Author: Nelson Rosario

A child is sitting with a book open in front of them in a fourth-grade classroom in Ohio, Georgia, or Idaho. For the third time, they are having trouble with the same sentence. The teacher might not know why. There may or may not be a way for their school to find out. But states all over the country are slowly but surely putting together that system. This is happening faster than most people think. The real question is whether it stays together. It went from 22 states to 42 states between 2013 and 2017 that had laws specifically designed…

The new report from the World Bank on Nigeria has a part that stops you in your tracks. About 65% of kids in the Southwest of the United States can write a simple word. When you go north, to the Northwest, that number drops to 10%. The same country. The same age group. A 55-point gap that has nothing to do with how smart a child is and everything to do with where they were born. The report, which was made by the World Bank’s Education Global Department and Living Standards Measurement Study, is the first long-term look at how…

Some policies seem to protect people on the outside, but they actually hurt people on the inside. People who care about children often make big decisions for them without fully considering what those kids will need when they leave school and enter a world that adults can barely keep up with. This happens a lot in education debates. This is exactly what’s happening with the wave of anti-AI feelings that are spreading through some state school systems right now. It seems careful. That’s what it reads as. But the more you think about it, the more you can’t help but…

The fact that most people scroll past this number without stopping is quietly upsetting. A new study from the Center for American Progress says that just under half of the country’s young children still live in what the researchers call “child care deserts.” These are places where licensed child care is either not available or so scarce that it might as well be. Half. When you really let that number land, it tends to stay with you. OMEP, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, has been sounding the alarm about this for years. They see early childhood education and…

Teachers spend the first few weeks of each school year trying to figure out where their students are instead of where the lesson plan says they should be. This is an old problem that has been around for a long time, before algorithms were invented. But slowly and without much fuss in most staff rooms, that gap is beginning to get a lot more interesting to close. This week at the ISTE education technology conference, Google announced more than 30 AI-powered tools that will be used in classrooms. These include tools that help teachers plan lessons and make personalized study…

A certain point comes up at most regional conferences when the schedule moves smoothly, the presentations are well received, and everyone applauds at the right times. The Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly, which was held under the World Organization for Early Childhood Education (OMEP), was set up in a way that makes sense for this kind of event. The beat changed when OMEP Aotearoa spoke. It was not a confrontation. That needs to be said clearly. But there was an edge to it, a sense of purposeful discomfort that the New Zealanders brought to the table. OMEP has always seen early childhood…

If you drive by enough strip malls in the suburbs of America, you’ll start to notice the same things: signs in bright colors, names that sound like they were inspired by nature or are meant to sound academic. Sunshine School. Point of Discovery. Care Group for Learning. There is a growing network of franchise childcare companies that are quietly taking over what used to be one of the most community-based industries in American life. Many of them look like small businesses, but they are actually part of something much bigger. This isn’t a sudden change. It’s been getting worse for…

In the background of American family life for decades, something has been slowly falling apart. It’s not on the front page every week, but it’s always there—in pediatricians’ offices, in reports on school readiness, and in the tired conversations parents have in the pickup line. It’s not just expensive to care for kids in the United States. An increasing number of pediatric researchers say it might not even be made for kids. When people talk about the crisis, they usually talk about money. And those numbers are really scary. In 2023, the average monthly cost of full-time infant care at…

Being in a room where people aren’t just talking about change but also trying to make it happen has a certain energy. Recently, California State University, Northridge hosted a national event with educators, tech leaders, philanthropists, and students to officially launch an initiative that brings together artificial intelligence, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship. This initiative is aimed directly at Hispanic-Serving Institution students. The timing wasn’t a mistake. Newsom, who is the First Partner of California, came to CSUN’s campus for the event, which marked the end of Financial Literacy Month. She joined a fireside chat with CSUN President Dr. Erika D.…

Five-year-olds are learning what a bank account is in a classroom in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Yes, but not in a vague, crayon-drawing way. In a planned, lesson-based way that treats the idea of saving like something a child can really understand, which it turns out they can. Innovation Preparatory Academy is a charter school in Pasco County that serves kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. It’s not necessary to wait until high school to learn about money. It begins very early on; most kids have learned about money as part of their daily lessons before they even lose their first…