Early Childhood Education

DPSCD student enrollment and the city’s overall population have been on a steady decline in recent decades.
“Oftentimes, people think about child care deserts as being somewhere else,” one local provider said. “But the truth is that New York has one of the most significant child care supply-and-demand imbalances in the country.”
A boost in early childhood education, more funding for K-12 schools, and a major investment in accessing higher education are in the final version of the 2024 budget that the House passed early Saturday morning. It now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk to be signed.
Tens of thousands of children missed early intervention and special education services during the pandemic, leaving preschools and elementary schools to fill in the gaps.
Illinois legislators pass bill that requires school districts to have a full-day kindergarten bill by 2027 as spring legislative session starts to wind down.
Mayor Eric Adams has proposed ending Promise NYC, which has provided free child care to 600 undocumented immigrant children.
Families who apply by Wednesday at 5 p.m. will find out June 1 which preschools their children matched with.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams blasted the mayor’s approach to early childhood education, describing the system as “broken” and “in full crisis mode.
Some preschools are still deciding how many seats to offer through the universal program next fall.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would require school districts to have a full-day program beginning in 2027.
Four-year-olds will get priority, but officials say more than 30,000 spots are available across Chicago Public Schools and community-based early childhood providers. Families are encouraged to apply before May 2 to get an offer by May 19.
Preschools won’t have to make quality improvements in the first year of universal preschool.
Here’s why it’s so hard to keep early learning centers afloat — and what we can do about it.
Early childhood education advocates want the winner of the April 4 runoff to prioritize access to affordable child care, attracting and retaining early childhood education staff.
The announcement comes just two days before families were supposed to learn which programs their children could attend.
Most families who applied for Colorado’s universal preschool program by Feb. 24 will find out which preschool they matched with on March 30.
In Philadelphia, 83% of early childhood programs are currently facing a staffing shortage and nearly 3,000 children are on a waitlist.
The measure would widen reading test criteria for retention but keep the state in control of those decisions.
House Education Committee Chairman Mark White wants the state to consider more than TCAP test results
A return to pre-pandemic funding policy led some providers to shutter newly opened GSRP classrooms, complicating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s plans.
The gap in services is particularly acute in the Bronx, where more than two-thirds of children did not receive all of the therapies they could have.
Insufficient federal funding means significant number of needy children remain unreached by Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
For some DC 37 workers, the pay bump represents at least a partial acknowledgment of their crucial work helping keep the city’s school system running during the pandemic, often at far lower wages than other school staffers, union officials said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announces a plan that will give $250 million more toward the state’s early childhood education and child care programs.
The first application window for Colorado’s new free preschool program runs from Jan. 17 to Feb. 14.
El programa de preescolar gratis de Colorado pagará por 10-30 horas semanales de preescolar el año antes de entrar al Kinder. Aquí está todo lo que necesitas saber.
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