A daycare instructor named Gabby Perez engages with young children in a sandbox outside the Turquoise Child Development Center in the tiny city of Tucumcari, which is located in the high desert of eastern New Mexico. On the surface, it appears to be a typical scene with kids, sand, and afternoon light, but the rest of the US is more closely observing this policy experiment than it may acknowledge. New Mexico quietly became the first state in America to provide free childcare to all families, regardless of income, despite previously ranking among the worst in the nation for child poverty…
Author: Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers
Kelsey Myers is a Senior Editor at worldomep.org and a dedicated advocate for early childhood education whose work begins — and ends — with a simple belief: that the earliest years of a child's life matter more than almost anything else we can invest in. Based at a local school, Kelsey works daily alongside the children and families whose experiences inform everything she writes. She doesn't observe early education from a distance. She is inside it — in the classrooms, on the playgrounds, in the conversations between teachers and parents that shape how young children understand the world around them. That proximity gives her writing a warmth and specificity that purely policy-driven commentary rarely achieves. Through her writing at worldomep.org, Kelsey brings that same energy to readers — making the case, clearly and consistently, that early childhood education deserves far more attention than it typically receives. Kelsey shares her personal opinions on: https://x.com/Butterflyboule
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It wasn’t a landslide vote. At the 77th OMEP World Assembly and Conference, which took place in Bologna, Italy, in the summer of 2025 under the theme of arts and culture in early childhood education, representatives from national committees from fifty different countries convened and elected a new World President by a vote of 32 to 24. Early childhood pedagogy expert and university professor Adrijana Višnjić Jevtić emerged victorious. The president of OMEP France and current OMEP representative to UNESCO, Gilles Pétreault, did not. Contrary to what the organization’s public statement might imply, the outcome was closer, and in organizations…
Fingerprints from a research center on Dublin City University’s Glasnevin campus, which most people are unaware of, can be found somewhere in the policy documents that determine how Ireland invests in its youngest children. The Early Childhood Research Centre, or ECRC, is not a news story. It works in the slow, unglamorous manner that real systemic change typically necessitates, publishes findings, and serves on advisory panels. However, despite the modest language of academic outputs, it has a greater impact on Ireland’s early childhood education policies and spending. There is a particular significance to the OMEP award’s recognition of that work.…
When Hamza Nasir left his exam room in Lahore on the morning of the AS Level Mathematics exam, he was surrounded by angry and laughing students. Both groups were aware of exactly what was on the paper, which is something that ideally no one should have known before taking an exam.It’s difficult to ignore the gravity of that scene: a hallway filled with teenagers, some reveling in an unfair advantage, others silently speculating about what this would mean for their futures. From the ground, the Cambridge International Education paper leak crisis appears as follows. Not in a statement made in…
A certain type of resilience is difficult to capture on camera. It doesn’t appear to be a slow-motion walk-off celebration or a highlight reel moment. It resembles wearing the same uniform, showing up to the same diamond a few hours after a crushing loss, and choosing to play an entirely different game. That’s what Duke women’s softball accomplished over the weekend of May 16 at the NCAA Durham Regional, and it’s the kind of thing that tends to define a program’s character more than any trophy. A less composed team would have been discouraged by the Blue Devils’ run-rule loss…
Being informed that you are eligible for something and then having to wait month after month for it to actually happen can cause a certain kind of frustration. Ask any of the approximately 5,300 borrowers who were granted preliminary approval for student loan discharge back in March. Since then, they have watched their loan servicer dashboards for weeks, waiting for a balance that will not go down to zero. In a court-mandated status report submitted last Wednesday, the Education Department verified that discharges from the March batch were not processed at all in April due to issues with data validation,…
According to his father, Lewis Waters was gregarious and humorous. The kind of eighteen-year-old who took care of his friends, loved his sisters, and gave everyone around him hope that everything would be alright. He went to The Henley College in Oxfordshire, a sixth form that draws pupils from about 100 schools in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. It’s the kind of place that hums with the unique energy of young people who are almost adults but not quite, and who firmly believe they are unbeatable. Lewis Waters experienced sepsis within hours of becoming ill. According to his family, the ICU…
A school organizing a summer social with activities like face painting, tug of war, and bouncy castles while also getting ready for the possibility that it won’t happen in the fall is incredibly unsettling. That is the exact paradox that currently exists at the core of St. Joseph’s College in Reading. The invitations were sent out. It is likely that the sausages were ordered. And a 130-year-old institution subtly hinted that it might be finished somewhere between those happy Instagram posts and a very different kind of letter sent home to parents. The Board of Governors sent the letter, which…
The pitch for college basketball’s most ambitious early-season event is being made somewhere in a conference room, most likely with a large screen and good coffee. There are eight programs. Play pool. Chicago, New York, and possibly other places are neutral. Money that most athletic directors can’t help but smile about. Either the Diamond Cup will change college basketball’s November landscape, or it will quietly vanish into the heap of audacious concepts that failed to make it through contract negotiations. It’s really difficult to say which right now. The names associated with this proposal are obviously serious. Together, Arizona, Connecticut,…
On a Tuesday morning, you might see a laminated certificate with the words “Outstanding” in bold next to the entrance of a primary school. The certificate is slightly sun-faded. Parents read it slowly. Some people take pictures. It may seem insignificant, but it conveys a lot about the importance of a single Ofsted rating in England and the pressure that surrounds it in staff rooms and headteachers’ offices, where people are secretly fearing the next inspection. The school inspection system in England recently underwent its biggest redesign in a long time. Ofsted no longer assigns a single overall effectiveness grade…