Sing Play Learn with MacPhail® Online Early Childhood Music Partnerships strives to increase access to high quality music education for early childhood students in greater Minnesota. The program is designed so that student participants benefit developmentally with gains in executive functioning, social-emotional skills, foundation in musical…

Creative thinking is valuable and necessary in society today and in the development of solutions to environmental issues. Fostering creative thinking skills and environmental values should begin early in life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence that a nature preschool experience has on the development of creative thinking…

In March 2022, Child Trends contracted with the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to conduct an independent evaluation of Parent Aware, Minnesota's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for early care and education (ECE) programs. The evaluation was passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 2021 and includes several…

Increasing demands of accountability and academic readiness across U.S. preschools are often accompanied by decreased play and time outdoors during the school day. The nature preschool movement, grounded in a desire to foster connection to the natural world while also supporting important developmental processes and school readiness, counteracts…

There are a variety of services and supports in Minnesota for children and youth with autism who are age 0-21. These include services and supports provided by state agencies, including the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Minnesota Department of Education, Minnesota Department of Health, and the Minnesota Department of Employment and…

Minnesota's vision for its Race to the Top -- Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) work was based in years of research showing the impact of high quality early childhood programs on children's school readiness and success in life. Minnesota's State plan was to increase access to high quality early learning development programs for children across…

Montessori Partners Serving All Children is endorsed in terms of economic development as a statistically proven return for the money, leadership, parent education, institutional partners, and a sense of community in preparing teachers to serve families with a hub of resources through Montessori Center of Minnesota. Assessment is also integral to…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program, authorized by Congress in 2011, is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development programs for children from birth through age 5. This discretionary grant program is administered jointly by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2015 describes Minnesota's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies Minnesota will implement to address those challenges. Minnesota's remarkable progress in increasing participation in their tiered quality rating and improvement…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2014 describes Minnesota's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies Minnesota will implement to address those challenges. Minnesota has made great strides in year three of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant to…

This study uses geocoded address data and information about parents' economic behavior and children's development from four random-assignment welfare and anti-poverty experiments conducted during the 1990s. We find that the impacts of these welfare and anti-poverty programs on boys' and girls' developmental outcomes during the transition to early…

Care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs) have advanced and matured, a number of states and localities have undertaken evaluations to validate the systems. Such efforts stem from the desire to ensure that the system is designed and operating in the ways envisioned when the system was established. Given that a central component in a QRIS…

This report presents findings from the two-year Minnesota Family Literacy and School Readiness study. It provides information on the impacts of participating Family Literacy programs and on the first and second cohorts of children (and their families) enrolled in these programs. The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation provided the Amherst H.…

Project Early Kindergarten-Early Reading First (PEK-ERF) is a partnership between Saint Paul Public Schools, Wilder Child Development Center, and Bethel University King Family Foundation Child Development Center. The program provides pre-kindergarten education to 3- and 4-year-olds in Saint Paul, and targets those who are low-income, English…

The goals of the early childhood business plan are to explain, inform, and guide public and private stakeholders and policymakers and the general public about the investments and activities required for all children to have opportunities for school success. The business plan presented in this report has two parts, an asset review and an action…