Research Connections’ librarians have curated this page to include publications that may be of particular interest to child care and early education policymakers, professionals supporting the workforce, and researchers. The publications were selected because they align with federal priorities, seasonal priorities, current events, or national interest. Many of the highlighted publications have been featured in Research Connections newsletters.
Could strong positive relationships between students and teachers help mediate expulsion risks? This study examines the relationship between preschool children’s inhibitory control and their risk of expulsion. Findings indicate that better inhibitory control is associated with a lower risk of…
This review covers more than 40 studies on professional development approaches for managing classrooms and providing behavioral support skills. Findings show most studies focus on educators from Head Start and public preschools. Professional development approaches included strategies for…
Could participation in high-quality ECE equip children who are at risk for educational failure with skills on par with their more advantaged peers? This study examines children randomly assigned as infants to participate in an enhanced Early Head Start–Head Start program. The study finds…
In this report we share the results of case studies of four SOELs. To set the stage for the case studies, we highlight, in Section 1, the prior research that contributed to our conceptual framework. In Section 2 we describe our methodology. We then provide the individual case studies for each of…
This program evaluation study describes 3 years of implementation of Arkansas’s BehaviorHelp (BH) system, a statewide expulsion prevention support system for early care and education (ECE). BH coordinates three tiers of supports to ECE professionals, including phone support, on-site technical…
This program evaluation study looks at Arkansas’s BehaviorHelp system, a statewide effort designed to reduce the suspension and expulsion of young children by offering support to early childhood education professionals who face challenging behaviors in the classroom. The analysis discusses…
Despite substantial federal, state, and local investments in improving early care and education (ECE), we know little about whether ECE program quality has improved over time. The lack of data tracking the quality of publicly funded ECE programs at scale creates a substantial evidence gap for…
As part of its Partnership for Pre-K Improvement (PPI) initiative, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored the RAND Corporation to study the cost of high-quality pre-K programming. The RAND study included three states — Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington — that were partnering with the…
This article explores teacher turnover in early care and education (ECE) settings. It uses data collected by the state of Louisiana as part of its quality rating and improvement system (QRIS). The data help answer questions about whether teachers who leave differ significantly from teachers who…
This report uses data from center-based providers to look at the relationship between price of child care and quality of care. The report finds that some indicators of quality, such as professional development participation and education levels among staff, are associated with higher cost of…
This publicly available journal article looks to the Great Recession (2007-2009) for information about the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The article examines the enrollment rates of Head Start programs during the Great Recession and shows that higher rates of enrollment…
This report looks at the effectiveness of voluntary summer learning programs in five school districts across the United States. The study examines whether participation in summer learning impacts student achievement the following fall.
This brief provides an overview of the changes in infant/toddler care from 2012 to 2019 and discusses the policy and research implications of those changes. While parental care remains the most prevalent care option for infants and toddlers, the data show a trend toward increased center-based…