Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/here-there-everywhere/5021633/
“All of a sudden, early childhood education is really, really popular.” That’s how New York Times columnist Gail Collins opened a recent column.1 And she’s right. Everywhere you turn, it seems, someone is saying something awfully nice about the importance of the early years. So, as program administrators, as teachers, as center owners �" whatever your role in delivering the early childhood education programs everyone is now talking about �" you need to consider where your voice needs to be heard and how your program and the families it serves might be impacted.Hail Washington!
Two developments at the beginning of the year indicated the importance of the federal government, and the limitations of federal activity. In his State of the Union address, President Obama repeated his request to help states make high-quality pre-K available to every four-year-old. That he did this is a result of a large army of advocates �" many of you �" who have been effectively increasing the fever for early childhood education over many years. That same advocacy effort, now channeled into the “Strong Start” campaign, helped give rise to the Strong Start for America act and other bills introduced in recent months: the ‘landmark’ legislation outlined in ...