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On a sunny afternoon in April, I sat on a bench at New York’s City Hall, waiting to interview Mayor Bill de Blasio. He breezed by in shirtsleeves, surrounded by grim-looking advisers. The mayor, too, was frowning. That morning’s papers carried the news that de Blasio’s fundraising activities were being investigated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, and a state commission on public ethics. The mayor’s new initiative to combat homelessness was being...

One city’s attempt to professionalize early education could be a model for the nation. “We believe that preschool is an integral part of the public school system and public school should be universally available because every child can benefit from it,” said Josh Wallack, Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education. “Therefore, preschool should be universal.” The changes have come with new money and support to ensure that the city is not only offering preschool to all, but...

The people paid to watch America's children tend to live in poverty. Nearly half receive some kind of government assistance: food stamps, welfare checks, Medicaid. Their median hourly wage is $9.77 — about $3 below the average janitor's. In a new report , researchers at UC Berkeley say that child care is too vital to the country's future to offer such meager wages. Those tasked with supporting kids, they say, are shaping much of tomorrow's workforce. "Economic insecurity, linked to low...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/business/economy/child-care-expansion-takes-a-toll-on-poorly-paid-workers.html?emc=edit_th_20160713&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=56829562 Why is there a disconnect between the amount of love and care these workers give to children and what they get in return?

How the U.S. became one of the worst countries in the developed world for kids under 5 . Research has shown that unrelenting stress at a young age, known as toxic stress, causes long-lasting brain damage . The worse the damage, the harder it is for children to pay attention, absorb new information, or trust adults—all skills critical for success in school—as they get older. In fact, the fate of all children is largely determined by their first years on this planet. Forming healthy...

Research has shown that unrelenting stress at a young age, known as toxic stress, causes long-lasting brain damage . The worse the damage, the harder it is for children to pay attention, absorb new information or trust adults — all skills critical for success in school — as they get older. The U.S. has even provided universal public preschool before , for a few years during World War II. That program ended in 1946. Since then, a growing body of research has demonstrated the value of...

In the fall of 1979, Yalda Modabber had just moved from Iran back to her birthplace in Boston. Her timing was bad: Just weeks later later, a group of armed Iranians took more than 60 U.S. citizens hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. As a result, her fellow students bullied her ruthlessly. Golestan Education's Yalda Modabber “It was nonstop for two years,” says Modabber, who has dark curly black hair and a warm smile. “That period in my life was so hard that I blocked it out. I don’t even...

In the fall of 1979, Yalda Modabber had just moved from Iran back to her birthplace in Boston. Her timing was bad: Just weeks later later, a group of armed Iranians took more than 60 U.S. citizens hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. As a result, her fellow students bullied her ruthlessly. “It was nonstop for two years,” says Modabber, who has dark curly black hair and a warm smile. “That period in my life was so hard that I blocked it out. I don’t even remember my teachers’ names. The...

By the time a low-income child enters kindergarten in America, they’re already woefully lagging their more advantaged peers — 11 months behind in math and 13 months behind in reading, according to a recent report from the Center for American Progress. (Chart: Center for American Progress) The figure at left, from the CAP report—“How Much Can High-Quality Universal Pre-K Reduce Achievement Gaps?”—illustrates the gulf between both low- and high-income children and minority and white children.

In the past several decades, advances in brain science have suggested that the learning that occurs in the first few years of a child’s life lays the groundwork for a productive adulthood. The expansion of preschool is one of the few topics where both Republicans and Democrats in Congress find common ground; while lawmakers don’t always agree on how programs should be funded or structured, the belief that good early-childhood education can help prevent later gaps in test scores and...

Efforts in California and other states to raise the quality of child care and preschool programs are being undermined by the low wages that workers earn in jobs that now require more skills and education, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education released Tuesday. In California, preschool teachers were paid an average salary of $31,720 in 2015, about half of what California kindergarten teachers earned that year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report said.

[Photo Credit: Karsten Moran for The New York Times] The New York Times published an op-ed piece yesterday on investing in early childhood that is worth the read: The biggest obstacles and greatest inequality often have roots early in life: If we want to get more kids in universities, we should invest in preschools. Actually, preschool may be a bit late. Brain research in the last dozen years underscores that the time of life that may shape adult outcomes the most is pregnancy through age 2...