Amid all this, there were some promising steps taken, especially at the state level, to elevate children’s issues and pay for programs that support the earliest years of life. Here are five highlights, including a few you may have missed:
New Mexico introduced universal child care. New Mexico was the first state in the country to roll out universal child care to every family, regardless of income. Experts are cautiously optimistic, and acknowledge the state likely has some kinks to work out. One New Mexico source I spoke to said she’s especially worried that wealthier families will snatch up spots if guardrails aren’t put in place to prioritize certain populations, including children with disabilities. Another advocate told me she is worried that the wages for early childhood educators are still too low. This is a story that will continue to play out over the next few years, and will be watched carefully. Still, in a country that has long underfunded early learning, experts are hopeful that other states will follow suit and invest more in the child care industry in ways that support the child care staff and families.
New Jersey, which leads the nation in excluding young children with disabilities, committed to investigate how to improve inclusive practices: Earlier this year, a Hechinger Report investigation found New Jersey is the worst in the nation at making sure young students with disabilities are learning alongside their peers for at least 80 percent of the day, which is a federal metric for inclusion. After our series was published, a council that advises New Jersey education officials on special education issues announced it will investigate inclusion rates for young children and look at how state educators and administrators are trained.
States and municipalities invested in early childhood: Cincinnati, Montana and California’s Alameda County increased their support for early learning this year, said Emmy Liss, a researcher and policy consultant for the think tank New America’s New Practice Lab. In San Antonio, the city’s pre-K program expanded this year to serve infants and toddlers. In Colorado, voters approved new “taxing districts” that will raise sales tax for early childhood programs. “We see this consistent pattern of mayors, would-be mayors, county officials, saying, ‘Our families can’t withstand this anymore, and we have the power and the mandate from our community to invest in early childhood,’” Liss said. “I feel optimistic because of that.”
Some states expanded family-friendly policies: After reporting by Hechinger contributor Sarah Carr this year found few parents are made aware of their infant’s rights to early intervention services, Illinois passed a law requiring that families with infants who stay in the NICU are connected to those early therapies. In Colorado, state officials added NICU leave to the state’s paid family medical leave program. Minnesota policymakers are on the cusp of launching their state’s paid family leave program.
Pittsburgh embraced a citywide play-based initiative: After decades of research that shows the importance of play for healthy development, a new initiative in Pittsburgh is putting research into action. After funding several years of play-based projects around the city, the Let’s Play, PGH program, funded by the nonprofit Remake Learning and the Grable and Henry L. Hillman foundations, rolled out permanent play-based experiences this year. Those include a “Clayground,” where families can try hands-on clay sculpting, and a “Discovery Tree,” an indoor structure with various play and learning features. “I think society, especially in education, we’re moving away from valuing play in a way that it’s often spoken of more in a pejorative sense, like there’s more serious things we have to do,” said Tyler Samstag, executive director of Remake Learning. “But there’s this rich research around the importance of play,” he added. And, “there’s a kind of reeling back from the pandemic era of always being in front of a screen.”
I also asked a few early childhood experts what they plan to watch for in 2026:
I’m watching the dual trends of state momentum for universal child care proposals against the budgetary headwinds states are facing as a result of economic policies and H.R. 1 [the “big, beautiful bill”].
— Elliot Haspel, senior fellow at Capita
The early care and education community will have the opportunity to stake out bold policy positions, like those we saw in New Mexico, New York, Connecticut, Montana and Vermont this past year, while facing the challenge of protecting children, families and educators from federal policies that will wreak havoc on safety net programs and state budgets.
— Albert Wat, deputy director of advocacy and impact at the Alliance for Early Success
I am paying attention to whether there are signs of even a minor shift away from this dominant narrative — that something close to universal child care is the ‘true goal,’ which we now seem to be accepting without question. My concern is that the needs of young children will once again get blotted out by the needs of grown-ups, the needs of the economy, the needs of business.
— Katharine B. Stevens, founder and president of the Center on Child and Family Policy
Differences between the House and Senate funding bills, which will be settled in January, which could affect funding for various early childhood programs.
— Sarah Gilliland, senior policy manager, New America’s New Practice Lab
With New York City’s cost of living driving families away in droves, the time is ripe for universal child care — and it can happen! We look forward to working with Mayor-elect Mamdani and his team as they develop plans that lift up home-based child care as a vital support.
— Jessica Sager, CEO, All Our Kin
Thank you so much to all of you for your support and readership this year, and please don’t hesitate to reach out with any story ideas, questions or comments. Happy holidays!
This story about early childhood education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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Even with a conservative think tank’s blueprint detailing how the second Trump administration should reimagine the federal government’s role in education, few might have predicted what actually materialized this year for America’s schools and colleges.
Or what might be yet to come.
“2025 will go down as a banner year for education: the year we restored merit in higher education, rooted out waste, fraud and abuse, and began in earnest returning education to the states,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told The Hechinger Report. She listed canceling K-12 grants she called wasteful, investing more in charter schools, ending college admissions that consider race or anything beyond academic achievement and making college more affordable as some of the year’s accomplishments.
“Best of all,” she said, “we’ve begun breaking up the federal education bureaucracy and returning education control to parents and local communities. These are reforms conservatives have championed for decades — and in just 12 months, we’ve made them a reality.”
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McMahon’s characterization of the year is hardly universal. Earlier this month, Senate Democrats, led by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, called out some of the administration’s actions this year. They labeled federal changes, especially plans to divide the Education Department’s duties across the federal government, dangerous and likely to cause chaos for schools and colleges.
“Already, this administration has cancelled billions of dollars in education programs, illegally withheld nearly $7 billion in formula funds, and proposed to fully eliminate many of the programs included in the latest transfer,” the senators wrote in a letter to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the committee that oversees education. “In our minds, that is unacceptable.”
So, what really happened to education this year? It was almost impossible for the average observer to keep track of the array of changes across colleges and universities, K-12 schools, early education and education research — and what it has all meant. This is a look back at how the education world was transformed.
The administration was especially forceful in the higher education arena. It used measures including antidiscrimination law to quickly freeze billions of dollars in higher education research funding, interrupting years-long medical studies and coercing Columbia, Brown, Northwestern and other institutions into handing over multimillion-dollar payments and agreeing to policy changes demanded by the administration.
A more widespread “compact” promising preference for federal funding to universities that agreed to largely ideological principles had almost no takers. But in the face of government threats, universities and colleges scrapped diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs that provided support based on race and other characteristics, and banned transgender athletes from competing on teams corresponding to genders other than the ones they were assigned at birth.
As the administration unleashed its set of edicts, Republicans in Congress also expanded taxes on college and university endowments. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made other big changes to higher education, such as limiting graduate student borrowing and eliminating certain loan forgiveness programs. That includes public service loan forgiveness for graduates who take jobs with organizations the administration designated as having a “substantial illegal purpose” because they help refugees or transgender youth. In response, states, cities, labor unions and nonprofits immediately filed suit, arguing that the rule violated the First Amendment.
The administration has criticized universities, colleges and liberal students for curbing the speech of conservatives by shouting them down or blocking their appearances on campuses. However, it proceeded to revoke the visas of and begin deportation proceedings against international students who joined protests or wrote opinions criticizing Israeli actions in Gaza and U.S. government policy there.
Meanwhile, emboldened legislatures and governors in red states pushed back on what faculty could say in classrooms. College presidents including James Ryan at the University of Virginia and Mark Welsh III at Texas A&M were forced out in the aftermath of controversies over these issues. — Jon Marcus
Since Donald Trump returned to office earlier this year, K-12 schools have lost millions of dollars in sweeping cuts to federal grants, including money that helped schools serve students who are deaf or blind, grants that bolstered the dwindling rural teacher workforce and funding for Wi-Fi hotspots.
Last summer, the Trump administration briefly froze billions of dollars in federal funding for schools on June 30, one day before districts would typically apply to receive it. Although the money was restored in late July, some school leaders said they no longer felt confident they’ll receive all expected federal funds next year.And they are braced for more cuts to federal budgets as the U.S. Department of Education is dismembered.
That process, as well as the end goal of returning the department’s responsibilities to the states, has raised uncertainty about whether federal money will continue to be earmarked for the same purposes. If the state of Illinois is in charge of federal funding for every school in the state, said Todd Dugan, superintendent of a rural Illinois district, will rural schools still get money to boost student achievement or will the state decide there are more pressing needs?
Even as the Trump administration attempts to push more control over education to the states, it has aggressively expanded federal power over school choice and transgender student rights in public schools. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will create a federal school voucher program, allowing taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 for scholarships that families can use to pay for private school. The program won’t start until 2027, and states can choose whether to participate — setting up potentially divisive fights over new money for education in Democratic-controlled states.
Already, some Democratic-led states have come to the defense of schools in funding and legal fights with the federal government over transgender athletes participating in sports. The U.S. departments of Education and Justice launched a special investigations team to look into complaints of Title IX violations, targeting school districts and states that don’t restrict accommodations or civil rights protections for transgender students. Legal experts expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide how Title IX — a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education — applies to public schools.
The federal government directly runs just two systems of schools — one for military families and the other for children of tribal nations. In an executive order signed in January, the president directed both systems to offer parents a portion of federal funding allocated to their children to attend private, religious or charter schools.
And as part of the dismantling of the federal Education Department, the Interior Department — which oversees 183 tribal schools across nearly two dozen states — will assume greater control of Indian education programs. In addition to rolling out school choice at its campuses, the department will take over Indian education grants to public schools across the country, Native language programs, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian programs, tribally controlled colleges and universities, and many other institutions. — Ariel Gilreath and Neal Morton
Early education was not at the top of Trump’s agenda when he returned to office. On the campaign trail, when asked if he would support legislation to make child care affordable, he gave an unfocused answer, suggesting tariff revenue could be tapped to bring down costs. Asked a similar question, Vice President JD Vance suggested that care by family members was one potential solution to child care shortages.
However, many of the administration’s actions, including cuts to the government workforce and grants, have affected children who depend on federal support. In April, the administration abruptly closed five of 10 regional offices supporting Head Start, the free, federally funded early childhood program for children from low-income families. Head Start program managers worried they would be caught up in a freeze on grant funding that affected all agencies. Even though administration officials said funds would keep flowing to Head Start, some centers reported having problems drawing down their money. The prolonged government shutdown, which ended Nov. 12 after 43 days, also forced some Head Start programs to temporarily close.
Though the shutdown is over, Head Start advocates are still worried. Many of the administration’s actions have been guided by the Project 2025 policy document created by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 calls for eliminating Head Start, which serves about 715,000 children from birth to age 5, for a savings of about $12 billion a year.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained some perks for parents, including an increase in the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200. The bill also created a new program called Trump accounts: Families can contribute up to $5,000 each year until a child turns 18, at which point the Trump account will turn into an individual retirement account. For children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, the government will provide a $1,000 bonus. Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell have also promised to contribute $250 to the account of each child ages 10 and under who lives in a ZIP code with a median household income of $150,000 or less.
That program will launch in summer 2026. — Christina A. Samuels
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Max Villalobos, 3, paints while attending pre-K at The Morris Foundation Child Development Center on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. Fort Worth ISD and PreK Today partnered this school year to provide pre-K to Fort Worth ISD students at community-based Head Start centers.
Amanda McCoy
amccoy@star-telegram.com
Parents of qualifying children in Texas will be able to receive the state’s standard school voucher of about $10,000 to attend private preschools, a major win for families and child care providers.
The Texas Comptroller’s office released final rules this week on the framework for the $1 billion private school voucher program, dubbed the Education Freedom Accounts or Education Savings Accounts.
The program will provide public dollars to families who want to send their children to private schools based on income levels, a lottery system and priority groups, including students with disabilities. Families can apply starting in February and use the vouchers in the 2026-27 school year.
The initial guidance released in August appeared to only offer $2,000 to families of pre-K students, unless parents enrolled their children in a program accredited by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission.
Experts say most private pre-K providers receive accreditations through other agencies and organizations. The final rules clarify that other accrediting entities will be recognized, including the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the American Montessori Society and Texas Rising Star — the state’s quality rating and improvement system for child care programs managed by the Texas Workforce Commission.
In a Tuesday announcement, Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock said certain pre-K students who currently qualify for free, state-sponsored pre-K can receive the standard $10,000 voucher. In Texas, this refers to 3- and 4-year-olds who are from low-income households, are experiencing homelessness, are unable to speak or comprehend English, or have a parent who is an active-duty military member.
The clarification is considered a win for private preschool and child-care providers, who have voiced financial concerns to lawmakers over the loss of enrollment of 3- and 4-year-olds to free programs offered by public school districts.
“These administrative rules, like the program itself, put Texas parents in the driver’s seat,” Hancock said. “We are executing the letter of the law as passed by the Legislature, and we’re doing it with families and students at the center of every decision. Education freedom accounts are about opening doors, expanding opportunities and giving each Texas child the chance to succeed in the environment that fits them best.”
Catherine Davis, director of policy for Fort Worth-based Child Care Associates, said she was thrilled about the clarification, which she said will provide parents with more educational options for their children. The child care and development nonprofit operates more than a dozen centers in the Tarrant County area.
“The goal of the (Texas Education Freedom Accounts) program has always been to empower parents to decide on the best educational setting for their child,” Davis said. “And, for many parents of our youngest learners, that is often a high-quality early learning provider in their community.
“We’re thrilled that the Comptroller has clarified that prekindergarten and kindergarten-aged children who wish to enroll in a high-quality child care program will be eligible to receive the full ESA amount, rather than be capped at $2,000 as previously stipulated in the original rules, and are proud to have worked alongside many child care providers to advocate for this change.”
Davis also noted the $10,000 vouchers will help children who are the on the state’s lengthy waiting list for child care scholarships that now exceeds 95,000.
“It is important to note, however, that the new rules do clarify that an (Education Savings Account) can only be used for the hours of the prekindergarten day, meaning families will likely be required to use a different payment source for before- and after-care, as well as summer hours,” Davis said.
Child Care Associates is reviewing the new rules and plans to help child care providers understand the law and its requirements, she added.
Tim Kaminski, president of the Texas Licensed Child Care Association, echoed Davis’ sentiments, noting he was grateful that Hancock listened to the concerns voiced by his organization and other child care advocates after the release of the proposed rules. Kaminski and other private, licensed child care providers provided public testimony to the Texas Comptroller in September, he said.
“TLCCA looks forward to working with families and providers to help them navigate the enrollment process of the ESA program over the next several weeks. We appreciate Comptroller Kelly Hancock’s response to the needs of Texas families and Texas child care providers,” Kaminski said.
This story was originally published November 26, 2025 at 1:28 PM.
Lina Ruiz covers early childhood education in Tarrant County and North Texas for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A University of Florida graduate, she previously wrote about local government in South Florida for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers.
by Jackie Mader, The Hechinger Report November 1, 2025
The first hint of trouble for McKinley Hess came in August.
Hess, who runs an infant and toddler care program in Conway, Arkansas, heard that the teen moms she serves were having trouble getting their expected child care assistance payments. Funded by a mix of federal and state dollars, those subsidies are the only way many low-income parents nationwide can afford child care, by reimbursing providers for care and lowering the amount parents have to pay themselves.
In Arkansas, teen parents have long been given priority to receive this aid. But now, Hess heard, they and many other families in need were sitting on a growing wait-list.
Hess had just enrolled eight teen moms at her central Arkansas site, Conway Cradle Care, and was counting on state subsidies to pay for their children’s care. As the moms were stuck waiting for financial assistance, Hess had two options: kick them out, or care for their infants for free so their mothers wouldn’t have to drop out of school. She chose the latter.
Just a month later, another hit: Arkansas government officials announced they were going to cut the rates they pay providers on behalf of low-income families. Beginning Nov. 1, Hess will get $36 a day for each infant in her care and $35 a day for toddlers, down from $56 and $51 a day respectively. She’s already lost out on more than $20,000 by providing free care for 8 infants for the past two months.
“Financially, it really is going to hurt our day care,” Hess said. But the stakes are also high for the parents who need child care assistance, she said: “For them to be able to continue school, these vouchers are essential.”
As states face having to cut spending while bracing for fewer federal dollars under the budget bill President Trump signed in July, some, including Arkansas, view early learning programs as a place to slash funding. They’re making these cuts even as experts and providers predict they will be disastrous for children, families and the economy if parents don’t have child care and can’t work.
The same families face other upheaval: The ongoing government shutdown means states may not receive their Nov. 1 shares of federal money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, meaning families may not get that aid. Across the country, more than 100 Head Start centers, part of a federally funded preschool program that provides free child care, may have to close, at least temporarily, if the shutdown drags on as expected and they do not get expected federal cash by the start of next month.
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
Elsewhere, Colorado, Maryland and New Jersey recently stopped accepting new families into their child care assistance programs. In June, Oregon’s Democratic-led legislature cut $20 million from the state’s preschool program for low-income families. In September, Indiana joined Arkansas in announcing reductions in reimbursement rates for providers who care for low-income children. This summer, the governor of Alaska vetoed part of the state’s budget that would have given more money to child care and early intervention services for young children with developmental disabilities. Washington state legislators cut $60 million last month from a program that provides early learning and family support to preschoolers. Additional cuts or delays in payments have cropped up in Ohio, Nevada and the District of Columbia.
“Almost every state is facing a very, very, very significant pullback of federal dollars,” said Daniel Hains, chief policy officer at the D.C.-based National Association for the Education of Young Children. “It does not help families when you cut provider reimbursement rates, when you cut funds going to providers, because it makes it less likely that those families are going to access the high-quality child care that they need.”
This trend could further devastate America’s fragile child care industry, which has been especially slow to recover since the pandemic due to a lack of funding. Child care programs are expensive to run and, with limited public support, providers rely heavily on tuition from parents to pay their bills.
In many parts of the country, parents already pay the equivalent of college tuition or a second mortgage on child care and have little ability to pay more. Yet child care staff generally make abysmally low wages and have high turnover rates. There’s often little wiggle room in program budgets.
One of the only sources of federal funding for child care centers comes from the federally funded Child Care and Development Fund. Each year, Congress sets the level of block grants to states, which add matching funds. Arkansas officials said recent cuts to their subsidy program are in response to an unexpected $8 million decrease in federal CCDF funding this year after post-pandemic changes to the way state payouts are calculated.
In September, Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva told lawmakers that without cutting rates to providers, the state would be unlikely to be able to sustain the program. “The last thing I want to do is set up a reimbursement rate that at Christmas we have to call everybody and say we’re done, we spent all our money,” he said during a hearing.
In addition to cutting payments to providers, the state increased family co-payments, the amount parents must pay toward child care in addition to what their subsidy covers. It’s far from a perfect solution, Oliva told lawmakers. “But we have to do something.”
During the pandemic, child care programs and states received a fresh infusion of public funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, helping to stabilize those businesses. Many states used the influx to bolster their subsidy programs, allowing more children to use them and increasing what providers were paid.
As that aid expired over the last two years, some states found money to sustain that expansion, but others did not. Indiana was left with a $225 million gap between the cost of its child care subsidy program and the state money dedicated to filling it. In October, officials cut reimbursement rates by 10 to 35 percent, saying in a statement that “there is only one pot of money — we could either protect providers or kids, and we chose kids.”
Experts and child care directors say, however, that in the child care business it’s impossible to decouple kids from providers. The decision to cut reimbursement rates will ultimately hurt both, they insist, especially as providers find it hard to keep their doors open. Already, some programs have shuttered or announced plans to close by the end of the year. At others, families have left in search of more affordable care.
Cori Kerns, a senior staff consultant at Little Duckling Early Learning Schools in Indianapolis, said that now that schools are receiving less money from the state, parents must make up the difference. Since the changes were announced in September, Little Duckling has lost 26 children — nearly 18 percent of its enrollment — because parents cannot afford that increase.
“That could be a tank of gas to them, that could be some groceries, that could be school supplies or medical needs. Some of them have had to literally stop and stay home with their child in order to survive and also not pay for child care,” Kerns said. “Those kids are suffering” as they stay home with stressed parents who are worrying about lost income, she added.
As families pulled their children, Kerns merged two buildings of her program into one, creating larger class sizes and new teacher assignments. That’s led to challenging behavioral problems for children who must adjust to new environments. Kerns anticipates losing teachers now that the work environment has become more stressful.
Experts warn this trend in some states of scaling back early childhood investments is widening an existing nationwide disparity in the availability of affordable, high-quality child care. While states like Arkansas and Indiana pull back, a handful of others are moving the opposite direction, putting more money toward early learning. In New Mexico, for example, the nation’s first free universal child care program will launch on Nov. 1, paid for by oil and gas revenue that is routed to the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Fund. In 2023, Vermont passed a payroll tax to increase child care funding in the state, while Connecticut established an endowment this year to route surplus state funds into early learning programs.
States have already been diverging in their approach to the child care industry since the pandemic. Rather than invest in more qualified workers, some states have opted to deregulate child care and bring teenagers in to care for young children. At the same time, places like the District of Columbia have increased qualifications for child care providers.
“This is what happens when you don’t have public federal dollars in the system,” said NAEYC’s Hains. In states that are clawing back child care funds, “it’s going to result in lower quality care for children, or it’s going to result in families pulling back from the workforce and facing greater economic insecurity,” Hains said. “We’re going to see a real harmful impact on children and families as these investments are pulled back.”
In Mooresville, Indiana, Jen Palmer calculated that her program, The Growing Garden Learning Center, will lose about $260,000 from its annual budget because of cuts in state contributions to care for children from low-income families.
“If nothing changes as of today, I can sustain for a year,” Palmer said. “Past that, I’m going to start dipping into my retirement savings.” She’s hesitant to discuss closing the program, one of highest-quality centers in the area. “I believe in this place. What we do is amazing. We just have to make it through this.”
The lower subsidy rate is just the latest of a series of changes that Palmer has endured. Last December, Indiana stopped accepting new applicants into the care aid program and instead launched a waiting list. Palmer stopped getting calls from parents who wanted to enroll their children, as they couldn’t pay for care on their own.
Earlier this year, Indiana also announced cuts to reimbursement rates for its pre-K program, which is run in schools and child care programs throughout the state. Palmer now receives about $148 a week for each pre-K student she serves, down from more than $300 a week last year. Over the past three months, she’s had to lay off seven teachers and has taken over teaching in a pre-K classroom in the mornings. “We’re going to do our darndest that the kids don’t feel the impact,” she said.
She hasn’t been able to completely shield them. One toddler in her program recently shocked and delighted his teachers when he said his first word in English: a bold “no.” Concerned that the child had language delays, they were thrilled that he was starting to make progress.
Then the child’s family pulled him out of the program. His mother, who works as a delivery driver, had previously qualified for free child care paid for by state. With the state now paying less, her tuition jumped to $167 a month.
Instead of interacting with other children and teachers, playing and learning new skills, the toddler is now “sitting in mom’s car in a car seat driving around all over the county while she delivers for Uber,” said Palmer. “That just set that little guy years back. When he enters school, he’s no longer going to be on par with his classmates. That’s not fair. That can’t be the answer.”
Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or mader@hechingerreport.org
This story about child care was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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When pediatricians diagnose preschoolers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, there are clear steps they are supposed to take.
Families should first be referred to behavior therapy, which teaches caregivers how to better support their children and manage challenging behaviors that may be related to ADHD. If therapy isn’t making a significant difference, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises, pediatricians can then consider medication.
Nationwide, this process — behavior therapy, then medication if needed — isn’t being followed as often as it should, according to a study recently released by Stanford Medicine and published in JAMA Network Open. Instead, more than 42 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds with ADHD were prescribed medication within a month of their diagnosis.
Missing out on behavior therapy has worrisome implications for children and families, said Dr. Yair Bannett, assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and lead author of the study. Behavioral management training for parents over the course of several months has been found to reduce children’s ADHD symptoms and behavioral problems, and improve parent skills and their relationships with their children.
Without that support, families may be left facing additional challenges. Behavioral training “reduces the chaos in the house and can improve the quality of life for the parents and the child,” Bannett said.
There are several reasons families may be missing this intervention. Some pediatricians aren’t familiar with the purpose of behavior therapy, Bannett added, which is specifically aimed at the adults who support children with ADHD, not the children. “It’s really more of an advanced type of parenting course,” he said. Families also may have trouble finding affordable local therapists.
Bannett said parents should use three key practices to support young children with ADHD. (These strategies also work well for teachers, he added.)
Focus on building a strong, positive relationship: Having a strong attachment between the child and parent or teacher is an important first step to managing behavior, Bannett said. That means spending quality one-on-one time with the child. “That’s the child’s motivation, they want to please you,” he added. “Without that first piece, none of this will work.”
Use positive reinforcement: Rather than punishing a child’s negative behavior, Bannett said, parents and teachers will see more success if they praise good behaviors and develop reward systems to encourage them.
Adjust the child’s environment: Children with ADHD may thrive with simple environmental changes, such as “visual schedules” — charts that use pictures to show a child daily activities or tasks — and a consistent, structured routine.
Parents who can’t find in-person therapists can substitute online therapy, Bannett said. The training is also useful for families even after their children are prescribed medication.
To make sure more families have access to helpful strategies, Bannett would like to see more education for doctors and clinicians on these best practices.
“The pediatricians could also counsel families in the office about these techniques,” Bannett said. “Some written materials and resources could be enough” to at least introduce these practices, he added. “That’s what I’m hoping could make a change.”
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Hello! This is Christina Samuels, the early education editor here at Hechinger.
By now, I hope you’ve had a chance to read my colleague Jackie Mader’s story about the important role that Head Start plays in rural communities. While Jackie set her story in western Ohio, she also interviewed Head Start parents and leaders in other parts of the country and collected their views for a follow-up article.
In a fortunate bit of timing, the advocacy group First Five Years Fund published the results of a survey it commissioned on rural Americans and their feelings on child care access and affordability. Like the people Jackie interviewed, the survey respondents, more than half of whom identified as supporters of President Donald Trump, said they had very positive views of Head Start. The federally funded free child care program received positive marks from 71 percent of rural Republicans, 73 percent of rural independents and 92 percent of rural Democrats.
The survey also found that 4 out of 5 respondents felt that finding quality child care is a major or critical problem in their part of the country. Two-thirds of those surveyed felt that spending on child care and early education programs is a good use of taxpayer dollars, and a little more than half said they’d like to see more federal dollars going to such programs.
First Five Years Fund was particularly interested in getting respondents to share their thoughts on Head Start, said Sarah Rubinfield, the managing director of government affairs for First Five Years Fund. The program has been buffeted by regional office closures and cuts driven by the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“We recognize that these are communities that often have few options for early learning and care,” Rubinfield said.
In the survey, rural residents said they strongly supported not just the child care offered by Head Start, but the wraparound services such as healthy meals and snacks and the program’s support for children with developmental disabilities. Though Head Start programs are federally funded, community organizations are the ones in charge of spending priorities.
“Rural voters want action. They support funding for Head Start and for child care. They want Congress to do more,” Rubinfield said. Though the “big beautiful bill” signed into law in July expands the child care tax credit for low-income families, survey respondents “recognized that things were not solved,” she added.
The First Five Years Fund survey was released just a few days before a congressional standoff led to a government shutdown. The shutdown is not expected to touch Head Start immediately, said Tommy Sheridan, the deputy director of the National Head Start Association, in an interview with The New York Times. The 1,600 Head Start programs across the country receive money at different points throughout the calendar year; eight programs serving about 7,500 children were slated to receive their federal funding on Oct. 1, Sheridan told the Times. All should be able to continue operating, as long as the shutdown doesn’t last more than a few weeks, he said.
“We’re watching with careful concern but trying not to panic,” Rubinfield said. “We know the impacts may not be immediate, but the longer this goes on, the harder the impacts may be for families and programs.”
This story about rural Americans was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
The first words I uttered after successfully defending my dissertation were, “Wow, what a ride. From Head Start to Ph.D.!” Saying them reminded me where it all began: sitting cross-legged with a picture book at the Westside Head Start Center, just a few blocks from my childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi.
I don’t remember every detail from those early years, but I remember the feeling: I was happy at Head Start. I remember the books, the music, the joy. That five-minute bus ride from our house to the Westside Center turned out to be the shortest distance between potential and achievement.
And my story is not unique. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children — kids whose names we may never know, though our futures depend on them — walk through Head Start’s doors. Like me, they find structure, literacy, curiosity and belonging.
For many families, Head Start is the first place outside the home where a child’s potential is nurtured and celebrated. Yet, this program that builds futures and strengthens families is now under threat, and it’s imperative that we protect it.
Years later, while training for high school cross-country meets, I’d run past the park next to the center and pause, flooded with memories. Head Start laid the foundation for everything that followed. It gave me structure, sparked my curiosity and built my early literacy skills. It even fed my short-lived obsession with chocolate milk.
More than that, Head Start made me feel seen and valued.
There’s a clear, unbroken line between the early lessons I learned at Head Start and the doctoral dissertation I defended decades later. Head Start didn’t just teach me my ABCs — it taught me that learning could be joyful, that I was capable and that I belonged in a classroom.
That belief carried me through elementary school, Yale and George Washington University and to a Ph.D. in public policy and public administration. Now, as part of my research at the Urban Institute, I’m working to expand access to high-quality early learning, because I know firsthand what a difference it makes.
Research backs up what my story shows: Investments in Head Start and high-quality early childhood education change lives by improving health and educational achievement in later years, and benefit the economy. Yet today there is growing skepticism about the value of Head Start, reflecting an ongoing reluctance to give early childhood education the respect it deserves.
If Head Start funding is cut, thousands of children — especially from communities like mine in Jackson, where families worked hard but opportunities were limited — could lose access to a program that helps level the playing field. These are the children of young parents and single parents, of working families who may not have many other options but still dare to dream big for their kids.
And that is why I am worried. Funding for Head Start has been under threat. Although President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget would maintain Head Start funding at its current $12.3 billion, Project 2025, the influential conservative policy document, calls for eliminating the program. The administration recently announced that Head Start would no longer enroll undocumented children, which a group of Democratic attorneys general say will force some programs to close.
I feel compelled to speak out because, for our family, Head Start wasn’t just a preschool — it was the beginning of everything. For me, it meant a future I never could have imagined. For my mother, Head Start meant peace of mind — knowing her son was in a nurturing, educational environment during the critical developmental years. My mother, Nicole, brought character, heart and an unwavering belief in my potential — and Head Start helped carry that forward.
My mother was just 18 when she enrolled me in Head Start. “A young mother with big dreams and limited resources,” she recounted to me recently, adding that she had “showed up to an open house with a baby in my arms and hope in my heart.”
Soon afterward, Mrs. Helen Robinson, who was in charge of the Head Start in Jackson, entered our lives. She visited our home regularly, bringing books, activities and reassurance. A little yellow school bus picked me up each morning.
Head Start didn’t just support me, though. It also supported my mother and gave her tips and confidence. She took me to the library regularly and made sure I was always surrounded by books and learning materials that would challenge and inspire me.
It helped my mother and countless others like her gain insight into child development, early learning and what it means to advocate for their children’s future.
Twenty-five years after those early mornings when I climbed onto the Head Start bus, we both still think about how different our lives might have been without that opportunity. Head Start stood beside us, and that support changed our lives.
As we debate national priorities, we must ask ourselves: Can we afford to dismantle a program that builds futures, strengthens families and delivers proven returns?
My family provides living proof of Head Start’s power.
This isn’t just our story. It is the story of millions of others and could be the story of millions more if we choose to protect and invest in what works.
Travis Reginal holds a doctorate in public policy and public administration and is a graduate of the Head Start program, Yale University and George Washington University. He is a former Urban Institute researcher.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
UNION CITY, N.J.— By 7:30 a.m., Jackson had started rushing his father, José Bernard, to leave their house. “Dad, we’re going! We’re going, come on, let’s go.”
The 4-year-old was itching to return to his favorite place: Eugenio Maria de Hostos Center for Early Childhood Education, a burst of orange and blue on the corner of Union City’s bustling Kennedy Boulevard.
These small moments stick out for Jackson’s father. A year and a half earlier, as a young toddler coming out of daycare, Jackson was nonverbal.
“It’s life-changing, I’ll be honest with you,” said Bernard, who grew up in Union City in Hudson County. The city is home to one of the urban districts in New Jersey with universal and free preschool, created as part of a slate of remedies meant to make up for uneven funding between rich and poor districts in the state.
At the center, young voices try out vowel sounds in Spanish, English and Mandarin, present projects about fish and sea turtles, count plastic ice cream scoops and learn rules of the classroom through song.
“They are the absolute best school that I’ve ever known,” Bernard said. “It’s a chain reaction from the principal all the way down … I made the best decision for my son, 100 percent.”
Starting in the 1980s, courts hearing the landmark school funding case Abbott v. Burke sought to equalize spending across New Jersey’s schools. Districts located in areas with higher property values were able to spend more on their schools than poor urban districts could — a disparity that was found to violate the state’s constitutional requirement to provide a “thorough and efficient” education for all of New Jersey’s schoolchildren.
The Abbott litigation spawned several decisions by the state Supreme Court, one of which was a 1998 ruling that mandated free preschool for 3- and 4-year-old children in 28 of its highest-poverty urban school districts. That number has since grown to 31.
Children at Maria de Hostos Center practice fine motor skills with fingerpainting. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
The state department of education set an ambitious goal of enrolling 90 percent of eligible children in each district, and opened classrooms in private, nonprofit and public settings in the 1999-2000 school year. At that time, New Jersey was the only state to mandate preschool, starting at age 3, for children facing social and academic risk.
“The court recognized that to get kids caught up they need to start off by somehow leveling the playing field from the very beginning, and the best way to do that was with early childhood education,” said Danielle Farrie, research director at the Newark-based Education Law Center, which represented districts for decades in the long-running case.
Related: Young children have unique needs, and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
As the program continued into its 25th year, researchers have found that the endeavor worked to reduce learning gaps and special education rates between rich and poor children — for those it has reached.
However, over 10,000 children eligible for the program are not enrolled, particularly 3-year-olds, according to a recent assessment of the program by The Education Law Center.
Supporters worry that the state’s recently established focus on expanding preschool throughout the state could draw attention and resources away from the early-learning program created by the Abbott litigation.
When it comes to reaching at least 90 percent of the low-income children in the 31 districts targeted by the lawsuit, “we haven’t come anywhere close to meeting those goals,” Farrie said. “To us it’s a question of priorities.”
Adriana Birne, the principal of Maria de Hostos Center and director of early childhood programs for Union City schools in Hudson County, said her program collaborates closely with parents. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
Designed by early learning experts, the preschools were intended from the start to offer a high-quality program. Class sizes are limited to no more than 15 students, and each class has a certified teacher and an assistant. The school day is six hours, and transportation and health services are offered as needed. Teachers are paid on par with K-3 teachers in their district, and the program’s curriculum conforms to New Jersey’s standards of quality in early education.
“Our special sauce is that we provide opportunities for the families,” said Adriana Birne, director of Union City’s early childhood offerings and principal at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Center, where parents are invited in as jurors for special class projects, readers for storytime, or as guests for school plays. “We enforce the idea that it’s a collaborative effort — moms, dads, teachers, children all working together for success for their little ones.”
The preschool programs have tried to serve as many eligible kids as possible by providing slots at public schools as well as private childcare providers, Head Start programs, YMCAs and nonprofits that agree to meet the state’s standards.
By many measures, the targeted preschool program has been successful in boosting long-term academic gains for their students. The state ranks in the nation’s top 10 for child well-being and second for education after Massachusetts, based on fourth grade test scores and high school graduation rates.
However, in the 2024-25 school year the program enrolled only 34,082 kids, about 78 percent of those eligible, across public, private and nonprofit providers. Last year, only five of the 31 districts reached the 90 percent target for enrolling eligible children, compared to 18 districts in 2009-10. Enrollment has been steadily declining, a trend accelerated by the pandemic, the Education Law Center report states.
Experts say it can be difficult to find eligible kids because many have only recently moved into the state and their parents haven’t yet heard of the program through word of mouth. Some families believe 3 is too young for school, or are immigrants fearful of raids now being conducted at school sites.
A few district-run programs like Perth Amboy’s require parents to show a government-issued ID or Social Security number to enroll their children. The district enrolled only 63 percent of its eligible 3-year-olds in the 2023-24 school year. The ACLU of New Jersey has previously challenged such requirements, saying they are unconstitutional.
Programs also aren’t recruiting as aggressively as they did when the program began. Cindy Shields, who led a preschool site in Perth Amboy from 2004 to 2013 and is now a senior policy analyst for Advocates for Children of New Jersey, said she used to recruit at playgrounds, churches, laundromats, supermarkets and nail salons — anywhere families were.
Districts once advertised preschool in the plastic table settings of local restaurants, said Ellen Frede, who helped design the Abbott preschool program and ran the state’s implementation team. Frede is now co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER, based at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
In its heyday, the large team of experts that formed the state pre-K office could also enforce corrective action plans for failing to reach enrollment targets, Frede said.
But during Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s administration from 2010 to 2018, pre-K was reduced to barebone levels. In 2011, New Jersey’s early childhood budget — already only a small fraction of overall education dollars in the state — was slashed 20 percent, causing recruitment efforts to dwindle.
Though funding and political support for preschool was restored under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy — who recently signed a budget that invests about $1.3 billion in statewide preschool over the next fiscal year — funding for the state department of education’s early childhood arm overseeing the endeavor hasn’t grown in tandem.
Today, “we have a much smaller early childhood office that is actually attempting to expand this program across the entire state without that same kind of attention to detail,” said Farrie, with the Education Law Center.
While New Jersey stands out in an early childhood landscape that can be grim in terms of quality and pay, investing roughly $16,000 per pupil, high quality preschool is very costly to operate. The state-funded preschools in the districts named in the Abbott litigation require pay parity with public school teachers, yet many districts and private providers operate on low wages and razor thin profit margins. Increases in liability insurance costs for child care providers and preschools is another strain.
The state has also cut back on incentives like bonuses and college scholarships for teachers to enter the program. Such incentives were common in the early years of the state-funded program, resulting in a teaching population that is more diverse and reflective of the student body than K-12 teachers at large. In the 2024-25 school year, 22 and 25 percent of preschool teachers in the 31 districts with universal preschool were Black and Hispanic, compared to just 6 and 9 percent of K-12 educators in New Jersey, respectively.
A teacher and children play at Noah’s Ark Preschool. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
State board of education scholarships helped pay college costs for Euridice Correa, a teacher at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Center. Correa, affectionately called “La Reina” or “queen” by some parents, is Jackson’s teacher. She’s now in her 18th year as an early childhood educator.
Correa, who moved to New Jersey from Colombia at nine years old, earned degrees from New Jersey City University thanks to incentives offered in the early years of the court-mandated preschool program.
“I was very poor. I was still working as a cleaner and helping in the daycare,” she said. The state “paid for my whole B.A. and for half of my Master’s with bilingual certification.”
New Jersey, said Shields, the analyst with Advocates for Children of New Jersey, used to offer “college money, they had incentives, they had sign-on bonuses. They were giving teachers laptops, and we know that it worked. They created this beautiful diverse workforce of teachers that looked just like the children. But we don’t have that anymore.”
A spokesperson for the state department of education said that paths to bring teachers into the profession “remain a priority in New Jersey to support early childhood educators, particularly in community-based settings.” They cited the Grow NJ Kids scholarship program, which offers scholarships for family care providers and preschool teachers to get additional training.
Despite expansion and sustainability challenges, research shows the preschools created through the Abbott litigation have helped close the educational gaps that Black, Latino and low-income children were facing.
Researchers found double the impact on scores for kids like Jackson who are enrolled for two years — enough to make up for a third of the achievement gap between Black and white children. Thousands of kids have entered K-12 more prepared. As a result, Union City moved its algebra offerings from ninth to seventh grade.
Karen Marino, the founder of Noah’s Ark Preschool in Highland Park, contracts with New Brunswick schools in Middlesex County to provide seats for children through the state-funded Abbott program. The state provides money to public and private providers in 31 districts to offer a full-day program for 3- and 4-year-olds. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
“It gives a baseline. You can change things all the way up,” said Steven Barnett, NIEER’s co-director and founder, who is now researching higher education outcomes for Abbott preschoolers. There’s evidence from other communities that quality preschools can affect children into adulthood: Oklahoma’s universal pre-K for 4-year-olds, one of the nation’s oldest, is linked to a 12 percent increase in college enrollment.
The programs have also been able to offer enrichment for their students that would otherwise be impossible to fund.
At Noah’s Ark Preschool, a private provider in Highland Park in Middlesex County, 3-year-olds hold full conversations, sharing about their trips to see family out of state or weekend plans to go to local pools. They’ve learned to write their names and read signs.
Early learning years are so much more than just learning ABCs or shapes, said founder Karen Marino. “It’s really about their independence,” she said, adding that she started Noah’s Ark after looking for affordable care for her own three children years ago, one of whom now runs the site. Her school has contracted with New Brunswick schools in Middlesex County to offer seats since the program began.
Farther north in Passaic, the nonprofit Children’s Day Preschool serves over 120 kids learning social and fine motor skills through play. With fundraising, the school, in Passaic County, was able to afford renovations, a full-time art therapist and a nurse for their community of mostly Mexican, Peruvian, Colombian, Puerto Rican and Dominican families.
Children’s Day feels for many like an extension of home, with family recipes lining the walls and bilingual instructions for parents on how to ask about their child’s day at school: “Did you learn something new? Who made you smile today? Did you help someone today or did someone help you?”
Many of their educators have been teaching at the site for 15 to 20 years. James Acosta, who attended the center as a child and is now is not a digital media assistant, said returning to work was “like seeing like aunts and uncles saying, ‘you’re so big now!’”
A child runs through the playground at Children’s Day Preschool in Passaic County. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
Two preschoolers at Children’s Day Preschool in Passaic, N.J., play on the monkey bars during recess. Passaic is one of 31 New Jersey districts receiving state support to provide preschool for local children. Credit: Marianna McMurdock/The Hechinger Report
Abbott supporters hope more families will join the program. Parent Candy Vitale’s 6-year-old son, Mateo, is reading at a second-grade level and learning how to solve for an unknown “x” in math equations.
Vitale spent the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment so her older daughter could attend a comparable half-day pre-K at the Jersey Shore. She learned of the offerings in Union City from her partner, whose older children had attended.
“This is the foundation of loving learning, and loving school, and feeling loved at school,” Vitale said. “Knowing that I was dropping him off every day, and he was in a place that he absolutely was enamored by — I think that there’s no price tag you can put on that.”
Contact the editor of this story, Christina Samuels, at 212-678-3635, via Signal at cas.37 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.
This story about Abbott districts was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Another school shooting has unfolded, this time in Minnesota, as a new school year gets underway in many towns and cities across the United States.
Two children — an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old — were killed and 17 others, including 14 children, were hurt when a gunman opened fire through the windows of a church during a Mass service at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, according to Minneapolis Police.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the gunman was in his early 20s and armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. O’Hara told reporters at a press conference that police believe the shooter fired from all three weapons.
The suspect died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said, adding that they are still investigating a possible motive behind the attack.
Law enforcement officers set up barriers after a shooting at Annunciation Church, which is also home to a an elementary school, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 27, 2025.
People gather at a vigil tonight at Lynnhurst Park after a shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School, Aug. 27, 2025, in Minneapolis.
Bruce Kluckhohn/AP
Read on to see six tips from experts on how to discuss school shootings with kids.
1. Be proactive in talking with kids.
Dr. Mona Potter, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, said that when a tragedy happens, parents should “avoid avoiding” when it comes to talking about it with their kids.
“Rather than try to protect them, it’s really important to think about how do we prepare them for the world,” Potter told ABC News. “And that’s going to be different for the little ones, from the middle schoolers, from the high schoolers, but really being attuned to what your kids need, and making sure that you’re encouraging brave behaviors. Break it down into small steps and really encourage them to take on the world, and help them feel like you trust them and you know that they can do it.”
Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a board-certified family physician and resilience expert, also said parents and caregivers should consider their child’s age and situation when deciding how to talk with them about events like school shootings.
“The first thing to think about is how old is my kid, and are they gonna hear about [the school shooting] anyway,” Gilboa told “Good Morning America” in 2023, after six people were killed at The Covenant School in Nashville. “So if they’re going to hear about it anyway, or they’re over the age of 8, it’s an important conversation to know how to have with your child.”
Gilboa said parents and caregivers can start the conversation with a question, like, “Have you heard about this?”
The next step, according to Gilboa, is to thoughtfully listen to a child’s reply.
“We really listen to their answer before we flood them with more information,” Gilboa said, adding that adults should refrain from telling kids how or how not to feel. “[Telling a child] ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of,’ doesn’t really help.”
2. Be truthful about what happened.
Dr. Melissa Brymer, director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, said parents and caregivers should be truthful with kids in an age-appropriate way.
“For our young kids, they don’t need to have all the details,” Brymer told ABC News in 2022. “Many times they’re going to be worried about their safety, your safety as a parent or caregiver or their family members’ safety, so we want to reiterate what’s being done to help them right now.”
Brymer said parents should be prepared for teenagers to want a “much more in-depth conversation.”
“How do we talk about what this event has meant that might have impacted our value system?” Brymer said of a potential conversation starter with a teen. “Can you encourage your kids to think about is there a club or some type of activity that they can do within their schools to show and create change? In these times, many of us start to feel lonely. How do we reach out to those that might not have someone in their life?”
3. Take care of yourself as a parent or caregiver.
Gilboa said the “first step” a parent or caregiver should take before talking with a child is to make sure their own emotions are in check and that they feel supported too.
“We can’t come to our kids and have the conversation if we’re a wreck,” Gilboa said. “Then, they’re going to feel like they need to take care of us.”
Brymer also suggested parents and caregivers take a “pause” so they can be ready to talk to their kids.
“Sometimes we don’t have the words right away,” Brymer said. “We might need to reach out to our own support systems and have those conversations, and then we can have them with our kids.”
If a child’s stress levels or response to a mass shooting are hard to manage, experts say parents and caregivers shouldn’t hesitate to seek guidance from their pediatrician, a school counselor, social worker or other mental health experts. Parents should also seek out professional mental health help if they are struggling.
4. Keep an eye out for changes in kids’ behaviors.
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Janet Taylor said children may respond to disturbing news about mass shootings in different ways, and parents and caregivers should pay attention to see if their child’s behaviors change.
Children may experience problems focusing, have difficulty sleeping or become more irritable, according to Taylor.
“If you have younger children and they suddenly get more clingy or want to sleep in bed with you, pay attention to that and cuddle them as they need it,” Taylor told “GMA” in 2022, after 21 people were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. “Older kids may become more isolated or feel that they have to solve things by themselves.”
Gilboa said parents and caregivers should also watch for kids who may develop a fear of going to school, who look for reasons to stay home and who withdraw from activities.
“Ask them, ‘Hey, tell me more about what’s going on.’ Don’t just assume it’s because they have a test they don’t want to take or something like that,” Gilboa said. “And make sure that if you’re really worried about them, you’re reaching out to their doctor or to their guidance counselor, their school counselor to get a little bit of extra support for you and for them.”
5. Remember to keep checking in with kids.
Instead of discussing a school shooting only once, Robin Gurwitch, a licensed clinical psychologist and retired Duke University professor, said it’s crucial to continue the conversation over time.
“A one-and-done conversation is not sufficient,” Gurwitch told ABC News in 2018, after 17 students and teachers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. “Let your child or teenager know that ‘I really do care about you and I am open to having this discussion.’”
Gurwitch added, “It is really important to check back in tomorrow, to check back in the next day, to find out, ‘What are your friends talking about related to this school shooting?’”
6. Offer kids a chance to help.
Gilboa said that helping kids focus on a sense of purpose after tragedy can help protect their mental health.
She said parents and caregivers should ask a child if there is something that they can do together to help, or a way they can make a difference, either on the issue at hand or something else to make the world better.
“That teaches kids that they matter, that their actions matter and they can have positive impact, and mattering improves their mental health,” Gilboa said. “If we have empathy for their feelings, ask them how they’re doing and involve them in making a difference, we’re giving them the best shot we can of having stronger mental health through some unbelievable stressors.”
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers comprehensive resource guides for parents, caregivers and educators to support students. Click here for resources related to school shootings.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text the national lifeline at 988. Even if you feel like it, you are not alone.
Editor’s note: This report was originally published on March 28, 2023.
OSLO — It was a July afternoon in 2011 when a car bomb exploded just a few blocks from Robert Ullmann’s office. Because it was the summer, only two employees from Kanvas, his nonprofit that manages 64 child care programs around Norway, were at their desks on the third floor of a narrow, nondescript building in central Oslo. Although the floor-to-ceiling glass windows shattered when the bomb exploded at 3:25 in the afternoon, both members of his team were unhurt.
When I arrived at Ullmann’s office a few months ago to interview him about Kanvas, he led me to one of the windows that looks out over Møllergata street. Just past the rusty roof of the building across the road, we could see the top of Regjeringskvartalet, a cluster of government offices, the target of that car bomb. “That’s our ‘Capitol Hill,’” Ullmann explained. The complex never reopened after the blast, which killed eight and injured more than 200. A few hours later, the far-right extremist behind the bombing opened fire at a youth summer camp on an island 24 miles from central Oslo, killing 69 people, most of them teenagers and young adults affiliated with the youth wing of the country’s Labor Party.
The violent attack, extraordinarily rare for Norway, affected Ullmann deeply.
“I started some reflection,” he said as we stood by the window. “How can a young guy come up here and become a terrorist?” In the context of his work with young children, the goal became very clear. “What’s important is that everyone feel they’re included,” he said.
Paula García Tadeo, a teacher at the Turi Sletners child care program in northwest Oslo, helps children as they play in the snow. Children at Turi Sletners spend hours outside each day and learn how to make fires and safely use knives starting at age five. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Ullmann’s conclusion embodies one of Norway’s goals for its citizens: to build a nation of thriving adults by providing childhoods that are joyful, secure and inclusive. Perhaps nowhere is this belief manifested more clearly than in the nation’s approach to early child care. (In Norway, all education for children 5 and under is referred to as “barnehagen,” the local translation of “kindergarten.”) To an American, the Norwegian philosophy, both in policy and in practice, could feel alien. The government’s view isn’t that child care is a place to put children so parents can work, or even to prepare children for the rigors of elementary school. It’s about protecting childhood.
“A really important pillar of Norway’s early ed philosophy is the value of childhood in itself,” said Henrik D. Zachrisson, a professor at the Centre for Research on Equality in Education at the University of Oslo. “Early ed is supposed to be a place where children can be children and have the best childhood possible.”
Related: Our biweekly Early Childhood newsletter highlights innovative solutions to the obstacles facing the youngest students. Subscribe for free.
A playground for children at a Kanvas child care program in south Oslo. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
On a drizzly Thursday morning this spring in south Oslo, at Preståsen Kanvas-barnehage, one of Kanvas’ child care programs, children roamed around an expansive play yard, building sandcastles under a large evergreen tree and zooming down a hill on bikes. On an adjacent playground, children shrieked as they splashed through a large puddle. As more children were drawn to the water, rather than caution them about getting wet, a teacher handed them buckets to have at it.
There was a clear focus on inclusion: Children with disabilities, who would often be segregated in American child care programs, were included in activities, at times with the help of a city-funded aide. Posters on some kindergarten walls showed pictures of common items or requests so children who were still learning to speak Norwegian could point to what they needed. Children were learning about the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. A rack of free clothes and boots was parked inside the front lobby, with instructions for parents to take what they needed.
“Kindergarten is so important to level out social inequities,” said Ullmann as we drove to a second site run by Kanvas. “In Norway, we think it’s democratic that everyone can have the same opportunities and move out of being poor. Social differences are something Norway does not accept.”
I traveled to Norway in April, disillusioned after nine years of reporting on child care in the U.S., where parents often pay exorbitant sums for care that comes with no guarantee of quality and relies on underpaid workers. I was eager to see a country that prioritizes child care and generously subsidizes that system, two things that feel wholly out of reach in the United States.
A toddler plays outside at the Turi Sletners child care program in north Oslo. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Norway’s model comes from a deep-seated belief that creating productive, contributing members of society starts at birth. The country offers robust social support for residents, making occurrences like the 2011 attacks that much more shocking. Investing in early childhood is seen “both as an investment for the society and an investment for the child,” said Kristin Aasta Morken, program leader of the city of Oslo’s initiative for upbringing and education. Unlike in America, no attempts have been made to lower age requirements for kindergarten teachers or increase student-teacher ratios and group sizes, and there have been few debates over whether child care is ruining children or families. Ironically, Norway’s policies have been inspired in part by American studies that found language gaps between higher- and lower-income children, as well as a high return on investment for early childhood programs.
“The argument I’ve heard is that if you don’t send your children to kindergarten, then you steal some possible experiences from them,” said Adrian Kristinsønn Jacobsen, a doctoral candidate at Norway’s University of Stavanger who studies nature-based early childhood science education and is a parent of two young children. “You sort of don’t give them the chance to play with other children so much, for instance, or get to know other adults.”
At a time when the U.S. has yet to meaningfully invest in widespread, high-quality child care for all, especially for infants and toddlers — and federal child care spending, provided to states through block grants, reaches only 13 percent of eligible American children — Norway provides an example of what affordable, universal, child-centric early care can look like.
Posters about dinosaurs hang on the wall at Jarbakken, a child care program in northwest Oslo. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
To be sure, there are important contexts behind each country’s approach. Norway, a democracy with a figurehead monarchy, is home to about 5.5 million people, about 82 percent of whom are of Norwegian ancestry, across a space roughly the size of Montana. The U.S. has 62 times the number of residents and a far more diverse population. Norway is a top producer of oil which helped generate a per capita household income that was over $104,000 in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund. In 2022, per capita household income in the U.S. was about $77,000.
The countries’ priorities are different as well. Each year, nearly 1.4 percent of Norway’s GDP is spent on early childhood programs, compared with less than 0.4 percent in America. Public funding covers 85 percent of operating costs for child care programs. The tuition parents pay has been capped at 2,000 kroner (about $190) a month for the first child, with a 30 percent discount for the second. Tuition for a third child is free. This applies to both public and private programs, including in-home centers, giving parents some choice. Programs receive funding based on the number of children served, with sites drawing double the amount of money for each child under 3 to account for lower student-teacher ratios.
A teacher at a child care program run by Kanvas, a Norwegian nonprofit, sets out a packet created to help children learning Norwegian communicate with staff members. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Norwegian children are guaranteed a spot in a kindergarten after they turn 1, around the time many parents’ paid leave ends. All kindergartens are governed by the same framework and requirements, designed to protect the sanctity of the early years. If parents don’t send their children to child care, they receive financial assistance to keep them at home.
Norwegians are so serious about the right to child-centric early care, they wrote it into law. The country’s Kindergarten Act, which took effect in 2006, states that child care programs must acknowledge “the intrinsic value” of childhood. Programs must be rooted in values including forgiveness, equality, solidarity and respect for human worth. Through kindergartens, children are meant to learn to take care of each other and develop friendships. Programs are ordered to respect children, “counteract all forms of discrimination” and contribute to a child’s well-being and joy. They must be designed around the interests of children and provide activities that allow children to develop their “creative zest, sense of wonder and need to investigate.”
That doesn’t mean kids run free all day, though at times it can look like that. “If you’re standing outside a Norwegian kindergarten or just passing through, I would think you are looking at chaos,” said Anne Karin Frivik, head of kindergartens in the Bjerke borough of north Oslo. “But for us on the inside, it’s organized chaos. The autonomy of the child, the child’s own ability to choose and to learn and to interact, it’s very, very highly appreciated.”
Sylvia Lorentzen, director of two child care programs in north Oslo, talks to children as they prepare to leave for a hike in a nearby forest. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
About 7 miles north of Oslo, Sylvia Lorentzen’s two child care programs straddle a narrow, winding road amid the lush forests that encircle part of the city, offering limitless opportunities for children to immerse themselves in nature. Throughout the year, those in Lorentzen’s care ski, sled, swim, canoe, climb rocks and rest in hammocks. Around age 4, they learn how to safely use a knife. Then they huddle together outside, whittling wooden figures out of sticks to practice. At 5, they are cutting logs with a saw and building fires.
By 11 on a Tuesday morning this spring, it was barely above freezing, but toddlers at one of Lorentzen’s programs, Turi Sletners Barnehave, had yet to set foot inside. Bundled up in colorful snowsuits and boots, they crunched through several inches of snow blanketing their picturesque play yard, splashed through muddy puddles and giggled as they chased Lorentzen’s petite, playful dog around the yard.
“Children should feel more like it’s a second home,” said Lorentzen. “We take the kids into our heart and we take good care of them.”
A toddler leaves a tent to play in the snow at the Turi Sletners child care program in northwest Oslo. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
As the morning wore on, the five toddlers made their way up a gentle slope and stepped inside a large tent, modeled after one commonly used by the Indigenous Sami people of Northern Europe. There, the children crowded around a metal firepit and peered at the remnants of their last bonfire.
“What did you find?” their teacher, Paula García Tadeo, asked in Norwegian as a child held up some charcoal remnants. García looked closely and nodded, before instructing the child to put it back.
Another child reached into the remnants and started to taste an ashy piece of wood.
“Don’t eat it,” Garcia said calmly.
“In the kindergarten in Norway, the children find their own food!” Lorentzen joked to me, laughing. “Don’t write that!”
After a bit more exploring and singing some nursery rhymes, the toddlers set off across the play yard. Some wandered over to watch a rushing stream a few feet away, and others stumbled through the snow before sitting down to rest. The more confident walkers among them marched ahead, toward the warm meal that awaited them inside.
For Lorentzen and many other early educators here, this sort of laid-back morning, marked by child-led outdoor exploration, signifies how childhood and child care should look. Nature and outdoor play are staples of Norwegian culture. There’s even a word for it: “friluftsliv,” which translates to “outdoor life.” Norwegians are so protective of this outdoor time, they have a saying, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothes.” It’s standard for Norwegian kindergartens to have rows of cubbies just inside the door to the play area to store layers of spare clothes, rain and snow gear, boots and mittens.
A child plays in a puddle on the playground of a child care program run by the Norwegian nonprofit Kanvas. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Some of this outdoor focus is baked into the country’s 63-page kindergarten framework, based on the national law, which dictates the content that must be covered, staff responsibilities and kindergartens’ general goals. The framework focuses heavily on play, a word that is repeated 56 times in the English version of the document. Programs are required to facilitate a good childhood, with “well-being, friendships and play.” Learning about nature and the environment is one of the framework’s seven learning goals for children, and programs are instructed to “use nature as an arena for play.” Much of the other content, like health and movement, communication and art, is taught while children are playing, either inside chaotic-looking classrooms or while traipsing through forests.
In rain, snow or wind, children at Turi Sletners, and in programs across the country, spend their days climbing trees and getting muddy. Toddlers nap outside, bundled inside puffy, miniature sleeping bags affixed to their strollers. During the summer, Norwegian children in kindergartens spend, on average, 70 percent of their time outside. In winter about a third of the time is outside. The country’s embrace of nature is likely a factor in its high international happiness ratings, given that research has found spending time in nature can decrease anxiety and improve cognition.
Researchers have found that Norway’s kindergartens have positive effects on academic success and the adult labor force. “Putting all the pieces together, it’s a pretty consistent set of evidence that there are fairly long-term effects” of Norway’s early childhood programs, said the University of Oslo’s Zachrisson. “Which is funny, because what they do the first year is walking around in the woods eating sand and hugging trees, and [it] is super interesting to try to think of what causes them to do much better on the math test in fifth grade.”
It may be because play is the main way children learn, and Norwegian kindergarten days are overflowing with just that.
Children at Blindern Barnestuer, a child care center, or “kindergarten” in Oslo, watch a tractor drive by their play yard. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
At Blindern Barnestuer, a child care program run out of four wooden houses across the street from the University of Oslo, children roam for hours, playing in a magical, expansive play yard while their parents research and teach at the university. On an April afternoon, a group of children crowded around a teacher sitting at a bench outside as he painted various insects on their faces on request.
Other kids chased each other up gentle hills as a nearby pirate flag, suspended from the branches of a knobby tree, waved. A group of preschoolers traversed an obstacle course constructed of wooden pallets and boards, clutching each other’s coats for stability. Some climbed trees and dangled from branches.
As Anne Gro Stumberg, one of the kindergarten’s lead teachers, known as a “pedagogical leader” in Norway, showed me around the outdoor play space, I commented on how Norwegians seemed to have a much higher risk tolerance for children’s play. In addition to the fire and knives that I had seen at other programs, preschoolers chased each other with brooms, fell several feet from tree limbs and stood on swings, things that gave me, a cautious American, pause. Nary a Norwegian looking on, however, batted an eye.
“We allow them to experience, and if they fall down, so what?” Stumberg said.
I asked if she’s had many injuries among the children.
She thought for a moment. “I can’t remember having one injury, not a serious injury,” she said.
Children play with a broom at Blindern Barnestuer. Teachers at the child care program, called “kindergartens” in Norway, emphasize free, outdoor play in the early years. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Stumberg sees endless lessons for children through play. At Blindern, teachers purposefully avoid teaching formal academics, like letters and numbers, unless a child is expressly interested in them. “We think that’s what they’re going to learn in school,” she said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to try to learn [reading] before school. There are so many other things that are very important, like all of the social skills, and how to move and do things on your own and to be able to have your own limits.”
This can only happen, Norway believes, with trained, qualified staff. The national framework instructs staff to behave as “role models,” and Norway’s law is strict about student-teacher ratios and qualifications. Programs are required to have one pedagogical leader, someone with a multiyear college degree or comparable education, per seven children under the age of 3, and one per 14 children older than that. Each leader is supported by two other teachers, who often have less education. For children under age 3, there may be no more than three children for each staff member, and there is a maximum of six children per staff for older children. In America, by contrast, no state has a ratio that low for toddlers. In some states, as many as 12 2-year-olds are assigned to one teacher, who is subject to far fewer training requirements than a peer in Norway.
Mailinn Daljord, director of the Jarbakken child care program in Oslo, looks at seedlings children are growing in one of the program’s rooms. Daljord emphasizes inclusion in her program and regularly meets with teachers to make sure children are forming connections with peers and teachers. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
At Jarbakken Barnehage, in northwest Oslo, director Mailinn Daljord said qualified teachers are vital, as they have a challenging job. One of the most critical lessons is teaching children emotional regulation, a skill that is imperative as children grow. “I want [children] to like being in kindergarten,” she said, as we sat in her office, surrounded by rows of early childhood pedagogy books and a pile of donated, toddler-sized skis. “But I also want them to feel disappointment, sadness and disagreement with others, because here we have grownups that will help them with their emotions, so they will learn to handle those situations on their own when they get older.”
Like Ullmann, one thing Daljord does not want children to experience is bullying or exclusion. As we spoke, she went on her computer to pull up Jarbakken’s annual plan, something every kindergarten must create to explain how it will meet the requirements of the law. This year, Daljord is especially focused on interactions and inclusion. Teachers gather small groups of children during play to provide support with interactions and give them ample opportunity to form connections with peers. During the year, Daljord’s teachers meet to evaluate how much they interact with individual children, a practice Ullmann spoke of as well. Daljord uses a scale: Green means frequent interaction with a child, yellow occasional, red infrequent. Then the kindergarten zeroes in on those getting less interaction. Often, those are the most challenging children, Daljord said.
“You need to do something to make sure all the kids are getting the same, and that they are seen and acknowledged for the person they are,” she said.
Later in our visit, as Daljord walked me through the bright kindergarten, housed in a boxy, modern building surrounded by outdoor play spaces, I was struck by the freedom children had. They could move from room to room and play with other groups of children, as long as they stayed in the area designated for their age group. As we toured, Daljord pointed out what children were learning about: dinosaurs, insects and the life cycle of plants. All around us, children scurried in and out of play areas — the word “classroom” is not used in Norwegian child care settings — laughing and chasing friends. While teachers engaged small groups of children in spontaneous activity at times, for the most part, the emphasis was on child-led play.
Daljord agreed that children in Norway have “way more” freedom — and responsibility — than in America. She told me a story that, to her, demonstrated the former. Nearly a decade ago, while visiting a park in the United States with her then almost 3-year-old daughter, she was approached by an American parent who chastised her for sitting on a bench while her daughter ran free. “Child abuse,” Daljord recalled the woman telling her. She said Daljord “needed to watch her, and stay close.”
Daljord seemed amused by the whole interaction. “Different culture,” she said, as she recalled the story.
Strollers sit outside Grønland Torg, a child care program in Oslo. Teachers in Norwegian child care programs often place infants and young toddlers outside in strollers to sleep during nap time. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Norway’s early childhood policies are indeed part of a distinctly different culture. In 2020, UNICEF ranked Norway No. 1 among 41 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and European Union countries for conditions that support child well-being. Norway spends 3.3 percent of its GDP on family benefits, one of the highest rates among OECD nations, and about three times what the United States spends. In 2020, the medical journal The Lancet ranked Norway first out of 180 countries in a “child flourishing index.” That same year, UNICEF ranked Norway third among 41 wealthy countries in child well-being, as measured by mental well-being, physical health and academic and social skills. The United States, by comparison, ranked 36th. Norway also ranks highly in work-life balance, meaning even if children attend kindergarten, parents still spend hours with them each day, parents and educators told me.
Perhaps in part thanks to these circumstances, children and their families fare well in Norway. Child mortality and poverty rates in Norway are low, and most children report good family relationships. International test scores from before the pandemic showed Norwegian teenagers performing at or above international averages in science, math and reading, though scores have fluctuated over recent years, with the arrival of more immigrants, who tend to score lower on such tests. Nearly 86 percent of Norwegians graduate from high school, and 55 percent earn a college degree. College tuition is free for Norwegian and European Union residents at the country’s public universities.
Many of the Norwegians I interviewed spoke of a strong cultural expectation that adults contribute to Norway’s economy. More than 72 percent of the country’s labor force works, 10 percentage points higher than in America. Norway’s child care policy has supported this.
Many of Norway’s values are uniquely Scandinavian and deep-rooted. But as my visit went on, I began to wonder if part of Norway’s no-nonsense, easy-breezy approach was because many of the things that keep American parents up at night, like school shootings, mass shootings — pretty much shootings of any kind — aren’t things Norwegian parents told me they regularly, if ever, think about. Norway has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Maybe in America, the strict, highly regulated approach we continue to take when it comes to child care is an attempt to control what we can for our children in a life where so many things feel very much out of our control.
Artwork hangs in an Oslo child care program. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
I ran this theory by Ullmann as we drove to one of his kindergartens. I told him some of the things I worry about with my own children: If I hear sirens near my child’s school, is it America’s next school shooting? If I’m at a concert or mall, where will I hide my child if someone opens fire? Do Norwegians ever worry about those things?
Ullmann was so horrified, he missed the exit on the freeway. “That’s really very sad,” he said sympathetically, glancing at me as he took the next exit, crossed over the highway and headed back in the opposite direction.
To be sure, aspects of Norway’s kindergarten system are still being developed, and the country must adapt as its population becomes more diverse. Its first step was expanding access, experts told me. Between 2003 and 2018, the percentage of children ages 1 to 5 attending kindergarten increased from 69 percent to 92 percent. Now, the country is focusing on improving quality and targeting children who are behind in language development.
When it comes to kindergartens, “we’ve known for some time that the quality varies,” said Veslemøy Rydland, a professor at the University of Oslo and one of the lead researchers for the Oslo Early Education Study, a research project into multiethnic early childhood programs that was launched in 2021. Despite standardized requirements, finding staff for lower-income kindergartens, where turnover rates are higher, can be difficult.
Food sits in the kitchen of Jarbakken, a child care program in northwest Oslo. Director Mailinn Daljord prioritizes inclusion and buys a variety of food so children with dietary restrictions feel included during meal time. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
As kindergartens have developed a stronger footing, the country is contending with a changing demographic and growing social inequality, testing its devotion to equity and progressive social values. Kindergartens are seeing this firsthand. Over the past decade, the number of “minority-language” children, kids with two parents who speak a language that is not native to the Scandinavian countries or English, has nearly doubled. Almost 20 percent of children in kindergarten primarily speak a language other than Norwegian, and in some cities as many as 35 percent of children are minority-language speakers. During the past decade, child poverty rates rose.
Part of my goal in visiting Norway was to see how, and if, the country’s system and approach to child care has been able to meet the growing needs of more diverse children. Not all of Norway’s early childhood researchers are convinced that the country’s informal approach to learning works as its demographics evolve.
“This pedagogy has been doing a great job in protecting childhoods … and giving children the opportunity to explore,” said Rydland, At the same time, Rydland said when children have that much freedom, they may not be exposed to activities that could be beneficial, like whole-group reading, simply because they aren’t interested in them. “That might be the same children that are not exposed to shared reading at home,” Rydland said. “That’s the challenge with this pedagogy … I think it works better in a more homogenous society than what we have now, with much more social differences.”
The Norwegian version of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” sits on the shelf inside a child care program in Oslo. Early learning programs in Norway emphasize play more than formal academic learning. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
There have been efforts to find a middle ground between the playful freedom inherent to Norwegian kindergartens and a more structured setting.
In Oslo, Rydland leads Språksterk, an initiative run by the University of Oslo, kindergartens in five Oslo districts and officials with the city of Oslo. The project, which roughly translates to “strong language skills” in English, is funded by the city and the Research Council of Norway and is aimed at improving adult interactions with children and ultimately enhancing language development. It’s one of several special projects and interventions in Oslo targeting children and families who are the most in need.
Like many Norwegian initiatives, Språksterk aims to “try to make the social inequalities less,” said Helene Holbæk, who develops projects for children in the Bjerke borough.
Grønland Torg is one of 80 kindergartens participating in Språksterk to help a growing number of immigrant children master the Norwegian language. Fifty-nine children attend Grønland Torg, and they altogether speak 40 different languages.
Hilde Sandnes, a teacher at the Grønland Torg child care program in Oslo, teaches a child the names of birds using felt animals. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
On a spring afternoon, teacher Hilde Sandnes sat on the floor of her room for 1-year-olds, next to a small cardboard box shaped like a birdhouse, as 11 children lumbered around the room, some playing alone while others interacted with the room’s two other teachers. Sandnes invited a toddler near her to come look at a collection of small, felt stuffed animals shaped like birds stacked inside the cardboard birdhouse, which had been sewn by her mother for the bird unit the children were embarking on. A child reached inside and pulled out a duck, proudly naming it in Norwegian.
Sandes repeated it and pulled out another bird, waiting to see if the child could identify it.
“Stork!” he proclaimed, a word that is the same in both English and Norwegian.
The child looked back over at the duck and excitedly proclaimed something in Norwegian.
“He told me the duck is taking a bath,” Sandnes said.
Hilde Sandnes, a teacher at the Grønland Torg child care program in Oslo, wipes the face of a toddler. Grønland Torg serves 59 children ages 10 months to 6 years who speak a total of 40 different languages. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
While kindergartens like Grønland Torg are attempting to adapt for immigrants, educators say not all newcomers are sold on the Norwegian model. Children who have immigrated to Norway are eligible to attend kindergarten soon after arriving, and their parents pay the same low rate, or lower, based on income. Educators said families new to Norway who enroll their children often struggle to accept the Norwegian approach to child care, expecting more academics or structure.
Many families choose not to enroll their children at all, an unintended consequence of a generous but divisive social policy in Norway: cash-for-care, which pays parents who stay home with their children. The idea is to support parents who wish to keep their children home longer — toddler enrollment in Norway’s kindergartens is lower than for older age groups — or sustain families if a child can’t get a spot in a kindergarten. Norwegian educators say children new to Norway are the ones who could benefit the most from child care and exposure to Norwegian language, yet are less likely to enroll before the subsidy expires when children turn 3.
At the same time, kindergartens are reckoning with how to support a steady rise in children with disabilities. Seventy percent of the country’s programs enroll children who qualify for special education support.
As these needs have grown, Oslo has responded with sufficient funding, educators told me. For students with disabilities, the city pays for and sends in specialists for added support. While these services are required for children under Norwegian law, national experts said the quality and extent of services can vary by city.
Lene Simonsen Larsen, director of the Grønland Torg child care program in Oslo, peeks in the window of a toddler room. Credit: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
In America, the quality of publicly funded early learning programs is often scrutinized, especially in the pre-K years. I wondered how the Norwegian government makes sure all this public money is in fact leading to high-quality kindergartens that are adequately serving children.
While there is copious federal tracking of staffing numbers as well as quality and parent satisfaction metrics, Norwegians are skeptical of monitoring and measuring children’s development and do not focus much on the cost-benefit argument around early education. Norwegians largely see early childhood programs as a good that “leads to more equal and happy childhoods,” said Zachrisson from the University of Oslo. “This is what the public discourse is about,” he added. The value of Norway’s early childhood services is not contingent on long-term effects.
Elise Kristin Hagen Steffensen, director of Barnebo Barnehage in north Oslo, described a system based on trust. Programs report issues to their municipality as small as forgetting to lock a window or as big as teacher mistreatment of children. Hagen Steffensen regularly writes reports for the city to explain how her school is meeting various parts of the law’s requirements, and officials may visit, especially if they’ve heard a kindergarten is struggling. There is also copious federal tracking of staffing numbers as well as quality and parent satisfaction metrics. Programs failing to meet regulations face no fines, however; educators were somewhat confused when I asked about penalties for failing to meet regulations, as can be the norm in America. Instead, they told me, local kindergarten officials help programs improve.
“That approach is just the Norwegian model,” said Hagen Steffensen. “I like that very much.”
This sense of trust seemed so inherent to Norwegians that they were baffled that I was asking questions about it. One afternoon, as Frivik, head of kindergartens in Bjerke borough, walked me to a bus stop, she pointed out how fences are few and far between in Norway. The country’s “right to roam” law allows individuals to freely and responsibly enjoy “uncultivated” areas, regardless of who owns them. I mentioned that fit right in with the level of trust I discovered, both by the government toward residents and residents toward the government.
“Nobody regularly checks or scans my Metro ticket to make sure I paid,” I pointed out.
“Why wouldn’t you pay?” Frivik asked me.
Looking forward, Norway’s early educators and experts aren’t quite ready to declare success in building their system, especially as demographics change. They want to see higher quality across kindergartens and more teachers in the classroom to reduce student-teacher ratios, which are already low by American standards.
Ullmann, too, thinks there is still room for improvement. “If you take the money and the structural quality that we offer in Norway, yeah, compared to every other country in the world, these are more or less the most expensive kindergartens in the world,” Ullmann said. “It’s fantastic when you compare it to every other country.” But, he added, even that may not be enough when it comes to the youngest of children, on whom the future rests.
This story about Norwegian children was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, with support from the Spencer Fellowship at Columbia Journalism School. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
There is a long overdue movement in states and districts across the country to update K-3 reading and math curricula to ensure they adhere to research-proven practices. However, this movement has a big blind spot: preschool.
Close to half of all four-year-olds in the U.S. now start their formal education in a public preschool classroom, and this share is steadily growing. States invested well over $10 billion in pre-K programs in 2022-23, and the federal government invested $11 billion in Head Start.
Most public preschool programs succeed in offering children well-organized classrooms in which they feel safe to learn and explore. But they fall short in building the critical early learning skills on which a child’s future literacy and math skills depend.
Strong preschool experiences matter. The seeds of the large, consequential learning gap between children from higher-income and lower-income families in language, literacy and math skills in middle and high school are already planted by the first day of kindergarten.
Related: Our biweekly Early Childhood newsletter highlights innovative solutions to the obstacles facing the youngest students. Subscribe for free.
Many studies in widely differing locales around the country have shown that attending preschool boosts children’s kindergarten readiness, and that its effects can — but don’t invariably — last beyond kindergarten and even into adulthood. This readiness includes the ability to follow teacher directions and get along with peers, a solid understanding of the correspondence between letters and sounds, a strong vocabulary and a conceptual knowledge of the number line — all skills on which elementary school curricula can build and all eagerly learned by preschoolers.
But as with all education, some programs are more effective than others, and curriculum is a key active ingredient. Most preschool programs rely on curricula that do not match the current science of early learning and teaching. The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch to do better. As a new National Academies report explains, we have ample research that points to what makes a preschool curriculum effective.
Three practical changes will help to move today’s curriculum reform efforts in the right direction.
First, public preschool programs need to update their lists of approved curricula, based on evidence, to clearly identify those that improve young children’s learning and development. In the 2021-22 school year (the most recent year for which figures are available), only 19 states maintained lists of approved curricula, and those lists included curricula that are not evidence-based.
Second, because the most effective preschool curricula tend to target only one or two learning areas (such as math and literacy), programs need to combine curricula to cover all vital areas. Fortunately, preschool programs in Boston and elsewhere have done precisely this.
Third, tightly linking curricula to teacher professional development and coaching is required for effective implementation. Too often, teacher professional development focuses on general best practices or is highly episodic, approaches that have not translated into preschool learning gains.
We can’t stop with these three changes, however. Children learn best when kindergarten and later elementary curricula build upon preschool curriculum.
None of these changes will solve the problem of the inadequate funding that affects many preschool programs and fuels high teacher turnover. But they can provide teachers with the best tools to support learning.
Getting preschool curricula right is crucial for society to receive the research-proven benefits of early education programs. Evidence shows a boost in learning when programs use more effective curricula.
What’s next is for policymakers to put this evidence into action.
Deborah A. Phillips and Christina Weiland are members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on a New Vision for High-Quality Pre-K Curriculum, which recently released a report with a series of recommendations to improve preschool curriculum, as is Douglas H. Clements, who also contributed to this opinion piece.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jacqueline Strickland has spent nearly her entire life caring for children in Washington, D.C., starting at age 7, when she began babysitting her siblings after school, and then more formally at 14, when she began working at a daycare center.
Despite the low pay, Strickland, 59, has stuck with her career, even as colleagues left child care for better-paying jobs at the post office or driving school buses.
“People look at child care providers as, you know, babysitters,” Strickland said. “But early childhood is the foundation. It’s the most important part of a child’s life because of the brain development that takes place.”
Three years ago, the financial landscape changed. Her salary jumped from $57,000 to $75,000 a year, thanks to a massive experiment underway in the nation’s capital, which seeks to solve one of the major drivers of the child care crisis: Most educators don’t make a livable wage.
The city-funded $80 million Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund has been transformational for district child care providers like Strickland; they’ve been able to pay down credit cards, move into new apartments, buy or pay off cars, schedule overdue dental procedures, help care for family members and even buy first homes.
But earlier this year, the roughly 4,000 early educators who have benefited from the pay equity program were dealt a blow by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2025 budget proposal. Bowser is suggesting eliminating funding for the program — along with cuts to other agencies — because of a requirement from the District of Columbia’s chief financial officer that the city replenish its depleted reserve fund, she said. That would mean a pay cut for the people who have already received a salary bump.
Educare DC, which provides daycare and Pre-K programs to 240 children in the nation’s capital, has been able to raise the salaries of its employees thanks to the city’s pay equity fund. Credit: Valerie Plesch for The Hechinger Report
The budget is scheduled to be approved by the D.C. Council in June. The mayor’s office did not return a request for comment about her proposal.
Strickland, who had started the process of buying a home, has now put it on hold. She said that, before the equity fund, she had been waiting for the city to do right by child care providers like her.
“Just to be able to know that you can meet your monthly bills on time and not juggle money. To know that you can buy groceries and buy medication. To be able to afford healthcare and go to the doctor. To be able to put a little aside for retirement. I feel like I’m healthier because I don’t have to stress as much,” said Strickland, who works at an Educare center in the city’s Deanwood neighborhood.
If the mayor’s budget proposal comes to fruition, Strickland will go back to waiting.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic toppled the country’s long-eroding child care system, policymakers in Washington had a vision for tackling the sector’s most intractable challenges, including access, recruitment, retention and pay.
That vision resulted in the pay equity fund, passed by the D.C. Council in 2021. It provides supplemental payments to teachers in licensed child development centers and homes, with the goal of bumping up their pay to match the minimum salaries of D.C. public school teachers with the same credentials. The program has been funded through a tax on residents earning more than $250,000 a year.
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“It’s one piece of a larger law and larger suite of investments meant to support the whole child,” said Anne Gunderson, a senior policy analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. “Specifically, it’s a compensation program meant to disrupt pervasive and centuries-long undervaluing of caregiving, where, due to structural racism and sexism, that’s really disproportionately harming Black and brown women.”
The pay equity program requires teachers to earn more advanced certificates and degrees if they want their salaries to increase. The costs of their tuition and books are covered almost entirely by a child care scholarship from the district in tandem with the pay equity program.
Although the mandate to earn more credentials can be taxing and eats into the time early educators can spend caring for their own families, more than a dozen teachers interviewed for this story said it’s well worth the effort.
Children play on the campus of Educare DC, which has two schools in Washington D.C. northeast quadrant. The program also offers free meals and medical and dental screenings to its students. Credit: Valerie Plesch for The Hechinger Report
Artia Brown, who has been working at the Educare center in Washington’s Parkside neighborhood for 10 years, graduated with her associate degree this year from Trinity Washington University and is already enrolled in classes in the bachelor’s degree program. She plans to get her master’s degree and doctorate as well.
“I have a long journey ahead of me, but the pay equity really motivated me to go back to school and to make sure I get as much credentialing as I can,” Brown said. “It will pay a livable wage, and people are starting to understand how important early education is.”
The 41-year-old, who lives in Montgomery County, Maryland, with her college student son, saw her salary increase from $27,000 before the pay equity program to roughly $37,000 with the supplemental funding. It’s allowed her to pay off her car, start saving and support her two nieces.
Artia Brown, who has worked at Educare DC for 10 years, has seen her salary rise from $27,000 to $37,000 due to supplemental funding from a city pay equity fund. The program is now under threat due to proposed budget cuts. Credit: Valerie Plesch for The Hechinger Report
The pay equity program also provides funding for child care facilities to offer free or low-cost health insurance to educators and other staff.
“Really what we’re seeing for the first time is an appropriate level of compensation and benefits for a workforce that has really been ignored for far too many years,” Gunderson said.
Early data suggests that the pay equity program has helped the city hire, recruit and retain child care employees.
The research firm Mathematica found that, by the end of 2022, the program’s initial payments had increased child care employment levels in Washington by about 100 additional educators, or 3 percent. Moreover, nearly 2 in 3 educators said that, because of the program, they intend to work in the sector longer than they’d previously planned.
Three “feelings and emotions” dolls on a shelf in a classroom at Educare DC, a daycare center in northeast Washington, D.C. Credit: Valerie Plesch for The Hechinger Report
And the program’s impact has continued to grow. Comparing child care employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 2019 and 2023, Mathematica associated the program with an increase of 219 educators, or nearly 7 percent.
Child care center directors said that they believed the program’s payments were not only influencing their “best” educators’ decisions to stay at their centers, but helping them recruit qualified educators.
Early anecdotal data from the Urban institute shows that quality has increased alongside educator pay. When researchers asked early educators about the statement “Because of the Pay Equity Fund payments, I can better focus on the needs and development of children I work with,” 71 percent somewhat or strongly agreed.
Washington’s efforts to tackle pay equity in the child care sector are unique. While several states began experimenting with increasing the pay of child care employees following the pandemic, they’ve mostly focused on one-time bonuses, with funding from federal pandemic aid, rather than long-term solutions. Maine’s $30 million program, which provides an average monthly stipend of $400 to educators, is one of the largest responses from other states or cities, but doesn’t come close to matching the reach of Washington’s pay equity fund.
“It is really systems reform in a way that I don’t think other states have approached,” said Erica Greenberg, senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Center on Education Data and Policy.
Because of the unique nature of the program, Greenberg says that there’s been deep interest from the federal government, states, cities, counties, philanthropists and advocates — all of whom are trying to keep the child care sector afloat.
“They all want to understand how to do something like this,” she says. “D.C. has really been a beacon in that way.”
Yet, as with the rollout of any major new policy, the equity fund has had its share of implementation hiccups.
Chief among them — at least from the educators’ perspective — is that it has sometimes been a hassle to get the money they are due. In 2024, for example, the program switched from making direct payments to teachers to disbursing the money to child care providers, who were then in charge of getting the money to their employees. And the requirements to opt into the program can pose major financial hurdles for smaller centers and home-based providers.
Beyond the particular operating challenges, however, is the program’s solvency.
As educators earn more advanced credentials, the District of Columbia must pay them more — as much as $114,000 for the highest degree earners. As child care centers recruit more teachers, the costs will continue to rise. The mayor considers the natural growth of the program unsustainable, advocates say they’ve been told.
“What I would say is cutting the program or eliminating the program is what’s unsustainable,” said Adam Barragan-Smith, advocacy manager at Educare DC. “The early childhood system in this country is a market failure. Families can’t pay any more. Programs cannot pay teachers any less. The fund has been a really important and game-changing investment so that we don’t have to pass any costs on to families, and we are able to pay teachers what they deserve.”
Artia Brown, a lead teacher at Educare DC, works with one of the children in her class. Brown said the city’s pay equity program will allow providers a livable wage. The program is on the chopping block due to city budget cuts. Credit: Valerie Plesch for The Hechinger Report
Amber Hodges, 36, is a lead teacher at Bright Beginnings, a center in the southeast quadrant of the city. When her salary went from roughly $43,000 to $52,000 annually, she used the money to buy a car, move into a nicer apartment building closer to work and take her five nieces and nephews back-to-school shopping.
The supplemental funding makes her feel like, finally, after so many years in the industry, the work of early childhood educators is getting the respect it deserves.
“We have the most important age group, and a lot of people just look at us and say, ‘Oh, you’re daycare teachers or babysitters,’” she said. “There is nothing worse for me when you say that to me. What? I am not a babysitter. Not a babysitter. At all.”
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning.
Last week the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed a child care bill that would significantly expand state investment in child care.
Less publicized: The bill also includes provisions that could make it harder for private equity-owned child care providers to expand significantly in the state.
Specifically, the bill takes steps to ensure that any given for-profit provider operating more than 10 programs in the state consume no more than 1 percent of the $475 millions in grants being proposed.
Investor-backed chains now manage an estimated one in 10 child care centers in the country. That figure is likely to grow, according to several child care researchers, as states — and potentially the federal government — put new funding into the area, attracting investors interested in low start-up costs and access to public money.
As a result, advocates and experts are pushing for more extensive and widespread regulations of the kind that are moving forward in Massachusetts. “We need to make sure there are real guardrails,” said Melissa Boteach, the vice president overseeing child care and early learning at the National Women’s Law Center. Along with colleagues, she plans this June to release a report outlining recommended regulations and safeguards.
In making the push, Boteach and others cite private equity’s troubling record in managing other government-backed social services, including nursing homes and autism services. “Private equity’s track record in other sectors supported by public dollars – including home care, hospice care, and housing – foreshadows challenges the child care sector could face,” Boteach wrote in an email. In child care, profit-driven companies will take “money out rather than using that public funding to pay child care providers and teachers a living wage, upgrading facilities, [and] expanding into under-served communities,” she said.
In a written statement, Mark Bierley, CEO of the Learning Care Group, one of the largest for-profit child care operators in the U.S., offered a very different take, calling it “our duty to prepare children socially, emotionally and developmentally for their transition into K-12 education.”
“We have the resources to upgrade facilities, equipment and technology to ensure we fulfill that commitment,” he added. (More from his statement is below.)
Hot takes on the issue
“Private equity has no business in childcare centers. Its business model is completely contrary to the goals of providing quality childcare at affordable prices. It promises its investors ‘outsized returns’ in a short 5-year window – returns that considerably beat the stock market. It can only deliver on this promise by substantially increasing revenues or decreasing costs to the detriment of children, parents, and taxpayers.” – Rosemary Batt, co-author of Private Equity at Work and numerous other studies of private equity’s impact on different professions and industries
“Private providers bring decades of know-how and a tried-and-true approach to curriculum development. Our existing infrastructure is designed to meet the needs of specific age groups and is nimble enough to accommodate the ever-evolving needs of working families. It’s our duty to prepare children socially, emotionally and developmentally for their transition into K-12 education, and we have the resources to upgrade facilities, equipment and technology to ensure we fulfill that commitment.” – Mark Bierley, CEO of the Learning Care Group, one of the largest for-profit child care operators in the U.S.
The proposed regulations in Massachusetts follow a couple other related state efforts. Vermont recently put ownership disclosure requirements into its package expanding funding for child care, and also capped tuition hikes by providers. New Jersey limits for-profit programs that participate in its public pre-K system to a 2.5 percent profit margin.
But Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita, who has been tracking private equity expansion in child care closely, described the proposed Massachusetts measures as “the most targeted guardrails we’ve seen to date” against investor-backed companies consuming the lion’s share of new public investment.
Haspel points out that there’s been similar momentum internationally, with British Columbia specifying that priority for public funding goes to public and nonprofit programs, and Australia requiring larger providers that manage more than 25 sites to submit more extensive financial reports.
Last year, President Biden’s administration pushed for greater transparency and accountability in nursing home ownership after research showed that private-equity owned facilities on average had worse outcomes, including more patient deaths. But there’s not much information that compares the quality of for-profit and nonprofit child care programs, which could hinder efforts to put restrictions and regulations on the companies.
Haspel said “the first step for the federal government is trying to get a lot more information” in a landscape where the quality can vary dramatically within all ownership types — investor backed or not. That said, he added that there’s no reason not to take such steps as ensuring a certain percentage of public funding is used to pay educators and requiring centers to disclose financial and ownership information.
“Some of the potential guardrails are common-sense,” he said.
This story about private equity and child care was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Teacher Yasmin Kudrolli sat on a low chair and lit a candle to start the morning meeting in her prekindergarten classroom in Oakland. Speaking quietly to her 4-year-old students, she picked one boy from the group to count his classmates: 22.
California mandates one adult for every 12 students in what it calls “transitional kindergarten,” so there’s an aide standing by the door, ready to take any child who needs to use the bathroom into the main building. Families from Oakland’s higher-income neighborhoods have been drawn to the transitional kindergarten program in her school, which had a waiting list at the beginning of the school year.
Across town, but in the same school district, teacher Alicia Simba leads 13 students, all 4-year-olds, in a breathing exercise in her classroom. Her 14th student is crying in the reading nook. She wants to go home.
“You’re going to be okay, sweetheart,” Simba says soothingly. She brings out a basket of percussion instruments and the crying child smiles broadly.
When a boy says he has to use the bathroom, Simba asks him to hold it until lunch, which is 30 minutes away. She should have an aide to take him, but she doesn’t. The school where she works can’t afford to hire extra staff due to very low enrollment.
It’s the second year of California’s uneven four-year rollout of universal transitional kindergarten, an ambitious, multi-billion dollar initiative to make high-quality education available to each of the state’s 4-year-olds, an estimated 400,000 children.
The plan is that the $2.7 billion program will be fully implemented by the 2025-26 school year across the nearly 900 districts in the state that include elementary grades. It will be the largest universal prekindergarten program in the country.
But like the children in these two classrooms — some of whom are ready for school and others who aren’t even potty-trained — some districts are on schedule and some are not.
Theodore Ling, left, and Makena Kinoti play in the transitional kindergarten at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland, Calif. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
There are teachers who should have aides, but don’t. There are districts, like rural Mendocino, where some transitional kindergarten classrooms don’t have attached bathrooms and where school playgrounds aren’t designed for 4-year-olds. Many districts can’t hire enough staff for afterschool programs to accommodate the new transitional kindergarten students, forcing working families to scramble for care. The state has not provided learning expectations for this new grade. Handling toileting issues for young pupils is a headache.
Some, but not all, of these kinks might be worked out by the time the program is fully implemented in 2025. The state is slowly increasing the number of children who are eligible based on birth month, an approach that has been confusing for parents but which buys districts time to set up appropriate spaces to meet demand. In the 2023-24 school year, children who will turn 5 by April 2, 2024, were able to enroll. This coming fall, children who have a fifth birthday by June 2, 2025, can enroll. By the 2025-26 school year, all children who are 4 years old by the beginning of the school year in September will be eligible. That year classroom ratios will also go down, requiring one adult for every 10 students.
By offering free, high-quality transitional kindergarten in public schools, California will go a long way to help level the playing field for children entering kindergarten, officials say. Regardless of income, families will have access to top-notch early schooling. Additionally, officials say the state’s massive investment will shine a light on the earliest years of education and make it more likely that districts will align curriculum from preschool through third grade.
That’s the hope. In the meantime, districts are figuring out how to serve this new, and quite different, age group without a unifying roadmap.
“There’s a new grade out there and no clear guidance yet from the state as to what should be covered in it,” said Alix Gallagher, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), based at Stanford University.
Wateen Khawaj attends prekindergarten — or what California calls “transitional kindergarten,” at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland. California plans to make transitional kindergarten available to all 4-year-olds in the state by the 2025-26 school year. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
On the one hand, Gallagher said, the state could be criticized for not having clear guidance about what transitional kindergarten should look like when it started the expansion, especially since some districts had been offering transitional kindergarten for a decade before the statewide mandate.
“On the other hand,” Gallagher said, “making a new grade and requiring universal access is not something that is always politically available.”
In this case, politics favor early childhood advocates. They have a powerful ally in Gov. Gavin Newsom, who campaigned on his support for early learning and announced his intention to propose universal preschool, which includes transitional kindergarten, in a 2020 legislative master plan.
So ready or not, California’s transitional kindergarten classrooms are open for business.
Students in a California transitional kindergarten classroom wait to go to the bathroom with an aide. Because there are no bathrooms in the classroom at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland, the aide takes groups to a school restroom during designated breaks. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
There is little disagreement among early childhood advocates that California’s investment in early childhood education is good policy. High-quality transitional kindergarten is seen as a bridge between preschool and kindergarten. Done right, it gives children time to develop the emergent literacy, social-emotional and fine motor skills needed to succeed in kindergarten.
The bill Gov. Newsom signed in 2021 to expand transitional kindergarten to all districts calls specifically for high-quality programs. A 2017 study of California’s pre-expansion transitional kindergarten programs found that children who attended were better prepared for kindergarten than those who didn’t. But another, more recent, report found that early benefits did not lead to improved test scores in grades three and four.
That’s why it’s critical that districts ensure that their early-grade teachers collaborate to develop a vision for the grades from pre-kindergarten to third grade, so instruction and assessments are linked, said Steven Kellner, director of program sustainability and growth at California Education Partners. A 2021 report by the educational law firm Foresight Law and Policy notes that California schools are only held accountable for student learning outcomes, in the form of standardized test scores, from grades three and up.
“The statewide incentive system doesn’t promote districts to focus on the early grades,” Kellner said. “They’re untested on the state dashboard, and under No Child Left Behind, but they’re the most essential.”
It’s significant, he said, that the state’s initiative requires that transitional kindergarten teachers be fully credentialed and have at least 24 units in early childhood education, childhood development or both. Essentially, California has added a new grade: Teachers working with 4-year-olds are now part of an elementary school’s teaching staff. Keller said that the presence of these new teachers, and students, in schools, may have the effect of linking high-quality early education to success at higher grades — a perspective that isn’t front-of-mind for many administrators.
“If you want kids to be reading at grade level in third grade, you can’t start that work in third grade,” Kellner said. “But if students reach third grade at grade level, they have an outstanding chance of maintaining that [rate of progress] all the way to graduation.”
The state has yet to release an update to its Preschool Learning Foundations, which will spell out what students are expected learn in transitional kindergarten classrooms. Experts say the best curriculum should be play-based. Districts are deciding for themselves which curriculum to use.
Drawing and cutting are a prekindergarten activity intended to strengthen fine motor skills. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
“Can students in TK learn their letters? Absolutely,” said Noemi Valdez, director of early childhood education in Oxnard School District. “But not necessarily by writing. They can tear tissue and use glue to paste the letters to paper.”
Oxnard, a district of about 14,000 students 60 miles from Los Angeles, began offering transitional kindergarten in 2017 when it became clear that most of the district’s kindergarteners weren’t ready for school. When the district’s first transitional kindergarten classrooms opened, some 60 percent of its kindergarteners had not been to preschool. Today, the district has more than 700 transitional kindergarten students.
Many transitional kindergarten activities are designed to help children develop their fine motor skills so they will be able to hold a pencil steady for writing, Valdez said. Stations where children can play with dough and sort through buckets of rice to find scattered paper clips will help students attain these skills and meet the goals of cutting with scissors on their own and drawing a straight line, she said.
“All of our centers are manipulated by the teacher for a certain goal or learning experience,” Valdez said. “Play-based is not a free-for-all. It is a context for learning.”
Students Makena Kinoti, left, and Temma McCord practice writing with Yasmin Kudrolli, a transitional kindergarten teacher in Oakland, Calif. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
So, what does high-quality transitional kindergarten look like? California requires a transitional kindergarten classroom to have no more than 12 students with one teacher, or up to 24 students with one teacher and an aide. It shouldn’t be a combo class with kindergarten.
The room should have space for children to rotate through learning centers that might include tables with puzzles and manipulative toys, drawing and painting, musical instruments and building blocks. Objects should be labeled with their names in every language spoken by children in the class. Bathrooms used by kids in preschool, transitional kindergarten and kindergarten, the state says, should be accessible only to those students.
But for 4-year-olds, using bathrooms independently is often a major milestone.
Before Sara LaPietra’s son Theodore started transitional kindergarten in San Diego in 2022, LaPietra was worried he might not be completely ready to use the bathroom on his own. It turned out that he was ready, but the bathrooms themselves weren’t.
“It just seems like the state overlooked some details that seem obvious as a parent,” she said. “A 4-year-old needs to be able to reach the toilet and the paper towels.”
Toileting, it turns out, is a big issue in transitional kindergarten classrooms. Coming out of the social isolation many children experienced during the height of the pandemic, some 4-year-olds are developmentally behind. Some kids in transitional kindergarten aren’t fully potty trained, which leads to staffing issues. Kirstin Hills, director of early learning and care for the Mendocino County Office of Education, would like to see bathroom assistance added to the job description for transitional kindergarten teachers.
“When you work in a licensed child care center, you have to supervise the kids every minute they are in your care, including when they use the restroom,” Hills said. “In a TK-12 system, it’s not in the job description to assist with toileting. Same kids, but totally different approach.”
A teacher aide helps a prekindergarten student wash up during a designated bathroom break at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland, Calif. Bathroom breaks have been one complicated aspect of expanding prekindergarten statewide, teachers say. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
In transitional kindergarten classrooms where there is an aide, they can help, but whether the aide actually goes into the bathroom with children depends on district guidelines. The state has not weighed in. Simba, one of the Oakland teachers, had to hold a class meeting with her students recently to talk about how much toilet paper they are using, because the toilet was getting clogged. Without an aide, Simba has to let the children use the bathroom on their own. She can’t leave the classroom unattended.
“If they are toilet trained, who can take them to the bathroom?” said Simba, who has her master’s degree and is fully credentialed. “Who should take them?”
Access to care outside of school hours is another barrier to family participation in transitional kindergarten. In Fresno, for example, nearly 2,000 children attend transitional kindergarten and the district offers afterschool care at all school sites. But the district can’t keep up with demand, even after more than doubling staff.
“Addressing students on the waitlist [for afterschool programs] is ongoing work,” said Jeremy Ward, assistant superintendent of college and career readiness for Fresno Unified Schools. “As soon as we’re able to provide more staffing for an elementary school to take students off the waitlist, more step forward wanting access.”
Offering after-school care is a big priority in Fresno, because so many students come from working families where a full day of care is a necessity. The district has focused on reaching families of English-language learners to inform them about transitional kindergarten and to support their attendance, said Maria Ceballos Tapia, executive officer of the district’s Early Learning Department.
Students Neek Nasiri, left, and Yuv Desai, right, play outside before lunch at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland, Calif. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
But there’s a staffing shortage for after-school programs. Although districts have money to pay for staff — in 2021 California allocated $4.6 billion for expanded learning opportunities, including afterschool and summer learning programs — in many communities there simply aren’t enough people applying for the jobs.
Willits Unified School District, in rural Mendocino County, puts transitional kindergarten students who need after care on a bus and takes them to a private daycare center for the last half of the day.
“Fast food restaurants are paying $20 an hour and we’re paying $17 or $18 an hour to work with kids,” said Kim McDougal, executive director of the YMCA’s child resource service in San Diego. “[The staffing shortage has] been severe post-Covid and it’s become even more challenging.”
In San Diego, the YMCA operates after-school programs at nearly 30 elementary schools. One site has the capacity to serve 150 students, McDougal said, but is only serving 85 because they can’t hire enough staff.
“After care is the real sticking point,” said Kellner, of California Education Partners. “If we’re looking for the kind of enrollment that Newsom and the legislature predicted, the key is after care. The good news is the funds were appropriated. Now it’s really about marshaling human capital.”
Teacher aide Inti Farwell takes students in groups of six and uses a buddy system on their designated bathroom breaks at Kaiser Early Childhood Center in Oakland, Calif. Credit: Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report
Universal transitional kindergarten will be a success, experts say, if classroom instruction is high-quality and if after-school programs are available to all families who need it. But other early childhood education advocates worry that successful transitional kindergarten programs will come at the expense of private child care and preschool.
California child care providers are operating at 50 to 80 percent of their enrollment capacity because families have taken their 4-year-olds out, said Dave Esbin, executive director of Californians for Quality Early Learning, a nonprofit that supports child care educators.
For years, child care providers have struggled to maintain staffing levels in daycare centers and preschools, Esbin said. Now, low enrollment of 4-year-olds is a bigger problem than retaining staff.
“The child care ecosystem was already very fragile coming out of Covid, and even before that,” Esbin said. “It’s a challenging business model. Now it’s really tipping the scale toward becoming a non-viable business model.”
By the 2025-26 school year, California plans to have transitional kindergarten programs available to all 400,000 of the state’s 4-year-olds.
Caring for infants requires one caregiver for every three babies, he said, while preschools have a 1-12 ratio of adults to children. Caring for preschoolers helps subsidize the more expensive infant care, so losing 4-year-olds could have a major impact.
School districts are also struggling to predict where 4-year-olds will go. While officials in districts like Oakland and Fresno study birth rates to anticipate which schools will have full transitional kindergarten classrooms, parents may be unaware that transitional kindergarten exists or are confused by the age requirement.
“It’s quite complicated for parents to know if their 4-year-olds are eligible,” said Kellner, “and for districts to know how many 4-year-olds will come. That’s why progress has been so uneven.”
Messaging about the program isn’t reaching everyone, or every group, equally. A recent survey conducted by Stanford University’s Center on Early Childhood found that most California families with young children are aware of free transitional kindergarten and plan on enrolling their children. But there are discrepancies: While just over 90 percent of surveyed middle- to upper-income families had heard of transitional kindergarten, only about 60 percent of lower-income parents knew about it.
“By 2025-26, when every 4-year-old is welcome,” said Kellner, “we’ll get a much better sense of how this will play out.”
Teachers of students who are enrolled in transitional kindergarten now say that it is making a positive difference, even amid the statewide challenges.
“You can tell the children who haven’t been to preschool. They aren’t used to the socializing and the routines,” said Kudrolli, one of the Oakland teachers. “Last year there was one boy who stood in the middle of the room for the first month and just soaked it all in, like ‘What happened? Where am I?’ By the end of the year he was completely adjusted.”
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
DERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — On a bright fall morning last year, a shimmering, human-sized Hershey’s Kiss with bright blue eyes greeted delighted children and their parents outside of the first early childhood education center launched by the Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning.
Inside the new nearly 51,000-square-foot facility, built to accommodate 150 students, children funneled into their bright, well-stocked classrooms. They were welcomed by teachers who had spent 12 months in paid professional development, unusual in a field where teacher training varies greatly. The young students, ranging in age from 6 weeks to 5 years, went about their day in well-stocked, spacious classrooms, playing and learning in small groups. The ample staff provided low student-to-teacher ratios and allowed for large amounts of individual attention.
The day featured visits to the center’s “STEM Garden,” where children could learn about gardening, nature and animals from several interactive displays that offer child-appropriate introduction to science, technology, engineering and math. The kids had abundant time to run, climb and pedal bikes in one of several outdoor play spaces. And they gathered with their classmates to enjoy several family-style meals and snacks, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, Southwest turkey chili and tuna casserole.
On paper, this child care program seems like it would cost parents tens of thousands of dollars a year, rivaling college tuition, as many early learning programs do. But here in picturesque Hershey, Derry Township’s best known community, it’s all free: the first brick and mortar of a new initiative cooked up by stewards of the Hershey billions.
The early learning center, located in a town that engenders Willy Wonka vibes with street names like “Chocolate Avenue,” street lights shaped like Hershey’s Kisses and a faint scent of sweetness that wafts through the air, is one of the most recent examples of billionaires launching child care programs.
Similar efforts to provide free early care and learning are sprinkled throughout the country, including “Montessori-inspired” preschools in six states funded by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, as well as several programs sponsored by hotel magnate Harris Rosen in Orlando, Florida. In Pennsylvania, the Hershey early learning program is one of what will ultimately be six free early childhood education centers around Pennsylvania, at a cost of $350 million, funded by the Milton Hershey School Trust. (Catherine Hershey Schools are a subsidiary of the Hershey-based residential Milton Hershey School.)
In a country with exorbitantly priced child care and a lack of available, high-quality options, initiatives like these provide a new opportunity to see the effect that free or heavily subsidized high-quality child care — something that is already the norm in many other wealthy, developed nations — could have in America. The fact that robust federal child care funding legislation has repeatedly been killed by legislators means that foundation funding may be among the few — and the fastest — ways to launch and test certain programs or approaches to the early years.
The hope is that ultimately, private investment will help a community “invest in something and push it forward and … help it move to the point where it gets public attention,” as well as public funds, said Rena Large, program manager at the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (ECFC), an organization that helps philanthropists invest in the early years.
Allyson Anderson’s daughter, Lilah, shows her class an “alligator breath” that she made up. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
In the past few years, private foundations have taken on an outsized role in early learning programs and systems, funding initiatives that raise staff compensation, support existing or new programs and provide emergency funds. Nationwide, the amount of grants aimed at early childhood has increased significantly, from $720.8 million between 2013 and 2015, to $1 billion between 2021 and 2023, according to data compiled by the collaborative from the nonprofit Candid’s philanthropy database. (Data is self-reported and categorized by funders.)
Within the early childhood collaborative, membership numbers have tripled since 2016. “The pandemic brought more people to the table,” said Shannon Rudisill, executive director of the funders collaborative. “There’s been a real blossoming of innovation.” Many of those funders are hopeful that their efforts will lead to federal investment, as well as “policy and systems change,” she added.
At the same time, philanthropic involvement in education overall, including in early learning, raises questions around best practices. Are philanthropists adequately considering the needs of communities? How can and should a philanthropy involve community and existing efforts in the field? Are philanthropies listening to research and experts as they go forth and create? Should philanthropies reinvent the wheel or invest in what already exists?
Supplies sit on a shelf at the Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning in the community of Hershey, Pa. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
Some in the early childhood community have criticized Bezos’ efforts, for example, arguing the billionaire should have supported existing, research-backed early learning programs and systems rather than creating “Montessori-inspired” schools based on what he thought children needed. And there could be unintended downstream effects of philanthropic programming or influence. For example, Hershey’s salary and benefits package is comparable to that offered by local school district, which may draw child care employees away from local programs that pay less.
Hershey’s latest endeavor came from a clear community need identified by officials at the early childhood center. In Hershey — a community about 95 miles west of Philadelphia — and surrounding areas, child care is scarce and poverty is high. Over the past decade, teachers at the nearby Milton Hershey School, a private K-12 boarding school, noticed their youngest students were coming in markedly behind previous cohorts.
“The needs of the children enrolling at 4 and 5 and 6 were more pronounced than they ever were before,” said Pete Gurt, president of the Milton Hershey School and Catherine Hershey Schools. They needed more support with social and emotional, academic, language and even life skills, like potty training.
“When you look at the landscape [of child care] in Pennsylvania, it’s no different than anywhere else. You’ve got high demand, short supply, and of the supply, not as many organizations would be identified as high quality,” he added.
The Hershey, Pa., location of the Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning is the first of what will eventually be six early childhood education centers across Pennsylvania. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
When I visited the Hershey school in October, friends and colleagues delighted in the idea of chocolate billionaires funding child care:
“Do they give them chocolate all day long?” (No, they do not.)
“I hope they give them dental screenings, ha.” (They do, for free.)
“Is it secretly a training pipeline for future Hershey employees?” (Not that I could tell, although officials from Hershey’s hospitality division were in the school’s lobby one morning to provide career information for parents.)
In addition to the trained educators, low ratios and research-based curricula, the Catherine Hershey Schools offer free transportation to its building, free diapers and wipes in classrooms, occupational and speech therapy, an in-house nurse, community partnerships, a parent resource center with individual parent coaches, external evaluators and an in-house researcher from the University of Pittsburgh who is tracking the school’s outcomes to see if all of this is working.
I was mostly curious to see if free child care is as life-changing as many early childhood experts think it could be in America, especially for low-income families — Hershey sets income limits for families at 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or $77,460 for a family of three.
The Family Success Center at the Catherine Hershey School, where parents receive individual coaching toward goals and can access resources like books and educational materials. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
Nearly two weeks after the first center launched, I met with Tracey Orellana, the mother of two toddlers at the school. Orellana was delivering packages for Amazon one day when she saw the early learning center, then under construction. She had been considering putting her two youngest children in child care so her husband, who works nights, could rest during the day while she was out working. The potential to get free child care made the decision a no-brainer.
“We were juggling. We were juggling so much,” said Orellana, who also has two school-age daughters. At the time, the family had incurred a mountain of debt and was struggling to afford basic needs like groceries. Now that the toddlers are in child care at no cost to their family, Orellana has been able to increase her work hours to full time, adding to her income and stability. The family is now able to afford food and has almost caught up with bills.
The school “provides the opportunity to build a life for our kids and keep them out of whatever the situation may be, streets, poverty, keep them clothed, keep them fed, keep the electric on, the heat on,” she said. Her daughters also have opportunities they wouldn’t have at home, Orellana added, such as getting to ride bikes, play games and make new friends.
Other parents say they’ve been able to access a higher quality of care for their children now that money isn’t a factor. Allyson Anderson, the single mother of a preschooler, had to return to her job as a therapist at a rehabilitation center a year after giving birth to her daughter, Lilah. When Anderson went back to work, she chose child care using a method familiar to many American parents: “Honestly, just an open space.”
The programs her daughter ended up in were mediocre, Anderson said. While caregivers generally kept Lilah safe, classrooms lacked structure and Anderson was disappointed with the low level of attention Lilah received during the day.
Tracey Orellana watches one of her daughters from outside an observation window. Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning provide free child care for children from age 6 weeks to 5-years-old. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
But she had few other options. During Lilah’s first few years, money was tight and Anderson was struggling to cover her mortgage, bills and child care, which cost “the same as a mortgage payment” each month.
At Hershey, Anderson is most impressed by the experience and training of teachers, as well as by the fact that there are three teachers in a classroom capped at 17 children, far lower than the state mandated ratio. “They have more teachers in the classroom. They can pay more individual attention to each kid,” Anderson said. She is no longer concerned about the level of care Lilah receives. “I don’t really have to worry. I know she’s in good hands.”
Downstairs in a classroom for preschoolers, I watched 3-year-old Lilah, who was hard to miss in a bright red jumpsuit featuring one of her favorite characters (at that moment), the Grinch.
“Did you hear what happened to me this morning?” one of the teachers asked the children who sat, riveted, in front of her for morning circle time. “I woke up and I came downstairs and guess what?”
“What?” a child asked.
“My dog had chewed one of my shoes!”
Several children gasped.
“I was so upset because they’re my favorite shoes. So, I started crying. Then I was so mad at my dog, and I started yelling. Do you think I made a very good choice?”
“No,” the children said in low, disappointed voices.
“What do you think I should have done?”
“Take a deep breath,” one child suggested. The teacher nodded.
While philanthropically-funded programs can benefit those lucky enough to access them, without receiving public funds or partnering with others to expand, experts caution that the reach of these programs will be limited and exist only in areas with willing funders.
Some philanthropically funded early childhood programs, like Educare, have developed a model of launching centers using philanthropic dollars, then pulling in public funding later, a more sustainable model for allowing replication, said Rudisill from the early childhood funders collaborative. Funding sources need to “fit together to solve the problem,” she said. “You could scoop up all the private philanthropy in America … and you cannot make up for the fact that in our country, we don’t fund an early care and education system.”
Books sit in a library inside the Family Success Center at the Hershey-based Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning. Inside the center, caregivers can access coaching and other resources. Credit: Jackie Mader for The Hechinger Report
Senate Alexander, executive director of Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning, said he hopes the centers will ultimately become a model that can be replicated — once the program has the data to show it’s working to improve kindergarten readiness skills and outcomes for families.
“We thought about not wanting to fan out too far and too fast, we’re just starting this,” he said. “We want to get it right … we want to perfect the model.” In the meantime, the program’s first school has invited other local child care programs to attend training with Hershey staff in an effort to share resources and possibly expand their reach.
While Hershey’s funding is limited in scope to programs within the state of Pennsylvania, Alexander said replicating the model in its entirety in other parts of the country is not out of the question. That could bring free childcare and extensive resources to more children. All it will take are a few more willing billionaires.
This story was produced with support by the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at the Columbia Journalism School.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Consider this a head’s up: This week’s newsletter is about poop.
Specifically, potty training.
In January, Utah Rep. Doug Welton introduced a bill that would require kindergarten students be potty trained before parents enroll them in school. Children who aren’t potty trained would be referred to a social worker or counselor.
Potty training — or the lack of it — clearly strikes a nerve with teachers.
“The fastest and number 1 way to get parents to potty train their kids at home is to call them to the school every time the child needs a diaper to be changed,” said a self-identified kindergarten teacher in one potty-training focused Reddit thread.
“My friend just started teaching kindergarten and says she has at least 1 in a diaper and probably another 2 in pull ups. I cannot fathom this,” said a daycare teacher in another Reddit thread that drew more than 1,000 comments.
So, are more children coming to school in diapers?
It’s a difficult question to answer, in part because it’s not data that is tracked, and also because there aren’t a lot of recent studies on potty training and the average age of children who master it. In the 1940s, toilet training generally started before children were 18 months old, according to an article in the magazine American Family Physician. Around 60 years later, in the mid-2000s, the same article said parents were generally starting toilet training when a child was 21 to 36 months old.
Those numbers haven’t significantly changed in the last couple of decades, according to Dr. Ari Brown, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a pediatrician of 28 years, based out of Austin, Texas. Typically developing children will be day trained between ages 2 to 3 1/2, and night-time training can take a few years longer, she said.
By 5, most children know how to use the bathroom. But having an accident at that age isn’t uncommon, and there are plenty of medical and behavioral reasons for these mishaps that have nothing to do with knowing how to use a toilet, Brown said. They can include physical complaints like constipation, fear of loud auto-flushing toilets, anxiety about large, crowded school bathrooms, or worry about asking a teacher for permission to leave.
“This is not a ‘toilet training’ issue and it should not preclude a child from attending school,” Brown said.
Although the legislation proposed in Utah allows for exceptions among students with a documented disability, Brown said medical issues like constipation might not show up on an individualized education program.
The Utah Department of Education does not track bathroom incidents in classrooms, and several local districts said they also have no data on this. The communications director for Alpine School District, the largest school system in Utah, said potty training incidents in the classroom is “not a trend that has surfaced as a concern (knock on wood).”
A communications administrator for the Nebo School District — located in an area represented by the bill’s sponsor — echoed that sentiment. “According to the teachers we have heard from, the rates are the same as they have always been, and there has not been a noticeable change,” he said.
But state leaders have heard otherwise.
Christine Elegante, a K-3 literacy specialist with the Utah Department of Education, said she heard from school districts that potty training kindergarteners was not a concern.
But she heard a different story when she had a statewide meeting with kindergarten program leaders.
“I was really taken aback by how many said that it was a problem, that they were seeing more and more kids that did not have the skillset they needed to be able to toilet themselves. If they had an accident, they weren’t capable of changing themselves,” Elegante said. “It was a bigger, more widespread problem that we hadn’t really heard of.”
After that meeting, Elegante said she heard from more elementary school principals who reported that potty training has become a bigger problem in kindergarten classrooms since the pandemic, particularly during this school year.
Elegante doesn’t know why students might be struggling with potty training more this year than any other, but she said schools have increased the number of full-day kindergarten classes they offer starting this year. Last year, 46 percent of kindergarteners in Utah were in a full-day program. This year, 77 percent attend full-day kindergarten. A full-day program essentially doubles the amount of time students are at school, from being in class for two to three hours a day to six or seven hours.
The increase in the amount of time in class could account for the rise in the likelihood that a child will have an accident at school. However, it doesn’t explain the claim that more kindergarteners do not know how to use the bathroom.
This isn’t the first time in recent years potty training in school has come up — pre-K teachers in Buffalo, New York, petitioned the school district to create a policy on potty training in 2019 because they said diaper-changing was taking up class time.
Unlike Utah, New York and New Jersey have laws that prevent schools from barring children from class because they are not potty trained.
Child care workers have always dealt with potty training, but schools are increasingly dealing with this for a simple reason: Children are coming to school at younger ages because there are far more pre-K classes located in schools than in years past, said Zeynep Ercan, president of the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.
“You have public school teachers who are not used to seeing this kind of variation in development, and now they feel as though they have to be the caregivers [as well as] educators. These two concepts are always a conflict in child care and education systems,” Ercan said.
The expansion of pre-K is a good thing, Ercan said, but it also requires schools to adapt their environments.
“The issue is, how can we make our environments more developmentally appropriate for children? How are we ready for the children, versus how are children ready for it?” Ercan said.
Even though it’s unclear if schools are seeing more kindergarten students attend class in diapers, teachers can help prevent accidents by being flexible about when children go to the bathroom, said Brown, the Austin pediatrician.
“Teachers can play a pivotal role in normalizing the need to use the bathroom when the urge occurs and not stigmatizing a child who needs to stop their learning to do so,” Brown said.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning.
Mississippi child care workers are strained by low pay and lack of training — but an additional $5 an hour in salary would prompt around half of those workers to stay in their jobs and to seek additional education, according to a new survey by state child care advocates.
The coalition Mississippi Forum for the Future surveyed nearly 700 child care workers, most of whom provide care in centers, to draw attention to the precariousness of the child care sector in the state. Early childhood educators are facing strain across the nation, but Mississippi is in a particularly difficult position: Workers reported an average hourly wage of $10.93 and typically have no benefits. In contrast, a “survival wage” in the state for a single adult is $12.28 an hour, according to the report.
Just under 70 percent of child care workers said they worked 40 or more hours a week.
More highly educated workers earned more, but the differences were not large: Child care employees with a high school diploma reported earning $10.22 an hour on average, but those with a bachelor’s degree or higher said their salary averaged $12.79 an hour.
Close to half, or 48 percent of the workers surveyed, said they did not have training beyond high school. A similar percentage of child care workers — 47 percent — reported that they are working with children who have mental, physical, or emotional disabilities.
About 36 percent said they relied on public support programs such as Medicaid or the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.
A little more than a third reported they had looked for a new job, and of that group, most of them were looking for jobs out of the child care sector.
In the midst of these stresses, demand for child care in the state is still quite high.
Lesia Daniel-Hollingshead has provided child care services in her community of Clinton, Mississippi, a suburb west of Jackson, for nearly 25 years. After she taught children in public schools, her passion prompted her to open several child care centers. Since the inception of her child care ventures in 2000, more than 7,000 children have received child care at My First Funtime, Funtime Pre-School and Funtime After-School.
During the pandemic, Hollingshead’s facilities suffered a 50 percent decline in enrollment. But by 2021, an overwhelming number of families with infants sought her child care services. In October 2021, to meet demand, she opened My First Funtime, a center for infants and toddlers 6 weeks to 18 months old.
“We opened My First Funtime in October of 2021, by December we had enrolled 66 infants,” Hollingshead said. “My program is currently full — and not because of the number of enrollments but because I have the number of children for the staff that I can maintain.”
The survey findings did not surprise Daniel-Hollingshead, who said she pays her lead teachers $14 to $20 an hour, based on education and experience. Her less-experienced employees are paid $9 to $10 an hour. Families of infants up through 5 year olds pay $184 a week for her center; the rate is among the most expensive in her area, she said.
Biz Harris, the executive director of the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance, said that the state has recently launched an initiative meant to provide extra money to teachers and to provide scholarships for those who engage in additional training.
However, that program is funded through emergency funds that came from the federal government during the pandemic, and thus will sunset when the money is exhausted.
“We would love to see a program like this have the funds to continue, and worry about what will happen to the already struggling child care workforce when it ends,” Harris said. “Other states do provide these kinds of programs for their child care teachers as a workforce investment.”
Daniel-Hollingshead said while that money is appreciated, she still struggles to hold on to employees and has waiting lists at every age level.
“Currently it is extremely difficult to retain staff,” she said. “Due to the pay rates that I have had to increase to keep my best people, we are operating over budget about $25,000 a month which obviously is not sustainable long-term.”
This story about child care wages was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning.
Transportation to centers is one of the biggest barriers for families accessing Head Start programs, according to a survey from the National Head Start Association — distances that might be manageable for adults on their own can be insurmountable with a baby or toddler in tow.
A new awareness campaign sponsored by the association, which represents Head Start providers, and a philanthropic group called the Civic Mapping Initiative, is hoping to ease that burden by encouraging local transit agencies to add bus stops closer to Head Start centers.
As a kickoff to the effort, the Memphis Area Transit Authority added three bus stops to its existing routes to bring them closer to Head Start programs in the community.
A lot of parents who send their children to the Porter-Leath Early Head Start programs in Memphis rely on families and friends to help them get there, said Sheronda Smith, director of Early Head Start at Porter-Leath and president of the Tennessee Head Start Association.
Often when families can’t get a ride, their children simply don’t attend that day.
“We have had families who we’ve had to place back on the waiting list because they make the decision that it’s too hard to get to the center,” Smith said.
There are more than 16,400 Head Start centers across the United States that provide federally funded pre-K and school readiness programs for low-income families. About 42 percent of those programs are within 0.2 miles of public transit, or what the National Head Start Association considers a walkable distance for families with toddlers.
Another 29 percent of centers are not near any public transit, or more than five miles away. It makes sense that some centers are far from transit because many Head Start programs serve rural areas, said Abigail Seldin, co-founder of the Civic Mapping Initiative.
The rest of the nation’s centers, nearly 30 percent, fall somewhere in the middle: between 0.2 and five miles away from public transportation.
The Head Start association and the mapping initiative are focusing their efforts on a smaller subset of those centers –- the 19 percent that have a bus stop within a mile of their location. Simply adding a bus stop can make the distance walkable for families with toddlers, Seldin said.
“In those cases, the ask of a transit agency is to move a stop perhaps 2,000 feet,” Seldin said. “Anyone who has walked 1,000 feet with a toddler understands viscerally why this concept is so important and why these changes are essential.”
In some of these areas, local transit authorities can add bus stops without significantly changing routes or adding to their costs. In Memphis, buses were driving right past the Head Start centers before the transit agency added three stops as part of this mapping campaign.
“It’s a low-cost solution that makes a big difference for families and for early childcare workers who are commuting,” Seldin said.
Smith, with the Porter-Leath program in Memphis, hopes the added stops will help stabilize attendance for students whose families don’t have reliable transportation.
“Moving this closer to the centers and making it more accessible to them is important because now they don’t have to depend on someone else,” Smith said.
This story about child care transportation was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
