"The State of Preschool 2017" is the 15th edition of the National Institute for Early Education Research's (NIEER) annual report tracking state-funded preschool access, resources, and quality. Since 2002, many states have made progress, a few have fallen behind, and a handful have emerged as leaders. As a result, disparities in access to…

In this study, the merit of using deliberative democratic evaluations is studied in light of ten questions asked by House and Howe, which defined the approach and raise issues of interests, representation, and choice of stakeholders, power balances and procedures for controlling them, participation, reflection and deliberation. Suggestions by…

Over the past decade states have surpassed the federal Head Start program as the primary public funder of preschool slots. This paper investigates trends in Head Start enrollment in the context of increased state investment in early childhood. Using national, longitudinal data I find no evidence Head Start programs in states with expanding state…

This qualitative phenomenological case study explored the lived experiences of a purposive sample of 20 current and past early education teachers who have experience in assessing children through observational assessment. The purpose of this study was to determine if bias affects the documentation of observational assessment and the implementation…

Publicly supported, high-quality preschool education is among the most successful and well-documented of education reforms. There is near-universal agreement that high-quality preschool programs more than pay for themselves in economic and social benefits. Program quality is absolutely critical. While no one factor can be considered determinative,…

Preschool education is increasingly being recognized as an integral part of efforts to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn and as a way to help close the achievement gaps that exist at the time children enter kindergarten. Such efforts are growing across the country. According to the most recent data, 54 different preschool…

The validity of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) was examined in a preschool community sample (N = 925) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Factorial invariance across genders was also investigated as was concurrent and discriminant validity. Indicators of validity were teacher-rated social competence, problem behavior, and…

Child assessment practices in English and Korean preschools were compared by analysing data from interviews with educators, examples of child assessment, and official documents from each country. Child assessment in England was systematically implemented and characterised by several methodological and procedural strengths, whereas assessment in…

Early childhood educators play a critical role in preparing students for success later in their school experience. The instructional techniques, emotional supports, and assessment approaches for early childhood settings are different from classroom settings in later grades. How can states and districts develop evaluation systems that are tuned to…

The Kansas Kindergarten Readiness Project was a three-year study to determine the skills children possess when entering kindergarten and the results of kindergarten teacher practices on further learning. Children who entered kindergarten with higher skills maintained that advantage over other children into 3rd grade. Certain teacher practices,…

The authors discuss the 19 individual studies included in chapter 4 (shared story reading interventions) of the report of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) and offer more nuanced conclusions than the report's authors do. They also emphasize the need for more comprehensive approaches to shared story reading in preschool than those found in…

The importance of home-school relationships between parents and practitioners in early childhood settings is widely accepted. This article discusses the effects of the level of involvement and the nature of practitioner-parent relationships in early years settings in England on the basis of a two part study that examined parents' experience of…

This article describes the geographical, religious, economical, cultural, and educational contexts as they not only influence the status of Saudi preschool teachers but also have shaped early childhood teaching career. It aims to capture and present teachers' subjective experiences as members of the profession through semi-structured interviews to…

"The State of Preschool 2016" is the latest edition of our annual yearbook report profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States. NIEER's [National Institute for Early Education Research's] "State Preschool Yearbook" is the only national report on state-funded preschool programs with detailed information…

People have always valued and appreciated creativity, and art is a medium for expressing one's individuality and creativity. Creativity can be reflected in the products a person makes. For young children though, creativity is a road of trial and errors; it's a process. Adults nurture or inhibit children's creativity in their design of the physical…