In 2024, EdSurge published several dozen stories about early care and education, compared to just a handful when we started covering the early years five years ago.
Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging, with headlines focused on the crisis filling our digital pages just as they do in other media outlets. But as the pandemic continues to recede into the past (and with it, the historic funding that followed), many of our stories in 2024 looked at programs and people that offered a path forward for the field.
Our coverage last year also sought to break down the arbitrary barrier between early childhood education and K-12 education. With stories on topics like climate change education, social-emotional skills, and kindergarten readiness, we underscore the continuum from early years to elementary school.
Below, in descending order, are our 10 most popular early childhood education stories of 2024, based on website traffic. For more of our coverage of the early years, click here.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
For decades, home visiting programs have supported families across the United States, promoting positive parenting practices that foster a safe and nurturing environment for children. In recent years, several of these programs have seen an opportunity to reach more children by tailoring their services to meet the needs and priorities of home child care providers. We look at how these models work and talk to child care providers who have benefited from them.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A “public policy catastrophe”: That's how author Dan Wuori describes America's early childhood education system in an interview about his new book, “The Daycare Myth.” Wuori, who has spent decades working on early childhood policy, believes our current system is more costly to taxpayers and more harmful to children, families and early childhood educators than any “evil plan” anyone could come up with. devise on your own. He presents a better approach.
By Debbie Tannenbaum
“I have found that there are many ways to empower even the youngest students to be creative with digital tools,” Debbie Tannenbaum, a technology trainer at the school, writes in an essay. But she says that starts with equipping her teachers with the confidence and skills they need to integrate technology into their classrooms. Tannenbaum shares what she has learned about how to support early childhood educators in using technology with young students.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Across the country, teachers and elementary school leaders report that children enter kindergarten worse off than their peers in the past. They have underdeveloped social-emotional and fine motor skills. Some still cannot use the bathroom independently. Noticing this troubling trend, some school districts have stepped in with their own solutions to support early education students as they prepare to start school. We take a close look at two of them.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
ai is seemingly everywhere now, but it is rarely talked about in early care and education. During a panel at SXSW EDU in March, early education leaders dove into the conversation about this nascent technology, discussing some practical and intentional applications of ai for early childhood educators.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
In December 2023, EdSurge published an in-depth look at a new child care model in Michigan, called “Tri-Share,” that has attracted a lot of attention. The program splits the cost of child care equally between an employer, an employee and the state. In this follow-up story, we look at two states and one county with adaptations underway, to see if Michigan's success can be replicated elsewhere.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Sociologist Casey Stockstill didn't set out to write a book examining racial and class divisions among 4-year-olds. But after spending two years observing and researching two seemingly similar high-quality preschools in Madison, Wisconsin, the differences were too profound to ignore. We spoke with Stockstill about her new book “False Starts: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers” and how it has shaped her understanding of early education as a great equalizer.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A program that began in Kentucky as a novel idea to rebuild the early childhood workforce, and indeed boost the job market overall, quickly spread across the country. More than a dozen states are currently considering or implementing policies that make early childhood educators eligible for free child care for their own children. The solution is simple but effective and is gaining bipartisan support.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Despite historic funding funneled into early childhood education after the pandemic, the field (and those who work in it) still struggles. Early childhood educators earn, on average, $13 an hour, a wage that puts them in the bottom 3 percent of workers nationally, despite the important work they do to “develop our children's brains.” , as one researcher put it. We examined that and other findings from a recent report.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Kindergarten readiness has been declining for years, alarming teachers, school leaders and child development experts. Looking ahead to the new school year, we asked several educators and researchers: What skills are most important for a child's success when they start kindergarten? Their responses were surprisingly consistent: ABCs and 1-2-3 are good to have, but social-emotional skills are non-negotiable.
