In 2024, EdSurge printed a number of dozen tales about early care and schooling, up from only a handful after we first started protecting the early years 5 years in the past.
Situations of the sphere proceed to be extraordinarily difficult, with crisis-centered headlines filling our digital pages simply as they do in different information retailers. However because the pandemic continues to recede into the previous — and with it, the historic funding that adopted — lots 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, based mostly 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, dwelling visiting applications have supported households throughout the U.S., selling constructive parenting practices that foster a secure, nurturing surroundings for youngsters. Lately, quite a few these applications have seen a chance to succeed in extra youngsters 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 creator Dan Wuori describes the U.S. early childhood schooling system, in an interview about his new ebook, “The Daycare Fantasy.” Wuori, who has spent many years working in early childhood coverage, believes that our present system is extra expensive to taxpayers and extra dangerous to youngsters, households and early childhood educators than simply about any “diabolical plan” somebody may devise on their very own. He lays out a greater method.
By Debbie Tannenbaum
“I’ve discovered that there are various methods to empower even the youngest college students to get artistic with digital instruments,” writes Debbie Tannenbaum, a school-based expertise coach, in an essay. However she says that begins with equipping their lecturers with the boldness and expertise they should combine tech into their school rooms. Tannenbaum shares what she’s realized about supporting early childhood educators in utilizing expertise with younger learners.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Throughout the nation, elementary college lecturers and leaders report that youngsters are getting into kindergarten worse off than their friends of the previous. They’ve underdeveloped social-emotional and wonderful motor expertise. Some are usually not but in a position 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 begin college. We take a detailed have a look at two of them.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
AI is seemingly all over the place now, but it surely’s hardly ever 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 expertise, discussing some sensible, intentional purposes of AI for early childhood educators.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
In December 2023, EdSurge printed 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 could be replicated elsewhere.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Sociologist Casey Stockstill didn’t got down to write a ebook inspecting race and sophistication divisions amongst 4-year-olds. However after spending two years observing and researching two seemingly related, high-quality preschools in Madison, Wisconsin, the variations have been too profound to disregard. We spoke with Stockstill about her new ebook “False Begins: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers,” and the way it has formed her understanding of early schooling as an ideal equalizer.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A program that started in Kentucky as a novel concept 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 presently implementing insurance policies that make early childhood educators eligible without spending a dime baby look after their very own youngsters. The answer is straightforward 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 those that 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 vital work they do to “construct our kids’s brains,” as one researcher put it. We look at that and different findings from a latest report.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Kindergarten readiness has been on the decline for years, alarming lecturers, college leaders and baby improvement specialists. Heading into a brand new college yr, we requested quite a few educators and researchers: Which expertise are most vital 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.