Out-of-School Experiences
Early Childhood Education



  Research Tells Us...

Lack of access to a variety of early supports and experiences cause children living in low-income households to arrive at kindergarten far behind their wealthier peers across a variety of cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains that are foundational for ensuring success in school and life and that research finds are hard to close.


  However...

Yet our current system responds to this reality by hoping that kindergarten and early elementary teachers can close the gaps and enacting evaluation systems that hold them largely responsible when that fails.



We Need a Broader, Bolder Approach

A Broader, Bolder Approach ensures that every student arrives at kindergarten with the benefit of high-quality early learning and necessary health, wellness, and family support services from birth through a combination of universal and targeted supports for young children and their families.
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Resources

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EPI paper and factsheets on national investment in ECE

It’s time for an ambitious national investment in America’s children: Investments in early childhood care and education would have enormous benefits for children, families, society, and the economy                   By Josh Bivens, Emma García, …


Featured

BBA blog posts on ECE investments

These BBA blog posts offer a range of perspectives on the importance of ECE investments: Educare: A Model for Early Childhood Policymaking, by Karen Howard of First Focus and Elaine Weiss demonstrates how a high-quality, …


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BBA case studies

The BBA case studies highlight the diverse approaches that communities have taken to ensuring that all children begin school with the benefit of quality early care and education.


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The State of Preschool

The National Institute for Early Education Research has produced The State of Preschool, a report card on state pre-k programs through 2014, enabling you to compare your state’s investments in its young children to …


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Film "Ready for Kindergarten" on the need for public investments in early childhood care and education

In conjunction with Nebraska Loves Public Schools, an initiative of the Sherwood Foundation, BBA has hosted a series of screenings of the film Ready for Kindergarten, which illustrates both the evidence regarding the …


Featured

Building High-Quality Early Support Systems for Children and families

This state policy guide, produced jointly by BBA and the Schott Foundation’s Opportunity to Learn campaign, provides state and local policy leaders with guidance on Building High-Quality Early Support Systems for Children and families.





An In-Depth Look at a Broader, Bolder Approach to Early Childhood Education

Children living in poverty arrive at kindergarten already far behind their wealthier peers across a variety of cognitive, language, and social-emotional domains that are foundational for ensuring success in school and life. Research finds that these gaps are very hard to close, and that some key foundations for learning have likely already been poorly established. Yet our current system responds to this reality by hoping that kindergarten and early elementary teachers can close the gaps and enacting evaluation systems that hold them largely responsible when that fails. While we have seen increasing understanding by policymakers of the importance of children’s earliest years, and a corresponding increase in public investment in prekindergarten programs, those programs lack funding to provide robust access, program quality varies widely, and pre-k is not aligned with the K-12 system to ensure continuity and alignment with the early primary grades..

Policy solution: A Broader, Bolder Approach ensures that every student arrives at kindergarten with the benefit of high-quality early learning and necessary health, wellness, and family support services from birth. BBA promotes a combination of universal and targeted supports that provide equitable opportunities for young children and their families. Such supports begin by ensuring low-income parents the same opportunity to adjust to and bond with their new baby as wealthier parents enjoy through paid parental leave, which is already a legal right in virtually every other country in the world. Broader, Bolder policies help all parents acquire the information and support to be their children’s first and most important teachers through expansion of home visitation programs, and other policies that promote early childhood health and strong families. And, by building on the success of federal, state and local efforts, BBA calls for adequately financing state early learning systems to enhance both access and quality. This will help parents go to work secure in the knowledge that their children’s early care and education is safe, nurturing, and preparing them well for school and life.

Fundamentally improving education means making certain that the education system is linked to a well-financed, comprehensive birth-to-five system. Combining federal and state standards and resources with state and local flexibility, and close collaboration among a range of public and private institutions, helps leverage the unique assets of and to meet the unique needs of each community.





Additional Resources

BBA Early Childhood Policy Statement

The Broader, Bolder Approach to Early Childhood Policy Statement provides a 10-year blueprint for transforming federal, state, and local policy to ensure that all families and caregivers have the resources they need to establish the …


Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S. Children Out on Unequal Footing

This paper, authored jointly with EPI education economist Emma Garcia, documents how Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S. Children Out on Unequal Footing and, thus, the need for a Broader, …






BBA Policy Areas


Out-of-School Experiences

Establishing an even educational playing field so that all children enter kindergarten prepared to learn and thrive requires supports for children, their parents, and their caregivers from birth. And ensuring equal opportunities to learn requires support for children’s physical and mental health. A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education advances enriching experiences with nurturing, knowledgeable adults throughout the day and all year, in order to promote children’s strong cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral development.


Topics

Early Childhood Education

Afterschool and Summer Activities

Physical and Mental Health

Nutrition


In-School Experiences

Schools and educators serving students with higher needs need the resources to do so effectively. A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education advances policies that establish strong standards and curriculum in all schools and ensure sufficient funding for high-needs schools to reach them. BBA promotes supports-based accountability systems focused on improving instruction and strategies to desegregate schools and deconcentrate poverty within them, so that educators and students have a strong context in which to teach and learn.


Topics

Equitable Funding

Holistic, Supports-Based Accountability Systems

Teacher and Principal Quality

Accountability for Charter Schools


School-Community Connections

Effective, sustainable school improvement efforts merge research-based evidence of effective ways to mitigate the impacts of poverty with community input regarding the district’s unique assets and needs. A Broader, Bolder Approach highlights the need for key community voices – including educators, parents, students, and faith and business leaders – to be at the center of developing and implementing education reforms.


Topics

Addressing Race, Segregation, and Concentrated Poverty

Using Community Input to Inform School Improvement