Nine research sessions disappeared from the agenda of one of the nation’s most important early childhood education conferences less than a week before it was set to begin after an unprecedented intervention by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the conference sponsor.
The removals affected almost a fifth of the 48 sessions at the three-day National Research Conference on Early Childhood in Arlington, Virginia, scheduled to start tomorrow.
Researchers said they were notified by email on June 16 that their sessions had been removed during HHS’s final review of the conference agenda. The cancellations are unusual because the presentations had been selected months earlier through a peer-review process after proposals were submitted last fall. Presenters were told only that “several revisions were required” as part of the department’s clearance process. A significantly revised conference agenda was posted on June 17, replacing the old one.
The last-minute removals have rattled researchers in the field, many of whom said they had never seen accepted conference sessions withdrawn so close to a major meeting’s start date. The cancelled presentations span topics from childcare licensing and kindergarten transitions to infant mental health and social-emotional development.
“It has been deeply disappointing and disheartening,” said Lieny Jeon, an associate professor at the University of Virginia whose session on improving the early childhood workforce was among those removed. “We value opportunities to share evidence that can inform policy and practice, and it has been discouraging to have those opportunities unexpectedly removed.”
One cancelled session examined state efforts to expand access to early childhood education. Another explored administrative burdens faced by child care providers. A third focused on building evidence for “continuous quality improvement” in early childhood programs — an ironic casualty, given the Trump administration’s stated desire to bring more business know-how to the public sector.
The cancelled sessions affected nearly 40 presenters who hail from universities, nonprofit research organizations and government agencies, including Yale University, the University of Alabama, Child Trends, the Urban Institute, the Office of Head Start within HHS, and several state early childhood agencies.
Researchers who sought additional information from HHS on why their panels had been canceled said they received none. In a response reviewed by The Hechinger Report, conference organizers wrote that the HHS clearance process was “complete,” the agenda was “final,” and they could not provide “any additional information.” The cancelled researchers, however, were still encouraged to attend the conference.
HHS and its early childhood division, the Administration for Children and Families, which sponsors the conference, did not respond to questions over the weekend about why the sessions were removed or what criteria were used.
The cancellations have fueled concern about political interference in research, though no clear pattern emerged among the deleted sessions. Some involved Head Start, the federal preschool program that the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, proposed to eliminate in its Project 2025 blueprint for the Trump administration. Others touched upon dual language instruction and social-emotional learning, both frequent targets of conservative activists. Yet similar topics remain on the agenda, making it difficult to identify a consistent rationale. A session on improving home visits for Native American families also remains on the schedule.
Several researchers said they were reluctant to criticize the administration publicly because they rely on federal grants or work for institutions that receive federal funding.
The conference occupies an unusual place in the education research landscape. Held every two years, it is one of the field’s most important meetings, known for gathering research luminaries and including policymakers in the discussions. Because the conference is federally funded, attendance is free, and that draws early childhood educators, creating a rare forum for direct exchange between researchers and practitioners.
The conference falls under HHS because Head Start and other early childhood social welfare programs remained within the federal health and human services bureaucracy when the Education Department was created in 1979.
This year’s conference was already notably different from previous gatherings. Topics such as immigrant children and systemic racism that have drawn scrutiny from the Trump administration were absent from the program even before the latest cancellations.
“I think everybody probably in writing their proposals knew to sanitize their language proactively,” said Kate Zinsser, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, who was not affected by the cancellations but is planning to attend the conference and has been in contact with the cancelled researchers. “But these are not radical sessions, these are seemingly run-of-the-mill research presentations that are receiving this kind of scrutiny and censoring.”
Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story about early childhood education research was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
