In 2021-2022, Head Start served nearly 790,000 young children, primarily from low-income families. However, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) estimates that far more children are eligible than can be served due to limited resources, heightening the importance of targeting services effectively. House Report 117-96 includes a…

The annual National Deafblind Child Count is the world's first and longest-running count of children who are deafblind. Begun in 1986 on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, it represents a collaborative effort between the National Center on Deafblindness (NCDB) and state deafblind projects throughout the country, including those in the…

The Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) was an exciting and innovative change under the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V). The CLNA was identified to support data-driven decision-making and more closely align planning, spending and accountability activities under Perkins V. After the…

The annual National Deaf-Blind Child Count is the world's first and longest-running count of children who are deaf-blind. Begun in 1986 on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, it represents a collaborative effort between the National Center on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) and state deaf-blind projects throughout the country, including those in the…

As the early education coordinator for Prince George's County Public Schools, Judith P. Hoyer recognized the gaps in available services for low-income families. In the 1990s, she created a central location in Adelphi, Maryland, for early childhood services, thus fostering cooperation of governmental and private agencies around the needs of local…

The most recent version of the Build Back Better (BBB) Act includes historic investments in child care and preschool totaling $390 billion. These investments create a child care entitlement for most children from birth through age five and universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds, which would provide significant increases to access…

The Build Back Better Act (BBB) will provide significant transformative funding to support the fragile child care and pre-kindergarten (pre-K) sectors and more equitably serve America's children, families, and child care workers. In Understanding the Child Care and Pre-K Provisions in the Build Back Better Act, the Center for Law and Social Policy…

The coronavirus pandemic is acutely affecting the delivery of K-12 education. As of March 19, 2020, 44 states had closed 104,000 schools, affecting nearly 48 million students, turning millions of families into accidental homeschoolers. This homeschooling trial by fire for families across the United States has hastened the need for district, state,…

The COVID-19 crisis has made delivering early intervention services much more challenging and could exacerbate racial inequities in health and education. But we can only fix what we can measure--so it is vital that states collect and report better data. A survey of state coordinators of early intervention services in fall 2020 focused on Black and…

Just as schools are working to appropriately address K-12 students' unfinished learning caused by the pandemic, early intervention systems are focusing on addressing the missed opportunities the pandemic created for young children and their families. Young children missing these opportunities for early intervention services are potentially at…

The 2020 General Assembly adjourned its regular session by providing over $390 million in additional general fund support for Virginia higher education institutions in the 2020-22 biennium. However, in March, the nation experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to address the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on state revenues, Governor…

The Postsecondary Pathways for Former Foster Care Youth (PP-FFCY) study is a research project that focuses on the transitions of foster care alumni to and through postsecondary institutions. Through the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL), the PP-FFCY project team is conducting a comprehensive needs assessment report that:…

The "State of Preschool 2022" annual report covers the 2021-2022 school year and is NIEER's 20th report tracking preschool enrollment, funding, and policies state-by-state. This report focuses on the recovery since the 2020-2021 school year, where we are compared to before the pandemic, where we've come over the last two decades, and…

This manual was designed primarily for use by people with disabilities. The hope is that it is also useful for families, as well as service coordinators and providers who directly assist families and individuals with disabilities. The focus of this manual is to provide easy-to-read information about available resources, and to provide immediate…

This guidance is designed as a companion resource to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction's (OSPI's) "Continuous Learning 2020" (ED606046) publication, issued April 2020, which states: "Continuous learning" means establishing and maintaining connections with students and families to provide learning materials and…