Author: Nelson Rosario

Once you hear a certain number, it sticks in your memory. For each child under five, the federal government spends about $2,500 annually on child care and early education. That is roughly 50% of the average for Europe. It is less than the investments made by 32 other developed countries. And it comes to a nation where families already pay about $15,000 a year for private full-time childcare, sometimes more, depending on the zip code and whether you’re fortunate enough to find a spot at all. No one in Washington seems eager to do the math aloud, even though it’s…

A woman with a bachelor’s degree, a classroom full of three-year-olds, and a salary that wouldn’t cover rent in most mid-sized cities are all examples of the kind of absurdity that lurks quietly inside the American educational system. She works as a Head Start instructor. The parking lot attendant across the street frequently earns more money for a job that doesn’t require a degree or any credentials other than a current driver’s license. For years, that comparison has been made in education circles, typically with a tone of weary disbelief. However, it endures because it is still true. In order…

There’s a particular kind of irony in walking through an early education technology expo and noticing that the most engaged children aren’t the ones tapping screens. They’re the ones scribbling with fat crayons on butcher paper, fingers smeared with paint, completely absorbed. The booths with the sleekest tablets draw crowds of adults. The messy corner with the paper and glue draws the kids. It’s possible that tells us more than any product demo ever could. The push to digitize early childhood classrooms has been relentless for over a decade. School districts across the United States and Europe, pressured by parents…

There is an odd development in Illinois education. The youngest children, the three and four-year-olds sitting cross-legged on alphabet rugs in underfunded classrooms, don’t seem to care that the state keeps writing larger checks for its schools and lawmakers keep discussing priorities. The National Institute for Early Education Research recently released a report that put it simply: despite an increase in overall education spending, Illinois’ efforts to increase preschool access have stagnated. It’s the kind of disconnect that, until you look at the numbers, seems unthinkable. With sincere aspirations, Governor JB Pritzker established Smart Start Illinois in 2023 with the…

In southeast Washington, D.C., there is a playground that has been a part of a Head Start center since the early 1970s. The chain-link fence surrounding the yard appears to be original, but the swings are more recent, having been replaced perhaps five years ago. One wall is covered in a faded mural of kids holding hands. Three and four-year-olds eat breakfast provided by the program while seated in tiny chairs inside. Since 1965, this scene has appeared in different forms about 40 million times. Last year, Head Start celebrated its 60th anniversary. Depending on who you ask, it was…

In Ypsilanti, Michigan, a classroom has been empty since the late 1960s. With its low ceilings, linoleum floors, and public school architecture that denotes modest aspirations, the building where the Perry Preschool Project formerly operated appears unremarkable. However, what transpired within those walls between 1962 and 1967 sparked a series of investigations that Nobel laureate James Heckman would later refer to as one of the most important discoveries in contemporary economics. Between seven and twelve dollars have been returned to society for every dollar spent on that small preschool program for underprivileged children ages three and four. Not emotionally. in…

In a lab at the University of Washington, infants sit inside a brain scanner that resembles a helmet and wave their arms while a researcher coos at them in that distinctive high-pitched voice that parents unconsciously adopt. The combination of state-of-the-art magnetoencephalography equipment and the erratic wriggling of a five-month-old seems almost comical. However, the information flowing from those sessions has begun to change how parents, educators, and legislators view the first few months of human communication. The study, which came from UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS, monitored the brain activity of infants in two straightforward…

Preschool classrooms in America are experiencing an odd phenomenon that began with a nation that most parents couldn’t locate on a map without squinting. Through progressive preschool programs in places like Portland, Austin, and Brooklyn, Finnish-style early education—which is based on prolonged unstructured play, minimal structured academics, and the radical idea that four-year-olds don’t need worksheets—has been quietly spreading. You’ll see the difference as soon as you walk into one of these classrooms. Kids are in the mud outside. The whiteboard does not have any alphabet drills. A teacher watches two children bargain over a wooden block while sitting cross-legged…

A statistic that doesn’t change has a subtly depressing quality. Georgia’s third-grade reading proficiency scores hardly changed for over twenty years. The Georgia Council on Literacy estimates that as recently as 2024, about 62% of the state’s third graders were not proficient readers. While lawmakers debated funding formulas and parents silently fretted, that number sat there year after year, unyielding and damning. This is the kind of figure that ought to have raised red flags much earlier. Then came Fulton County’s “Every Child Reads” program, which was based on the same science-of-reading framework that had already transformed classrooms in Mississippi,…

A picture of Mayor Zohran Mamdani crouching on a carpet in front of young children wearing matching uniforms and grinning like someone who has just gotten away with something huge has been making the rounds on social media since earlier this year. And he has, in certain respects. Unlike any other American city, New York City is attempting universal childcare from six weeks to age five. The program is expected to cost about $6 billion a year. The endorsements have been outstanding, and the press conferences have been enthusiastic. Barack Obama appeared. A jingle competition was judged by Cardi B.…