No Longer Welcome: The Epidemic of Expulsion from Early Childhood Education

Summary

For over fifteen years, researchers have described a crisis in our nations' early learning classrooms. Hundreds of children are expelled from childcare and preschool every day; a rate nearly three times that of kindergarten-twelfth grade students. Each child's expulsion is symptomatic of a larger crisis—an overburdened, underfunded, undervalued, and fragmented early education system.

In early childhood, expulsion is the result of a series of adult decisions made within constrained contexts and at times blind to downstream consequences: exhausted and underpaid teachers deciding how to expend their limited attention and energy in a chaotic classroom; administrators on razor-thin budgets deciding among hiring additional personnel, providing high-quality training, or investing in adequate classroom resources; fragmented state agencies separately deciding on standards and policies and allocating funds for early intervention and consultation services.

By examining these complex causes, No Longer Welcome starts a critical conversation between and across sectors of the early childhood field. Drawing on her research and interviews with teachers, program administrators, parents, and policymakers, Dr. Zinsser presents the listener with a rich description of the myriad of factors contributing to the expulsion crisis.