Margaret Soli

The landscape of both PreK and kindergarten has shifted over the past 20 years. The transition to kindergarten has become increasingly important, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has affected enrollment patterns. How can elementary schools, early care and education (ECE) programs, state agencies, and systems best support transitions in this new context? This brief provides […]

Across the nation, young students, pre-school through 3rd grade, are experiencing transitions in their learning contexts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “School” may be in-person, at-home, on-line, or a hybrid of these arrangements. The school year likely began in one format and has shifted, once or multiple times, since then.  School districts, elementary schools, and their early care

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) just released a document, Restart and Recovery – Considerations for Teaching and Learning: PreK to 3rd Grade. This resource guide is intended for state and school system leaders to use as they implement reopening plans for young students during the 2020-21 school year. The changing circumstances of the pandemic

“More than half of the 74 million children in the United States are children of color, and they are served by learning systems that are gravely inequitable.”  The Children’s Equity Project and the Bipartisan Policy Center just released a report, Start With Equity, that focuses on learning experiences in the early years, birth through age five,

As states and school districts navigate plans for Fall 2020, we are hosting a series of conversations with education decisionmakers in state education agencies (SEAs) and school districts. We believe better and smarter ideas emerge when colleagues have the space for open discussion and deliberation.  The link below will take you to a summary of

What types of PreK-3rd grade alignment efforts are school districts making? What challenges are they encountering? In what ways does state policy facilitate or hinder alignment efforts?   A new study by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) examined these questions. The authors interviewed representatives from 25 districts that have preschools on one or more