Families in 32 states were better off—having greater access to child care assistance to help pay for care and/or receiving greater benefits from assistance—in February 2015 than in February 2014 under one or more key child care assistance policies, according the National Women’s Law Center’s new report, Building Blocks: State Child Care Assistance Policies 2015.
Early childhood education (ECE) is in the spotlight as never before. Being in the limelight, however, has highlighted the field’s fragmentation and the variability in the quality of children’s formal early learning experiences.
My four–year-old daughter loves to play a game we call “I’m looking.” We usually play in the car – I’ll start with “I’m looking at something blue. Can you guess what it is?”
Earlier this summer, Washington state legislators voted to invest a record $158 million on early education policies during the recent 2015-17 biennial budget cycle, the most it has ever spent.
While the climate surrounding children’s issues has been particularly difficult in Kansas, there were three key victories in the Sunflower State in 2015 for young kids and their families.
The 2015 session of the Colorado General Assembly saw Colorado continue on its path toward improving access to quality early learning and development programs for vulnerable children and families. Advocates, families, and children had several exciting victories to point to when the session concluded the first week in May.
Balancing a wide variety of public interests and with great bipartisan support, the Nebraska Legislature again recognized the critical importance of children’s early years prior to adjourning Sine Die on May 29.
On the last day of the 2015 Oregon legislative session, the Oregon Senate approved a bill that will make high-quality preschool available for more children from low-income families in the state. That vote marked the final approval of the Children's Institute's entire legislative agenda for improving early learning in Oregon.