Press

22 Dec

Posted at 17:01h in Hunt Institute, News, Press by

WUNC - North Carolina Public Radio
By Colin Campbell
December 18, 2025
Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt has died. The Wilson County native served the state for four terms as a Democrat, expanding the role of the governor and pushing for major education initiatives. Hunt was 88 years old. Hunt's family members, including his daughter, Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, announced his passing Thursday afternoon. A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 26, at First Presbyterian Church in Wilson. The...

20 Dec

Posted at 22:22h in News, Press by

Start Early
By Diana Rauner
December 4, 2025
We are excited to share the Start Early 2025 Year in Review, celebrating a year of growth, innovation and transformative milestones during the last fiscal year (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025). At Start Early, we strive to ensure that every child has access to high-quality early learning opportunities. This past year has tested the resolve of the early learning field in ways few of us could have predicted. Delayed federal and state funding, regional...

20 Dec

Posted at 22:15h in News, Press, Tomorrow's Hope by

Start Early
By Diana Rauner
December 4, 2025
We are excited to share the Start Early 2025 Year in Review, celebrating a year of growth, innovation and transformative milestones during the last fiscal year (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025). At Start Early, we strive to ensure that every child has access to high-quality early learning opportunities. This past year has tested the resolve of the early learning field in ways few of us could have predicted. Delayed federal and state funding, regional...

02 Dec

Posted at 01:46h in News, Press by

Start Early
November 12, 2025
By Diana Rauner
For 25 years, Educare Chicago has set the standard for high-quality early childhood education. What began as one school is now a national network serving thousands of children and families. Start Early celebrates this milestone and the lasting impact of Educare’s model of excellence, innovation and community partnership. Twenty-five years ago, Educare Chicago opened its doors with a simple yet powerful belief: that every child no matter their background or ZIP code deserves access to quality...

20 Oct

Posted at 21:11h in News, Press by

Brookings
September 19, 2025
By Ellen Roche, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Rachel Romeo, Dana Suskind, and Kris Perry
The human brain is primed for social interaction. In the first few years of life, thousands of daily interactions shape lifelong social and cognitive systems that prepare us to live and work with other humans, and to engage in symbolic thinking through systems like numeracy and language. Decades of developmental cognitive and neuroscience research have made it clear that young humans cannot develop optimally without daily, real-time...

02 Oct

Posted at 02:02h in News, Press by

Unesco
September 26, 2025
By Howard Gardner and Mara Krechevsky
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way we learn, teach and make sense of the world around us – but it is doing so unequally. While one-third of humanity remains offline, access to the most cutting-edge AI models is reserved for those with subscriptions, infrastructure and linguistic advantage. These disparities not only restrict who can use AI, but also determine which knowledge, values and languages dominate the systems that increasingly influence education. This anthology...

25 Sep

Posted at 17:33h in News, Press by

International Documentary Association
September 24, 2025
Today, the Berkeley Film Foundation (BFF) announces that it has awarded a total of more than $350,000 in its 2025 grant cycle to 29 independent filmmakers, including 5 student filmmakers, who live, work, or attend school in the East Bay cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, or Oakland. Since its founding in 2009, BFF has awarded almost $3.3 million to 338 film projects that continuously push creative boundaries and inspire change. The amount awarded...

02 Sep

Posted at 01:50h in News, Press by

Better Magazine
August 4, 2025
By Howard Gardner and Mara Krechevsky
“There is a vast difference between knowing the right thing to do and actually doing the right thing,” Nobel-winning economist Thomas Schelling once said. The evidence is unequivocal: early childhood education is one of the most impactful investments a society can make. Ninety percent of brain development occurs before the age of five, and decades of interdisciplinary research demonstrate the profound, long-term benefits of high-quality early learning — not only for individual children...

18 Jul

Posted at 21:08h in News, Press, Stanford by

CBS News
July 18, 2025
By John Shumway
Much has been said about the detrimental impact of screens on childhood development, but a new study takes that concern to an even younger age. This is as much about what children aren't doing as it is about what they are doing. There is no question that we are seeing the screen time impact on our children. "A lot of them have lost the ability to interact, to make eye contact, and have conversations," said...

31 Mar

Posted at 22:07h in News, Press by

Time Magazine
March 31, 2025
By Michelle Bezark
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is tearing through the federal government agency by agency, slashing programs, firing civil servants, and cutting research dollars. Polling indicates Americans may be souring on this approach, as program cuts come closer to home. Even then, some 40% of Americans believe the country could run with almost no federal employees. This reflects how disconnected Americans have become from federal agencies and the programs and services they provide....

25 Apr

Posted at 17:09h in News, Press, Zaentz Initiative by

The Harvard Crimson
April 25, 2024
By Katie B. Tian
Nonie K. Lesaux will serve as interim dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education after Bridget Terry Long departs the post at the end of this academic year, interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced in a Thursday email to HGSE affiliates. This decision comes three months after Long’s announcement of her resignation back in January, during which time HGSE released no public information about a search for her successor. The first...

02 Apr

Posted at 14:15h in News, Press by

The New York Times
By Dana Goldstein
March 31, 2024
Watch These Cute Videos of Babies (and Learn Something, Too)
SZCF's own Dan Wuori was interviewed and profiled in the New York Times for his incredible work in ECE and for his unique and influential Twitter/X presence. ...

07 Mar

Posted at 19:12h in News, Press by

March 7, 2024
The Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation is please to announce Ellen Galinsky's new book, The Breakthrough Years, out on March 26th. The book provides a paradigm-shifting, yet practical, understanding of adolescence. Click the image above to pre-order/order your copy!...

04 Feb

Posted at 14:21h in News, Press, Tomorrow's Hope by

The New York Times
By Nikolas Kristof
February 4, 2024
An early child care program modeled after the one that exists in the U.S. military. If our armed forces can operate a child care program with fees based on ability to pay, then the rest of the country can as well. A government-supported early childhood program rescues parents and kids alike. Roughly one child in six is living with a parent who misused drugs in the last year, and some of these children...

19 Jan

Posted at 22:41h in News, Press by

Berkeley Film Foundation
Media Contact: Andrew Neilly, Nancy Amaral
BERKELEY, Calif., January 18, 2024– The Berkeley FILM Foundation (BFF) has received a $1.5 million grant from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation (SZCF). The funding over a three-year period will augment BFF’s current grant program to fund local independent film projects, establishes new educational programs focused on filmmaking, and inaugurates the first annual Saul Zaentz Film Festival to be held September 14-15 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in partnership with the California...

19 Dec

Posted at 19:09h in News, Press, Zaentz Initiative by

Early Learning Nation
By Mark Swartz
December 19, 2023
Imagine you work for an advocacy organization in one state and you want to find out how other states are raising revenue to support early education and care. If you Google child care tax revenue or daycare tax payments, almost all the results pertain to the tax credits that individuals can apply for when they file their taxes. Refining your search terms might give you better results, but it might take hours to track...

07 Dec

Posted at 18:48h in News, Press, Stanford by

Stanford University
By Vincent Ingram
December 7, 2023
A generous gift to the Stanford Center on Early Childhood will advance the center’s work in early childhood and accelerate the exchange of expertise among researchers, policymakers, and front-line practitioners. The Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation is providing funding to expand a valuable large-scale data collection tool called the RAPID Survey, which tracks the experiences of young children, their families, and caregivers and is used by practitioners, government systems, and other stakeholders to address critical challenges for...

22 Aug

Posted at 21:10h in News, Press, Zaentz Initiative by

Cision PR Newswire
Provided by the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative
August 22, 2023
The Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education today launched the Zaentz Navigator, an innovative, user-friendly, and interactive digital tool to help policymakers and leaders learn how cities and states across the country are working to structure, finance, expand, and advance early education and care. The Navigator is appearing at a time when it is needed most. Record spending on early education as part of...