Strong Start for Children

When President Obama announced his groundbreaking early learning plan, he proposed to fund the expansion of preschool and voluntary home visiting with a tobacco tax increase. Today, with eight other organizations invested in young children and/or public health, we released a report that explains the twofold benefits of this plan. Here are just four of them:

1. In the first year of the program, nearly 335,000 children from low- and moderate-income families will gain access to high-quality preschool. By the 10th year of the program, two million children will have access to these opportunities. TWO MILLION – somebody will need to order a whole lot of those teeny tiny chairs for all these teeny tiny learners!

The best part about working here at the NWLC is that every so often, I get to venture outside of the office and do something really fun and different with part of my day. Yesterday, instead of my usual commute, I headed down to the Capitol to play a life-size game of Chutes & Ladders with some really adorable children, truly inspirational members of Congress, and early education advocates.

As our own Helen Blank notes in her Huffington Post piece, the sequester has caused 57,000 children to lose out on access to Head Start, and many families lack high-quality early learning in their communities. Stories collected by the National Women’s Law Center and members of the Strong Start campaign that were distributed to Senators today make it clear that a positive early education experience benefits children and families throughout their lives.

This morning’s event gave us a chance to put some really adorable faces on the lives that laws involving early education touch.

All photos courtesy Jeffrey Martin.

Senator Mazie Hironi, and Representatives Rosa DeLauro and George Miller talk with Jack about the importance of early education.

 “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 »

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 »