Learning, Joy, and Equity: A New Framework for Elementary Education

This report was originally published by the Children’s Equity Project on July 15, 2024.

This report proposes a new framework for elementary education that builds on, and is informed by, the recent Closing the Opportunity Gap for Young Children report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine about the causes, costs, and effects of the opportunity gap on young children. While there is no single ideal elementary school experience, there are core ingredients to which every child needs and deserves access. Guided by research, data, learnings from schools across the United States, parent and family voices, and a desire to design child-centered, joyful, and effective spaces for learning, we provide a framework that consists of 14 core ingredients.

The core ingredients:

1. Transformative leadership.
2. A child-centered vision and philosophy that prioritizes shared learning, equity, community, and joy.
3. Explicit attention and resources dedicated to the experiences and outcomes of children from historically marginalized communities.
4. Universal design built into every aspect of schooling.
5. Blended pedagogies that align with the science of child development and are culturally sustaining.
6. Research-informed, community relevant, individualized instruction and interdisciplinary curricula.
7. Dual-language education to promote bilingualism, biliteracy, biculturalism, and positive self-identity and to meet the needs of English learners.
8. Child groupings that are small enough to promote deep relationships, multi-age peer learning, individualized instruction, and effective learning.
9. A well-prepared, fully supported, diverse teacher workforce.
10. Culturally grounded, authentic family and community engagement that attends to the whole child and the whole family.
11. A school climate that embraces children’s identities, combats racism and bias, and prioritizes mental health and well-being.
12. Resources and policies that promote health, well-being, nutrition, and movement.
13. Child-, classroom-, and school-level data used to individualize instruction, tailor professional development, and inform planning and policy development.
14. Safe, healthy, aesthetically pleasing, child-centered learning environments.

• Transforming Kindergarten (collection page)
• Building Early Education Leaders (report)
• The Impact of Strong District Leadership in Early Childhood (brief)
• Grow Your Own Educators (collection page)
• Extracting Success in Pre-K Teaching: Approaches to Effective Professional Learning across Five States (report)
• English Learner Funding Equity and Adequacy in K–12 Education (brief)
• Incorporating Anti-Racist Principles into Preschool Classrooms (brief)
• Reimagining Measurement Tools and Data Systems to Improve Pre-K Outcomes (collection page)
• Outdoor Learning Environments (collection page)