In 2024, EdSurge published several dozen stories about early care and education, up from just a handful when we first began covering the early years five years ago.
Conditions of the field continue to be extremely challenging, with crisis-centered headlines filling our digital pages just as they do in other news outlets. But as the pandemic continues to recede into the past — and with it, the historic funding that followed — many of our stories in 2024 looked at programs and people offering a path forward for the field.
Our coverage last year also sought to break down the arbitrary barrier between early childhood and K-12 education. With stories on themes such as climate change education, social-emotional skills and kindergarten readiness, we underscored the continuity that exists from the early years into grade school.
Below, in descending order, are our 10 most popular early childhood education stories of 2024, based on website traffic. To see more of our coverage of the early years, click here.
10. Home Visiting Programs Aren’t Just for Families. They Can Support Child Care Providers Too.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
For decades, home visiting programs have supported families across the U.S., promoting positive parenting practices that foster a safe, nurturing environment for children. In recent years, a number of these programs have seen an opportunity to reach more children by adapting their services to meet the needs and priorities of home-based child care providers. We look at how these models work and talk to child care providers who have benefited from them.
9. How a New Approach to Early Childhood Could Avert a ‘Public Policy Catastrophe’
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A “public policy catastrophe” — that’s how author Dan Wuori describes the U.S. early childhood education system, in an interview about his new book, “The Daycare Myth.” Wuori, who has spent decades working in early childhood policy, believes that our current system is more costly to taxpayers and more harmful to children, families and early childhood educators than just about any “diabolical plan” someone could devise on their own. He lays out a better approach.
8. Why Early Childhood Teachers Require a Unique Approach to Tech Coaching
By Debbie Tannenbaum
“I have found that there are many ways to empower even the youngest students to get creative with digital tools,” writes Debbie Tannenbaum, a school-based technology coach, in an essay. But she says that starts with equipping their teachers with the confidence and skills they need to integrate tech into their classrooms. Tannenbaum shares what she’s learned about supporting early childhood educators in using technology with young learners.
7. With Kindergarten Readiness on the Decline, Some Districts Try New Interventions
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Across the country, elementary school teachers and leaders report that children are entering kindergarten worse off than their peers of the past. They have underdeveloped social-emotional and fine motor skills. Some are not yet able to use the restroom independently. Noting this worrying trend, some school districts have stepped in with their own solutions to support early learners as they prepare to start school. We take a close look at two of them.
6. Can AI Aid the Early Education Workforce?
By Emily Tate Sullivan
AI is seemingly everywhere now, but it’s rarely discussed in early care and education. During a panel at SXSW EDU in March, early education leaders dipped their toes into the conversation about this nascent technology, discussing some practical, intentional applications of AI for early childhood educators.
5. One State Rolled Out a Promising Child Care Model. Now Others Are Replicating It.
By Emily Tate Sullivan
In December 2023, EdSurge published an in-depth look at a new child care model in Michigan, called “Tri-Share,” that has garnered much attention. The program splits the cost of child care equally between an employer, an employee and the state. In this follow-up story, we look at two states and one county with adaptations underway, to see if Michigan’s success can be replicated elsewhere.
4. Are Preschools as Segregated as the Rest of American Life?
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Sociologist Casey Stockstill didn’t set out to write a book examining race and class divisions among 4-year-olds. But after spending two years observing and researching two seemingly similar, high-quality preschools in Madison, Wisconsin, the differences were too profound to ignore. We spoke with Stockstill about her new book “False Starts: The Segregated Lives of Preschoolers,” and how it has shaped her understanding of early education as a great equalizer.
3. At Least a Dozen States Are Considering Free Child Care for Early Educators
By Emily Tate Sullivan
A program that began in Kentucky as a novel idea to rebuild the early childhood workforce — and, in effect, buoy the broader labor market — quickly spread across the country. More than a dozen states are either considering or currently implementing policies that make early childhood educators eligible for free child care for their own kids. The solution is simple but effective — and garnering bipartisan support.
2. Despite Historic Funding, Early Childhood Educators Continue to Struggle, Report Finds
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Despite the historic funding funneled into early childhood education after the pandemic, the field — and those who work in it — still struggle. Early childhood educators earn, on average, $13 per hour, a wage that puts them in the bottom 3 percent of workers nationally, despite the important work they do to “build our children’s brains,” as one researcher put it. We examine that and other findings from a recent report.
1. To Be Ready for Kindergarten, Teachers and Researchers Say Social-Emotional Skills Are Key
By Emily Tate Sullivan
Kindergarten readiness has been on the decline for years, alarming teachers, school leaders and child development experts. Heading into a new school year, we asked a number of educators and researchers: Which skills are most important to a child’s success as they start kindergarten? Their answers were surprisingly consistent: ABCs and 1-2-3s are nice to have, but social-emotional skills are non-negotiable.
