This position paper identifies the complexity of the special education teacher (SET) shortage and the social injustices of the already marginalized population of students with disabilities (SWD). Nationally, policy reforms and teacher certification initiatives may have unknowingly perpetuated the shortage of SET in an attempt to increase the…

The 2021-2022 Study of Family and Staff Well-Being in Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) Programs (2021-2022 Study) arose out of a need to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of Head Start families and staff. The goal was to provide data on the characteristics and needs of families and staff after nearly two…

Background: Gaps between dual language learners (DLLs) and monolingual English-speaking children have been reported at kindergarten entry, and many DLL children are classified as long-term English learners, having less access to the general curriculum in the upper grades (NASEM, 2017). The supposed underperformance of DLLs might be due to the…

Research has shown follow-up to be an important component for professional development (PD) to result in teacher behavior change. However, PD rarely includes follow-up support. This pilot study used multiple methods to determine the feasibility of Head Start (HS) directors providing teachers PD follow-up support. Two aspects of feasibility were…

This qualitative study investigated the persistent K-5 opportunity gap faced by Black males from low socioeconomic backgrounds in achieving literacy proficiency. Despite efforts to address literacy rates, Black males continue to experience significant disparities, hindering their academic success. The research aimed to evaluate systems and…

Like the depiction of plagues in apocalyptic science fiction, neoliberalism continues to infect education at all levels. This infection causes educators to care not for the children, but to embrace the figure of the Child. Reproductive futurism, in the imagined redemptive figure of the Child has been regulating the structure of education not for…

Health care professional's qualifications earned in one country may not be recognised in another country and will require validation. The aim of the study was to investigate the experiences of immigrant healthcare professionals seeking the recognition of their education credentials in Finland. Altogether 11 professionals applying to a programme to…

Head Start is a two-generation program that supports children and families with low incomes through comprehensive child development and family support services. Family services include providing families with direct services and supports (e.g., free meals, screenings and assessments, parenting programs) and connecting them to needed resources in…

Nationwide, a range of factors, including the rollback of campus diversity programs and affirmative action admissions, barriers to students accessing basic needs support, and ongoing gaps in Title IX protections, present opportunities for policymakers to ensure all students can thrive in postsecondary educational settings. Promoting educational…

California made a historic commitment to early childhood education in 2021 by providing universal prekindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year-olds by 2025-26 and expanding access for income-eligible 3-year-olds. California's UPK initiative includes multiple early learning programs, including transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool…

Early intervention services are an important federally funded program for families with children under three years of age who may be diagnosed with or are at risk of developmental delay or disability. The program's impacts can be profound: Early intervention helps strengthen cognitive, motor, and language skills; reduces the likelihood of…

Challenges in collecting comprehensive health surveillance data on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are numerous. A number of important issues and strategies are discussed in the articles contained in this special issue of "Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities." In this article, we focus on the…

The 13th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation's (QRMC)'s Presidential charter directed the QRMC to "survey the usage of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, as well as any other supplemental sources of income or support you deem significant, by military members on active service and their families, and consider…

Decades of research suggest that both Head Start and public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs boost low-income preschoolers' kindergarten skills. What is not yet well understood is whether there are relative advantages of transitioning from Head Start after 1 year into a school-based public pre-k program for the year immediately before…

Preschoolers can learn vocabulary from educational videos, but children from low-income backgrounds often do not learn as effectively as their higher income peers. We investigated whether adding attention-directing cues to media (Study 1) and slowing the pacing of media (Study 2) supported vocabulary learning for preschoolers from low-income…