A new report highlights more than two years of work to foster stronger birth-through-third grade alignment across North Carolina. The report outlines how a cross-sector partnership ensured that early childhood strategies were included in the North Carolina state and local…
Press Release – Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, announced today a major new initiative to offer help and hope to the growing number of young children across the United States who are experiencing homelessness. The initiative…
Research is clear that third grade reading is impacted by a wide range of factors. As outlined in North Carolina’s Measures of Success Framework (LINK), those factors range from healthy birthweight to on-track social-emotional development and from strong parent-child relationships…
The short- and long-term health and economic benefits of children having health insurance are well-supported in research. North Carolina has been a national leader in rates of children insured. After years of improvements, however, recent data are startling—for the first…
The state of North Carolina has extended workplace protections and modifications to pregnant state employees.
Governor Roy Cooper’s executive order last week allows pregnant state employees of any North Carolina agency, department, board or commission under the purview of the…
NCECF talks a lot about third grade reading proficiency. This early literacy indicator is predictive of future school and life outcomes. Because early reading proficiency is impacted by every domain of a child’s development—health, education, family and community—it’s also a…
Every year, North Carolina rates each public school in the state on an A-F grading scale. To calculate those grades, the state uses the schools’ achievement and growth data. The state does not take into account how subgroups of students…
In an evaluation of the year-long Pathways to Grade-Level Reading Design Team process, team members reported that the process was valuable, intentional, inclusive, and achieved the planned outcomes. They also reported that, if well-implemented, the work would improve third grade…
Did you know that North Carolina has recently doubled the percentage of very young children and their families who are accessing early home visiting programs – and that our state still falls in the bottom 15 for access?
Our recent…
Did you know that if all of North Carolina’s young children had been counted in the last census, the state would have picked up an extra Congressional seat? Not to mention billions more in federal investment in North Carolina’s children…