Editor’s Note: This post is one in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to early education policy in Mississippi. *** By Micayla Tatum I Director of Early Childhood Policy The educator pipeline crisis, which Mississippi First has researched extensively, also affects childcare centers, Head Start, and public school pre-K programs. In short, finding early childhood teachers is as…
Read MoreChild Care Providers for a New Mississippi Child Care Quality Support System
Editor’s Note: This post is the first in an ongoing series of posts dedicated to early education policy in Mississippi. *** By Micayla Tatum I Director of Early Childhood Policy This past summer, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Mississippi First, and other partners convened early childhood providers and advocates with the goal of centering provider voices…
Read MoreNew Research: State of Pre-K, Brief #4
Brief #4: Access to Pre-K, 2017-2018 This is the fourth and final brief in the State of Pre-K Series. The 2021 pre-K briefs as a whole provide strong evidence that the collaborative program is the path to expanding quality pre-K statewide. Today, we are releasing the fourth and final brief of the series. The fourth…
Read MorePre-K in the 2022 Legislative Session
The 2022 legislative session was a wild ride for pre-K. Our bill to permanently change the per-pupil funding rate, HB 1246, died late in the session due to unrelated politics. This bill would have increased the state share of per-pupil pre-K funds from $2,150 to $2,500 per child—an increase of $350 per child in state…
Read MoreMDE releases a new round of Early Learning Collaborative RFPs
On February 4, 2022, The Mississippi Department of Education released the RFP for Early Learning Collaborative Council Pre-Kindergarten Application Cohort IV Round III. Below, we have pulled out important details from the RPF including important dates and deadlines. Questions concerning the RFP should be sent to Dr. Jill Dent @ jdent@mdek12.org. Informational Webinar The MDE…
Read MoreMississippi’s Early Learning Collaboratives Go Above and Beyond
This fall, we surveyed all the Mississippi early learning collaboratives to get a clearer picture of the challenges and successes they experienced during the COVID crisis in the 2020-2021 school year. The information collected was published in our newest report titled, Resilience: Pandemic Impact on Early Learning Collaboratives (2020-2021). We gathered information in six key…
Read MorePoverty and Pre-K Access in Mississippi
Mississippi First releases a third 2021 pre-K research brief demonstrating the benefits of pre-K for children living in poverty. Since our founding, Mississippi First has known access to high-quality, no- and low-cost pre-K in Mississippi would be a game-changer for our youngest learners. In our first pre-K publication, 2012’s Leaving Last in Line, we recommended…
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