Show filters & search
-
A Brief History of Literacy Instruction in America

This post is the second in a series exploring literacy within education policy and practice. In the first blog, we introduced the major methods of teaching reading in the U.S. — phonics, whole language, balanced literacy, and sight word memorization. Here,…
-
How We Teach Literacy

This blog post is the first in a series exploring literacy within education policy and practice. Here, we introduce the major methods of teaching reading and the debates surrounding them. Understanding these approaches — what they are, how they work,…
-
Big Changes Ahead for Employer Child Care Tax Credits

Child care is no longer just a family issue. It is a workforce issue. Across the political spectrum, there is growing recognition that the lack of affordable, reliable care is holding back both parents and employers. In the U.S. mixed-delivery…
-
Head Start facing elimination after 60 years

Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe said this week he would consider using state surplus funds to keep Head Start going if Congress approves discretionary spending cuts for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed by the Trump Administration. His comments follow a leaked draft of the…
-
Quality benchmarking rule receives approval

Today, the Missouri State Board of Education approved a rule formalizing the Quality Assurance Report (QAR) program for early care and education. The QAR program is voluntary, helping early learning providers set benchmarks and improve program quality—not as a punitive…
-
Opinion – Missouri Times

The Missouri Times published an opinion piece this week penned by Tyler Nottberg, Aligned’s co-founder and the Chairman and CEO of Kansas City-based U.S. Engineering, that gives an executive’s perspective on fine-tuning Missouri’s early childhood system. Read below. Build. Solve. Evolve. That’s our motto…
-
Operation Breakthrough’s Transformative Pre-K Program

What does an undrivable car have to do with education? Everything, if it keeps a family from taking their child to preschool. Administrators at Kansas City’s Operation Breakthrough, a nonprofit that provides education, health, and parenting services to low-income families,…
