Below are highlights of our research including Focus on Early Learning in action, results and studies, and news features on our programming. We hope that this sparks your interest - if you would like to learn more about our work or Focus on Early Learning in action, contact us today!

• After the Pandemic Gutted Pre-K Enrollment and With Families Eager to Counter Early Learning Loss, Boston Expands Universal Pre-K and Pilots Program for 3-Year-Olds (The 74) July 2021.

• Strengthening Families to Support Children: Joelle Auguste, Boston, MA (Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing, Vital Village), July 2021

• Getting it Right: Using Implementation Research to Improve Outcomes in Early Education (Foundation for Child Development), June 2020. Featuring a chapter about Boston early education by Jason Sachs.

• What happens after preschool matters for sustaining the preschool boost (Brookings), November 2019.

• Instructional alignment for sustaining the prekindergarten boost: Early findings from Boston (National Institute for Early Education Research), November 2019.

• The Effects of Enrolling in Oversubscribed Prekindergarten Programs Through Third Grade (Child Development), October 2019.

• Quantifying and Predicting Variation in the Medium-Term Effects of Oversubscribed Prekindergarten Programs (MDRC), October 2019.

• Why The K-12 World Hasn’t Embraced Early Learning (Foresight Law+Policy), February 2019 (Boston is mentioned among districts who are making positive change despite the challenges).

• An Uneven Path: Student Achievement in Boston Public Schools 2007-2017 (highlights Early Education as a “bright spot” and strong success, Bellwether Education Partners), February 2019.

• Report: Boston Public Schools makes strides in connecting pre-K, early grades (Education Dive), December 2018.

• A Focus on Teaching and Learning in Pre-K through 2nd Grade: Lessons from Boston (New America), November 2018.

• Innovation Pathways: A Personalized Professional Development Approach (NextGen Learning), September 2018.

• Running on a new promise for Pre-K (The Hill), September 2018.

• Leading the Way: TeeAra Dias builds bridges between Boston’s public school and community-based pre-K programs (Eye on Early Education), August 2018.

• A New Book Tells the Story of Boston's Preschool Program (Eye on Early Education), July 2018.

• Fostering Equity Through Educator and Family Empowerment (New America), July 2018.

• Summer Learning Part II: Cities Take the Lead (Eye on Early Education), July 2018.

• How 3 States Are Closing the Opportunity Gap by Bringing High-Quality Personalized Learning Programs Into Free Public Schools (The 74 Million), May 2018.

• Preschool Curricula and Professional Development Features for Getting to High-Quality Implementation at Scale: A Comparative Review Across Five Trials (AERA Open), March 2018.

• Making Elementary School School A Lot More Fun: Like Preschool (NPR), March 2018.

• Zuckerberg, Chan donate $30 million to literacy effort (Boston Globe), March 2018.

• The Solution for the Workforce Dilemma is the Public Schools (from the New America blog series "Moving Beyond False Choices for Early Childhood Educators"), February 2018.

• Where are They Now? Update on our previous Greenovate Award (Greenovate City of Boston), February 2018.

• Building a Foundation for Success: Boston's Progress Toward High-Quality Universal Pre-K (Presentation to School Committee), January 2018.

• Students Become Scientists through Haynes EEC-New England Aquarium Partnership (Boston After School & Beyond), August 2017.

• The Challenge of Sustaining Preschool Impacts: Introducing ExCEL P-3 (MDRC), July 2017.

• Where Are All the Preschoolers? (The Atlantic, about PEG), May 2017.

• The Current State of Scientific Knowledge on Pre-Kindergarten Effects (Brookings Institute), April 2017 (also see: Consensus Statement).

• Strategic Plan for the next 5 years (Boston School Committee), April 2017.

• BPS revamp aims to aid grades 1, 2 (Boston Herald), April 2017.

• How Discrimination Nearly Stalled a Dual-Language Program in Boston (The Atlantic), April 2017 (about the new Mattapan Early Education Center).

• Closing the pre-K math education gaps for Latino students (District Administration), April 2017.

• Mattapan early ed. center pitches dual language Haitian Creole program (Dorchester Reporter), March 2017.

• Report Offers Promising Examples of PreK-3rd Alignment Work (New America), January 2017.

• The Joy of Teaching Math to 3-Year-Olds (Eye on Early Education), November 2016.

• The Power of a Good Kindergarten Curriculum (P-3 Learning Hub), October 2016.

• Counting the Benefits of Teaching Math to 3-year-olds (PBS), September 2016.

• What Boston's Preschools Get Right (The Atlantic), August 2016.

• Charting a Course to Universal, High-Quality Pre-K (Barr Foundation), June 2016.

• "Our Boston" - Kindergartners Design a Better City (Eye on Early Education), May 2016.

• Beyond Kindergarten Suspensions: Don't Shame Children - Teach Them (WBUR), February 2016.

• Guaranteed pre-K gives kids a strong start (Boston Globe Op-Ed by Mayor Martin Walsh and Superintendent Tommy Chang), January 2016.

• Does Pre-K Make Any Difference? (New York Times), October 2015.

• More Preschool for Kids in Boston (Coverage of Preschool Expansion Grant visit to Roxbury YMCA, Boston Neighborhood Network), September 2015.

• Summer Program Teaches Third-Graders Bicycle Safety (Boston Globe; also see twitter), August 2015.

• How are the Common Core Standards Affecting Kindergarten (WBUR radio interview with Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emeritus at Lesley University), June 2015.

• Our Boston: Young Children Participate in the City's Civic Dialogue (Eye on Early Education), May 2015.

• Seattle's Preschool Program is Starting to Take Shape With a Little Help from Boston (KPLU), March 2015.

• Developing an Integrated P-3 Approach to Teaching and Learning (from Full Day Kindergarten in a PreK-3rd Grade Strategy webinar, pages 15-24), February 2015.

• How Teachers Can Make a Difference for Boys of Color (EdWeek), February 2015 (by Jen Aponte, Pre-K teacher).

• Interview with Jason Sachs in Early Learning at ED newsletter, January 2015.

• Playbook for Becoming an Early Learning Community (BPS PreK and Boston K1DS are featured) (White House), December 2014.

• Jason Sachs, invited speaker in the Equity and Excellence in the Earliest Years discussion at the White House Summit on Early Childhood Education, December 2014.

• Lessons from Research and the Classroom: Implementing High-Quality Pre-K that Makes a Difference for Young Children (Gates Foundation), September 2014.

• A New Approach to Scaling High-Quality Pre-Kindergarten (Barr Foundation), August 2014.

• Teaching a New Curriculum in East Boston (Three-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), August 2014.

• Building on What's Working in Early Education in Boston (Barr Foundation), July 2014.

• Engaging Children as Citizens of the Earth (Focus on Kindergarten highlighted by Lesley University), July 2014.

• High Quality Preschool Expansion: What Does Research Say? (Congressional Briefing), April 29, 2014.

• Students Learn with 'Bee-Bots' (Boston Herald) (video), June 2014.

• An Early Civics Education for Young Bostonians (related to Focus on Kindergarten's Unit 3), May 2014.

• With Preschool on the Agenda, Boston Attracts National Attention (WBUR, Boston's NPR news station), March 2014.

• Storytelling, Story Acting, and Literacy in the Boston Public Schools (Interview in the American Journal of Play), Winter 2014.

• Mayor Walsh and BPS hosted 40 community leaders and educators from Seattle, who were observing the BPS early-education program in an effort to bring Boston's successful model to the west coast. (South End News; Dorchester Reporter), March 2014.

• Getting to Universal Pre-K in Seattle, March 2014.

• Storytelling, Story Acting, and Literacy in the Boston Public Schools: An Interview with Jason Sachs, Ben Mardell, and Marina Boni (Journal of Play), Winter 2014.

• The Essential Elements of High-Quality Pre-K: An Analysis of Four Exemplar Programs (Jim Minervino, Ready on Day One, Gates Foundation), January 2014.

• The BPS K1 program is highlighted as an exemplar in the book Restoring Opportunity: The Crisis of Inequality and the Challenge for American Education and in The Atlantic article "How Public Schools Can Fight Back Against Inequality". (video on the Restoring Opportunity YouTube Channel).

• The Role of Public Schools in Early Childhood Education: Benefits and Opportunities - The 2nd International Research in Early Childhood Education Conference - Universidad Diego Portales, Chile, January 2014 (Conference Link; Program Guide in English and Spanish).

• Idea Lab: How to Build a Large-Scale Universal Preschool Program.

• How Boston's Preschools went from Mediocre to Outstanding, January 2014.

• Early Childhood Structures and Results: Lessons and Implications from Boston Public Schools - Council of Great City Schools, November 2013.

• Thinking about K-3 Structures: Lessons from Boston Public Schools - Seattle, WA, November 2013.

• Early Educators Creating Civic Opportunities for Children (Eye on Early Education), October 2013.

• Children as Citizens (Eye on Early Education), October 2013.

• Harvard Pre-K study: Impacts of a Prekindergarten Program on Children's Mathematics, Language, Literacy, Executive Functioning, and Emotional Skills (Child Development), November/December 2013.

  • Related press in Harvard Graduate School of Education, Education Week, Time Magazine, NBC News, the Christian Science Monitor

• Making Learning Visible at the Boston Children's Museum, June 2012 (also see Making Learning Visible at BPS).

• Educational Alignment for Young Children: Profiles of Local Innovation (National League of Cities), April 2012.

• Why Early Childhood Matters: The Impact of BPS K1 (Boston School Committee), April 2012.

• Impacts of BPS K1 on Children's Early Numeracy, Language, Literacy, Executive Functioning, and Emotional Development (Boston School Committee), April 2012.

• Kindergarten: Why We Need to Change it (Advocates for the Children of New Jersey), November 2011.

• Community-Based K1 Partnership with BPS (Boston K1DS Grant) - for more information see Boston PEG.

• Boston's Rapid Expansion of Public School-Based Preschool: Promoting Quality, Lessons Learned (NAEYC's Young Children), September 2010.

• The Rights of Children: Policies to Best Serve 3, 4, and 5 Year Olds in Public Schools, Spring 2010.

• Why Cities Are Making Preschool Education Available to All Children.

• Boston is highlighted in a case study from the National League of Cities in their publication Educational Alignment for Young Children: Profiles of Local Innovation. This case study provides a history of Pre-K inside Boston, through various BPS departments and public-private partnerships such as Thrive in 5.

Image at top of page taken from "What Boston's Preschools Get Right", The Atlantic, August 2016 by Lillian Mongeau.