For over 15 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-12th grade students. While policymakers have taken steps to mitigate this crisis, disparities in who is expelled persist. Boys and Black children are routinely over-represented among those pushed out of the exact environments that are supposed to help prepare them for school. 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. Parents, teachers, preschool administrators, researchers, and policymakers all have a role to play in ensuring that all children can be retained in high-quality early care and education settings. Drawing on her research and interviews with teachers, program administrators, parents, and policymakers, Dr. Zinsser presents the reader with a rich description of the myriad of factors contributing to the expulsion crisis. She presents a compelling argument for not only the importance of ending the practice of excluding young children but also outlines roles that each and every member of the field (from classroom aide to legislator) must play in sustaining this change.
