“This powerful book should be mandatory reading for anyone who cares about our nation. The authors provide compelling evidence that by neglecting what science shows our children and families really need, we are imperiling our future. Even more importantly, they offer a plan to support all our children and their parents, ensuring that each of our children has the opportunity to thrive.”

—David T. Ellwood, Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy, and director, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Early care and education in the United States is in crisis. The period between birth and kindergarten is a crucial time for a child’s development. Yet vast racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities that begin early in children’s lives contribute to starkly different long-term outcomes for adults. Compared to other advanced economies, child care and preschool in the U.S. are scarce, prohibitively expensive, and inadequate in quality for most middle- and low-income families. To what extent can early-life opportunities provide these children with the same life chances of their affluent peers and contribute to reduced social inequality in the long term, and across generations? The updated second edition of Cradle to Kindergarten offers a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy that diagnoses the obstacles to accessible early education and charts a path to opportunity for all children.

The U.S. government invests less in children under the age of five than do most other developed nations. Most working families must seek private child care, but high-quality child care options are expensive relative to the means of most families. This means that children from lower-income households, who would benefit most from high-quality early education, are the least likely to attend them. Existing policies, such as pre-kindergarten in some states, are only partial solutions, and what exists varies tremendously in terms of access and quality.

To address these deficiencies, the authors propose to overhaul the early care and education system, beginning with a federal paid parental leave policy that provides both mothers and fathers with time and financial support after the birth of a child. They also advance an expansion of the child care tax credit, and a new child care assurance program that provides grant assistance towards the cost of high-quality early care for low- and moderate-income families. Their plan establishes universal, high-quality early education in the states starting by age three, and a reform of the Head Start program that would include more intensive services for families living in areas of concentrated poverty and experiencing multiple adversities from the earliest point in these most disadvantaged children’s lives. They conclude with an implementation plan and contend that these reforms are attainable well within a ten-year timeline.

Reducing educational and economic inequalities requires that all children have robust opportunities to learn and fully develop their capacities and have a fair shot at success. Cradle to Kindergarten presents a blueprint for fulfilling this promise by expanding access to educational and financial resources at a critical stage of child development.

Ajay Chaudry is a writer on social policy and research professor at New York University, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the administration of President Barack Obama.

Taryn Morrissey is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at American University.

Christina Weiland is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Michigan.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Co-Director of the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University.

This is the second in a series of technical reports presenting tabulations of basic data resulting from questionnaires and interview schedules used in connection with the Russell Sage Foundation program of research on the social consequences of testing, which aimed to examine the possible social impacts of the use of standardized ability tests (such as intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests) in schools and occupational settings in the United States.

DAVID A. GOSLIN was staff sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation and author of The School in Contemporary Society.

With each depression emergency measures are embarked upon—and the results generally forgotten. This study recovers and records significant experience in previous depressions for its bearing upon present and future policies. Published in 1936.

Leah H. Feder was associate professor of applied sociology at Washington University.

Part of a series documenting annual research and activity in the field of social work. It is a record of organized efforts in the United States to deal with social problems and social conditions. Topics include adult education, health, mental hygiene, crime and penal conditions, children, community organization, the disabled, and religious social work.

Fred S. Hall was joint author of American Marriage Laws.

Social Science and Psychotherapy for Children was a study undertaken jointly by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Jewish Board of Guardians under direction of Dr. Otto Pollak, a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania, who was made available by the foundation as social science consultant to the Board’s Child Guidance Institute. With many specific cases as illustrations, Dr. Pollak and his collaborators show ways in which the social sciences may enrich child therapy. They examine the implications of family structure, social interaction, anxiety, extra-familial influences, culture conflicts, and age-sex factors. They also consider the effective use of volunteers in treatment and the occasional necessity for setting limited treatment goals.

Collaborators: Bertram J. Black, Dorothy Dunaeff, Yonata Feldman, Bernice Wolf Frechtman, Maurice R. Friend, Lia Knoepfmacher, Bettina Lehnert, Frederika Neumann, S. R. Slavson

Part of the Industrial Relations Series, a series by the Department of Industrial Studies of the Russell Sage Foundation investigating early twentieth-century experiments in the organization of relations between employers and employees in industrial enterprises in the United States. It examines the plan for employee representation of a mill in Wappingers Falls, New York, and the relationship between workers and management.

Ben M. Selekman, Department of Industrial Studies, Russell Sage Foundation

This 1951 monograph presents the results of study and experiment of Illinois corrections, designed to bring about the best results in the selection of candidates for parole. It aimed to improve the conditions of parole selection and develop a parole system as a release procedure.

Lloyd E. Ohlin was research sociologist, Illinois Division of Correction.