As students return to schools across the country, this episode of the Brookings Cafeteria features a rebroadcast of a recent online event from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings on the present and future of early childhood education in the U.S. in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brookings scholar Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center, moderated a panel discussion with Miriam Calderon, deputy assistant secretary for policy and early learning at the U.S. Department of Education; Jenna Conway, the deputy superintendent of early childhood education in the Virginia Department of Education, and Christina Weiland, associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. Show notes and transcript:   Follow Brookings podcasts on Apple or Google podcasts, or on Spotify. Send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .