President Barack Obama used his first State of the Union address since winning re-election to put education at the center of his broader strategy to bolster the nation's economic prospects. He is proposing to dramatically expand preschool access for low- and middle-income children and to create a new competitive program aimed at helping high…

Generally, boys and girls become more polarized through their first years in school. Now, researchers have started to explore how to span that sex divide and are finding that more-equitable coed classrooms can have social and academic benefits for boys and girls alike. While children of both sexes play together as toddlers, by the end of…

Administrators in the Chicago public schools are seeking to strike the right balance between providing guidance and permitting flexibility as they put in place the nation's first state mandate for providing bilingual education to preschoolers. New rules approved by the Illinois state board of education in June flesh out a January 2009 change that…

The author reports the proposed regulations in Illinois which would require that districts offer English-learners in preschool the same support as in K-12. Questions are being raised about the proposed regulations. The Illinois board of education is poised to adopt these regulations next month. Should the board do so, it is believed that Illinois…

With children's early years increasingly recognized as a critical time for learning, more policymakers see a four-year college degree as a necessity for teachers in preschool programs receiving state and federal money. Many state-financed preschool programs require teachers to have four-year degrees. As federal lawmakers debate renewing the Head…

Prekindergarten is becoming part of elementary school in the growing number of districts that treat the pre-K-3 years as a distinct learning period. Implementation of instructional connections is a primary goal behind a movement to make pre-K classrooms part of the regular life of elementary schools. Proponents of such efforts argue that children…

Prekindergarten children are being expelled from their classes for behavior problems at a higher rate than students in K-12 schools, a study released May 17 reveals. The study, which was conducted by Walter S. Gilliam, a psychologist and an associate research scientist at the Yale University Child Study Center, shows that for every 1,000…

Interest in foreign-language instruction in preschool is growing, both among parents and early-childhood educators trying to meet the demand. The interest, though, comes at a time when some districts are scaling back on such programs in the elementary grades in order to spend more time on reading and mathematics--the subjects currently tested to…