Dive Brief:

• Researchers from American Institutes for Research surveyed the efforts of European countries to expand center-based care in early childhood, finding four factors to be particularly important to engagement among low-income families.
• Fewer than half of children in families living below the poverty level participate in formal early childhood education in the United States, compared to 72% of children from families with incomes of at least twice the poverty level, but AIR found engaging parents and communities as partners in the early childhood system helped increase the numbers in Europe.
• Researchers also found success in countries that made early childhood education part of a birth-to-school system, committed to adequate and stable funding and gave preferential access to disadvantaged groups in universal access programs.

Dive Insight:

Students from low-income backgrounds show up to kindergarten already behind their peers and their problems compound as time goes on. Efforts to increase access to high-quality early childhood programs represent an attempt to increase equity. Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education relating to the Every Student Succeeds Act recently encouraged districts to build early childhood education into their own financial planning. The investment is expected to pay off by minimizing the supports these students need once they end up in elementary school and beyond.

The Learning Policy Institute highlighted work being done in Michigan, West Virginia, Washington and North Carolina around early childhood in a report released this summer. Low student-to-teacher ratios, high expectations for teacher credentials and a focus on family engagement all contribute to these programs’ successes.