Covering Pre-K - New Investments in Our Littlest Learners
by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Teachers College, Columbia University
For years, preschool was the stepchild of education - largely ignored by policymakers and researchers. That has changed dramatically, thanks to the convergence of new findings in neuroscience, child development and economics. Policy makers, educators, foundations and business leaders are now pushing for greater access to preschool. Between 2006 and 2008, states more than doubled their spending on early childhood programs and, President Obama has emphasized his commitment with increased federal money his first year in office. This Primer explains the growth of preschool and why 2009 will be a critical year.

The State of Preschool 2008 
The National Institute for Early Education Education Research has released the sixth in a series of annual reports profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. The latest Yearbook presents data on state-funded prekindergarten during the 2007-2008 school year. Key findings included: enrollment increased by more than 108,000 children; thirty-three of the 38 states with state-funded programs increased enrollment; based on NIEER's Quality Standards Checklist, 11 states improved the quality of their preschool programs and state funding for pre-K rose to almost $4.6 billion.

NAEYC's Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative  
Workforce Designs: A Policy Blueprint for State Professional Development Systems
This blueprint highlights four overarching principles (integration;quality assurance; diversity, inclusion, and access; and compensation parity) and six policy areas (professional standards, career pathways, articulation, advisory structure, data, and financing) that build or sustain an integrated system.

State Policies Database: Stage One
This database provides the actual language of state early childhood policies organized by Workforce Designs' six essential policy areas.It also indicates whether state policies apply or address the blueprint's four over-arching policy principles. State statutory examples in the advisory structure essential policy area are now available online. State policies that relate to the remaining five
policy areas will be available by early 2009.

NAEYC's Early Childhood Workforce Systems Initiative is supported by the Birth to Five Policy Alliance and Cornerstones for Kids.

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre’s Report Card 8
According to UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre’s Report Card 8, ‘The Child Care Transition’, today, a majority of the rising generation in economically advanced societies is spending a significant part of childhood in out-of-home childcare. In the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, almost 80 per cent of three- to six-year-olds are in some form of early childhood education and care. For under-threes, the proportion is 25 per cent, rising to more than 50 percent in individual countries. In the last decade many countries have also begun to see sharp increases in the numbers of the children under the age of one year being cared for outside the home. Drawing on academic and governmental expertise, Report Card 8 proposes ten benchmarks by which progress in early childhood education and care might be monitored and compared across the countries of the OECD. These benchmarks can pave the way for the establishment of minimum standards for early childhood services in OECD countries and beyond.

Establishing Teacher Competencies in Early Care and Education: A Review of Current Models and Options for California

Time to Revamp and Expand:Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs in California's Institutions of Higher Education
by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

Breaking the Link: A National Forum on Child Care Compensation
by Dan Bellm.
A keystone of any revamped child care system will have to be an ability to “break the link” between what parents pay for child care (often too much) and what child care providers earn (almost always too little). This report identifies successful initiatives to raise child care salaries; explores strategies for challenging social attitudes, developing innovative funding and financing options, and building coalitions of parents, teachers, providers, business and labor leaders committed to improving child care jobs and services.

NAEYC Accreditation as a Strategy for Improving Child Care Quality
by Marcy Whitebook, Laura Sakai , & Carollee Howes.
In recent years millions of public and private dollars have been directed toward helping centers become accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). This study focuses on the three communities in Alameda County, California over a two-year period (1994-1996). It examines the extent to which centers seeking and achieving NAEYC accreditation improve in quality, assesses the level of quality achieved by NAEYC accreditation centers, and explores the extent to which NAEYC accreditation contributes to a skilled and stable early care and education workforce.