Childcare & Early Education

Affordable, high-quality childcare for all must be a priority

It’s imperative for Congress and the Obama administration to come up with a solution that provides our early childhood educators with living wages. At the same time, we need to give every child in America a strong start by ensuring they have access to affordable, high-quality early childhood education and care.

Progress for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

On December 10th President Obama hosted a White House Summit on Early Education, bringing together a broad coalition of philanthropic, business, education, child advocacy, and elected leaders and other key stakeholders. It was a welcome chance to celebrate progress in expanding access to quality early childhood development and learning opportunities for children from birth through age 5. Although we haven’t yet seen the passage of needed comprehensive legislation to provide low-income and other at-risk children a full continuum of quality supports from voluntary home visiting programs to Early Head Start and Head Start, child care, pre-kindergarten and — I hope — full-day kindergarten, progress has been made in increasing access to and expanding quality programs and building support for future investments.

White House Early Learning Summit: Speak Up for Babies

Thanks to quality teaching and tireless dedication of early learning professionals over the past decades our country’s highest offices are now identifying that work as the pivotal piece to improving our communities. Studies show that for every dollar invested in high-quality early learning programs there is at least a $7 rate of return.