Author: Kadin Mills

If the government shutdown isn’t resolved by Nov. 1, some 65,000 low-income children will be at-risk of losing access to Head Start child care and early learning. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Low-income families across the country rely on Head Start for child care and preschool, but federal funding for the program is on hold during the government shutdown, and now some 65,000 children are at risk of losing their Head Start services. NPR’s Kadin Mills has the story.KADIN MILLS, BYLINE: In Florida, a cluster of Head Start programs serve the children of migrant and seasonal farm workers.DANIEL JAIME: I was a…

After nearly doubling during the pandemic, the rates of chronic absenteeism in K-12 schools are finally showing steady signs of improvement. A student is considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of a school year. In most states, that means missing about 18 days a year, regardless of whether the absences were excused. “Thousands of students have returned to schools, which means that states are putting in the work,” said Carl Felton, III, a policy analyst at EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for underrepresented students. Felton is the author of a new report that looks at how policies…