President Obama & Obama Administration

“Crushed by the Cost of Child Care,” an article in Sunday’s New York Times, highlights a dilemma faced by millions of families. It is not a new or a surprising story. Ask any parent in any community across this country what one of your biggest challenges is and they will say finding affordable and high-quality child care.

While we have made some progress over the years, putting in place programs to help low-income families with the cost of child care, federal and state funding is actually on a downward slide. It is hard to explain why we do not provide more help to families in affording child care given that the case for investing in young children is so strong. Child care plays two critical roles that support our economy. It helps children access the high-quality early learning environments that they need to succeed and it helps parents work and support their families. Yet we have not found the will to ensure that all our children and their families, especially the most vulnerable, have the early childhood opportunities they need.

For the sake of nation’s children, families, and economy, we need to do better. This will require policymakers to step up their commitment to child care. Read more »

 “If we don't make this investment [in education], we're going to put our kids, our workers and our country at a competitive disadvantage for decades. So we have to begin in the earliest years, and that's why I'm going to keep pushing to make high-quality preschool available for every four-year-old in America. Not just because we know it works for our kids, but because it provides a vital support system for working parents.”
—President Obama, July 24, 2013

President Obama, speaking to a crowd in Galesburg, Illinois highlighted the importance that high-quality early childhood care and education plays in ensuring that our youngest children are poised for upward mobility and success in life—and in building a strong economy that works for all Americans. The President made clear that early education is a key component of ensuring the country’s economic prosperity. He also emphasized that early education benefits both children and their parents.

Ensuring that children have affordable, high-quality early care and education means that parents are able to participate in the workforce, have the peace of mind they need to be productive at work, and provide for their families. When parents are able to work and contribute their talents, they also help make our economy as a whole more vibrant. Read more »

So yesterday was a REALLY exciting day for me! I was invited to the White House to see President Obama give a speech on the health care law, a.k.a. Obamacare. There are a lot of beneficial parts of the health care law for young women such as myself, like no co-pay preventive services and no longer being charged more for insurance by simply being a woman. I was asked to come to the White House because a few months ago I received a rebate from my insurance company. Yes, my insurance company sent me a check as opposed to a bill. The reason for this is that there is a provision in Obamacare that says that insurance companies have to use 80% of premium costs on care. If insurance companies do not use the majority of funds on care then they need to return the difference. Pretty great, right?

How it worked for me was that because I have insurance through NWLC, they received the check and the amount that normally comes out of my paycheck for my insurance plan was less. Some people might not even realize that they received the rebate but I was watching for it. Full disclosure, I have a lot of student loans, but on one of my loans I was really close to paying it off. When I received that extra amount in my paycheck, I was actually able to pay off one of my student loans!! Read more »

The hashtag “#PreKForAll” was trending on Twitter nationwide less than 30 minutes into the National Women’s Law Center’s “Tweetchat,” which encouraged conversation about the importance of high-quality early learning opportunities. The chat was held as part of this week’s national Early Learning Day of Action, which aimed to generate support for increased investments in these programs.

Senators Patty Murray, Dick Durbin and Kirsten Gillibrand, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Director of the Office of Public Engagement Paulette Aniskoff all joined the conversation that would continue for hours beyond its allotted one-hour time slot. Read more »

At a recent forum held by the Center for American Progress, New York Times columnist Gail Collins said, “If there was going to be a cause that would hook the general needs of society with the most pressing needs of women with something that virtually everyone in the universe agrees with….it would be early childhood education.” Collins noted that early education addresses numerous challenges, from income inequality to parents’ need for child care while they work. Yet she also said that early education isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Read more »

I am a proud aunt to a very precocious kindergartener. I remember when she was three and she shocked the whole family with her grasp of complex verb tenses. And over Memorial Day, she astonished me with her adept reading of Amelia Bedelia.

Her language and reading skills are extremely impressive and so are her pre-math, writing, and interpersonal skills. I’d like to think it’s solely because she shares some of my genetic material, but I know her wonderful prekindergarten experiences deserve credit too.

Starting as an infant, my niece was exposed to rich early childhood experiences, with her parents and extended family, at her family child care home, and then at preschool. She listened to stories, sang songs, played games, colored pictures, and the list goes on.

Every child should have the opportunity to thrive in a stimulating preschool classroom filled with playmates, art supplies, books, blocks, and caring teachers. But there are not enough publicly financed slots for all the children who need them, and for most families, the cost of private preschool is prohibitive. Only 43 percent of 3 and 4 year olds with family incomes below $20,000 per year are enrolled in preschool, compared to 65 percent of 3 and 4 year olds with family incomes at or above $75,000 per year. Read more »

Young children love a good time and clamor to go to the local carnival. They are eager to ride the merry-go-round and hop on the ferris wheel. They want to eat their fill of cotton candy and candy corn, and have their parents play games to win them a stuffed teddy bear.

Today we are holding a different kind of carnival for our children. Adults across the country who care about a better future for our children are blogging to help give them more opportunities for high-quality early education. I am excited to join this “blog carnival” with so many others who understand that high-quality early learning is a key to keeping the smile on these young children’s sweet faces. Read more »

“This is a jet. It is a tin jet. The tin jet is big.”

I know, it sounds pretty boring, right? But to me, these are VERY exciting words. These are words that my son just started reading. On his own. My son, who is 5 years old and has not been to kindergarten yet (he will start in the fall), is now reading and loving it. And I love watching his unbridled joy as he figures out, all by himself, what the words on the page say.

Now, I cannot taking credit for teaching him how to read (who has time?), and I am not saying he’s a child prodigy. Sure, we have been reading to him since he was a baby, but what makes all the difference is that he went to preschool. Read more »

Yesterday morning’s breakfast forum, hosted by the Washington Post, brought together governors and education commissioners from several states to raise awareness of the importance of reading well by the third grade. Multiple studies show that high-quality early education programs lead to higher reading achievement, in addition to numerous other benefits (Carolina Abecedarian Project,  Chicago Child-Parent Centers [PDF], and High/Scope Perry Preschool [PDF]). Several of the participants, including Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, Washington State Superintendent Randy Dorn, and Maryland State Superintendent Lillian Lowry, acknowledged this powerful evidence and the important role that early learning opportunities play in providing for successful literacy growth. High-quality early childhood education was referred to as a “game changer,” an “effective effort to improve reading,” and a way to “success[fully] narrow the achievement gap.” Read more »

Growing up with an Asian family background, I was very fond of the legend of Mencius’ mother, who moved three times to find a good place to raise her child. Her strategy clearly was successful, because Mencius went on to become a great philosopher. The story underlines the importance of the environment in which a child develops. President Obama, recognizing the essential role of children’s environments in their learning and growth, has proposed a significant investment in early learning to ensure children have positive experiences in their first years of life, both in and out of the home.

I know how critical the early years are for learning from my own experiences learning different languages. I was born to a mixed nationality family (Vietnamese and Chinese) and later studied abroad in New Zealand and now in America. According to my grandmother, at the age of three, I spoke Chinese so well that the neighbors thought that I was born and raised in China. I continued to speak Chinese at home while speaking Vietnamese at school without any struggle. Having learned both languages early in life, I did not have any difficulty in shifting back and forth between the two. In contrast, learning English in secondary school was not a piece of cake for me.

Even now, while I am sitting here and writing this blog, I am still struggling. Read more »