Long Beach City College Child Development Department

05/29/2026

As states focus on improving early literacy outcomes, supporting Dual Language Learners (DLLs) is a challenge hiding in plain sight. Nationally, one-third of children under the age of five are DLLs, meaning that they are learning English in addition to another home language. Both the number of DLLs in the U.S. and the number of all children attending state-funded preschool are growing. Research shows that high quality preschool benefits DLLs, and benefits can be increased by specific supports for DLLs’ home language development and through engagement with their families.

NIEER’s new policy brief, Supporting Dual Language Learners in State-Funded Preschool, summarizes information from NIEER’s 2024 State of Preschool Yearbook on states’ policies regarding supports for DLLs and their families in state-funded preschool programs. We find that states vary widely in their supports for DLLs, and that state policies often do not match research-recommended best practices for DLLs. We highlight exemplar states and look closely at the ten states with the highest percentages of DLLs in the state. We offer recommendations to strengthen state-funded preschool programs’ support for DLLs and their families.

Link to the new brief in comments.

05/29/2026

I’m confident that any educator who works directly with children would agree our ratios desperately need to change.

Last year I was talking with an educator about working with our youngest learners. Here is a snippet from our conversation -

“I will try my absolute best to look after those four babies, but unfortunately I only have two hands. That means they will cry. They will have to wait for their most basic needs to be met, because one adult to four babies is in no way quality.”

I'm sure educators who have spent time in the 0–2 space, might have felt this before. And that’s the truth so many of us are living every single day.

We’ve been calling this out for years. Shouting it from rooftops. Advocating, explaining, repeating ourselves over and over, yet somehow, this issue keeps getting overlooked. Meanwhile, educators continue to stretch themselves impossibly thin, doing everything we can to give children the quality, connection and nurturing they deserve.

But we are exhausted. We are burnt out. And one of the biggest reasons is simple, the current ratios do not match the reality of children’s needs or the reality of human capacity.

If we want true quality in early childhood education, not just on paper, not just in policy, but in practice, then we must start with what educators need. Real change begins with acknowledging that caring for infants, toddlers and preschoolers is complex, emotional, relational work and that no educator can meet those needs effectively when the system asks them to do the impossible.

We will continue to make noise, apparently louder, because no one appears to be listening!

Ratios must change. For educators. For children. For the future of Early Education.

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

05/29/2026

Love this strips of colored paper 📄 art 🖼️
Spotted on 📍 Pinterest