3 and 4 year olds are not enrolled in pre-K today, we have an opportunity to foster disruptive innovations that could change the way we think about childcare, parenting, and education.
Early Childhood
Does Pre-K Work? It Depends How Picky You Are
How is it that different individuals could look at the same research and come to such different conclusions?
Early Childhood
The Pre-K Problem: A Great Investment or Passing the Buck?
What should we be talking about when we talk about universal pre-K?
Early Childhood
The Trouble With Economists
It turns out that preschool programs are hard to replicate with fidelity or in such a way that each additional preschool student gets the anticipated benefit.
Early Childhood
A New Start for Head Start — If Congress Doesn’t Get in the Way
The Head Start program has needed a radical overhaul for the past 45 years, i.e. ever since its founding and its near-immediate demonstration that it doesn’t do much lasting good by way of readying poor kids to succeed in school. But Head Start’s iconic status, powerful lobby and influential friends have stymied every effort to turn it into a proper school-readiness program and to purge it of its many shoddy operators.
Early Childhood
Fix the Preschool Misstep
In "Early Childhood Misstep" over at Forbes.com, Chester E. Finn, Jr. dissects the “Early...
Early Childhood
The Problem with Preschool for All
The campaign for universal preschool has gained great momentum, but a troubling contradiction casts...