Start with Equity: From the Early Years to the Early Grades

Start with Equity: From the Early Years to the Early Grades

Millions of young children are disproportionately underserved, over-punished, and barred from high-quality education in American schools.

The Children’s Equity Project and the Bipartisan Policy Center have come together to create an actionable policy roadmap for states and the federal government—as well as for candidates at all levels of government vying for office—to take meaningful steps to remedy these inequities in early learning and education systems.

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Executive Summary

In brief - Harsh Discipline and its Disproportionate Application

In brief - Inclusive Learning for Children with Disabilities

In brief - Equitable Access to High-Quality Learning Opportunities for DLLs and ELs

Developed with support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, this policy agenda was informed  by two convenings of more than 70 experts from universities, think tanks and organizations. The resulting report, Start with Equity: From the Early Years to the Early Grades highlights the grave inequities that have long pervaded the education system and affect the lives of millions of children from historically marginalized communities, using the lens of three policy areas: disproportionate application of harsh discipline practices; lack of inclusion of students with disabilities in general classrooms; and inequitable and inadequate access to dual language programming.

In addition to analyses of existing data and a review of the latest research, this report also includes concrete recommendations for policymakers at the federal, state and local levels so that they can take immediate, meaningful steps toward dismantling these inequities for good.

Suggested citation:

Meek, S.E., Smith, L., Allen, R., Catherine, E., Edyburn, K., Williams, C., Fabes, R., McIntosh, K., Garcia, E., Takanishi, R., Gordon, L., Jimenez-Castellanos, O., Hemmeter, M., Gilliam, W., Pontier, R. (2020). Start with Equity: From the Early Years to the Early Grades. The Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University. Retrieved from: https://cep.asu.edu/resources/start-with-equity