In 2024, EdSurge revealed a number of dozen tales about early care and schooling, up from only a handful once we first started protecting the early years 5 years in the past.
Circumstances of the sphere proceed to be extraordinarily difficult, with crisis-centered headlines filling our digital pages simply as they do in different information shops. However because the pandemic continues to recede into the previous — and with it, the historic funding that adopted — a lot of our tales in 2024 checked out applications and folks providing a path ahead for the sphere.
Our protection final yr additionally sought to interrupt down the arbitrary barrier between early childhood and Okay-12 schooling. With tales on themes akin to local weather change schooling, social-emotional expertise and kindergarten readiness, we underscored the continuity that exists from the early years into grade college.
Beneath, in descending order, are our 10 hottest early childhood schooling tales of 2024, primarily based on web site visitors. To see extra of our protection of the early years, click on right here.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
For many years, house visiting applications have supported households throughout the U.S., selling optimistic parenting practices that foster a secure, nurturing setting for youngsters. Lately, numerous these applications have seen a chance to succeed in extra kids by adapting their providers to satisfy the wants and priorities of home-based baby care suppliers. We have a look at how these fashions work and discuss to baby care suppliers who’ve benefited from them.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A “public coverage disaster” — that’s how writer Dan Wuori describes the U.S. early childhood schooling system, in an interview about his new guide, “The Daycare Delusion.” Wuori, who has spent a long time working in early childhood coverage, believes that our present system is extra pricey to taxpayers and extra dangerous to kids, households and early childhood educators than simply about any “diabolical plan” somebody may devise on their very own. He lays out a greater strategy.
By Debbie Tannenbaum
“I’ve discovered that there are lots of methods to empower even the youngest college students to get inventive with digital instruments,” writes Debbie Tannenbaum, a school-based know-how coach, in an essay. However she says that begins with equipping their academics with the boldness and expertise they should combine tech into their school rooms. Tannenbaum shares what she’s discovered about supporting early childhood educators in utilizing know-how with younger learners.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Throughout the nation, elementary college academics and leaders report that kids are coming into kindergarten worse off than their friends of the previous. They’ve underdeveloped social-emotional and high-quality motor expertise. Some will not be but ready to make use of the restroom independently. Noting this worrying pattern, some college districts have stepped in with their very own options to assist early learners as they put together to start out college. We take a detailed have a look at two of them.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
AI is seemingly in every single place now, however it’s not often mentioned in early care and schooling. Throughout a panel at SXSW EDU in March, early schooling leaders dipped their toes into the dialog about this nascent know-how, discussing some sensible, intentional functions of AI for early childhood educators.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
In December 2023, EdSurge revealed an in-depth look at a brand new baby care mannequin in Michigan, known as “Tri-Share,” that has garnered a lot consideration. This system splits the price of baby care equally between an employer, an worker and the state. On this follow-up story, we have a look at two states and one county with variations underway, to see if Michigan’s success will be replicated elsewhere.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Sociologist Casey Stockstill didn’t got down to write a guide analyzing race and sophistication divisions amongst 4-year-olds. However after spending two years observing and researching two seemingly comparable, high-quality preschools in Madison, Wisconsin, the variations have been too profound to disregard. We spoke with Stockstill about her new guide “False Begins: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers,” and the way it has formed her understanding of early schooling as an amazing equalizer.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A program that started in Kentucky as a novel thought to rebuild the early childhood workforce — and, in impact, buoy the broader labor market — shortly unfold throughout the nation. Greater than a dozen states are both contemplating or at present implementing insurance policies that make early childhood educators eligible at no cost baby take care of their very own children. The answer is easy however efficient — and garnering bipartisan assist.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Regardless of the historic funding funneled into early childhood schooling after the pandemic, the sphere — and people who work in it — nonetheless battle. Early childhood educators earn, on common, $13 per hour, a wage that places them within the backside 3 p.c of staff nationally, regardless of the essential work they do to “construct our kids’s brains,” as one researcher put it. We study that and different findings from a current report.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Kindergarten readiness has been on the decline for years, alarming academics, college leaders and baby improvement consultants. Heading into a brand new college yr, we requested numerous educators and researchers: Which expertise are most essential to a toddler’s success as they begin kindergarten? Their solutions have been surprisingly constant: ABCs and 1-2-3s are good to have, however social-emotional expertise are non-negotiable.