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S. HRG. 111–1133 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: EARLY 

CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT (ESEA) 

REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 

MAY 25, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

DANIEL SMITH, Staff Director 

PAMELA SMITH, Deputy Staff Director 

FRANK MACCHIAROLA, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(II) 
C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2010 

Page 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

Burr, Richard, a U.S. Senator from the State of North Carolina, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2 

Griswell, J. Barry, Board Member, Former Chairman and Retired Chief Executive Officer of Principal Financial Group, President of the Community 

Foundation of Greater Des Moines, and a Member of the Berry College 

Board of Trustees, Des Moines, IA ..................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Schweinhart, Lawrence J., Ph.D., President, High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Ypsilanti, MI ....................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

Pianta, Robert C., Professor of Education, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA ................................................................................................................ 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Zalkind, Henrietta, Executive Director, Down East Partnership for Children, 

Rocky Mount, NC ................................................................................................. 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ............................. 46 

Sanders, Hon. Bernard, a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ................... 48 

Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 51 

Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................... 52 

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 55 

Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania ...... 57 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59 

Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Connecticut ......... 62 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon ............................. 66 

Hagan, Hon. Kay R., a U.S. Senator from the State of North Carolina ............. 68 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

Richard (Rick) Stephens, Senior Vice President, Human Resources and 

Administration, The Boeing Company ........................................................ 75 

(III) 

(1) 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: EARLY CHILDHOOD 

EDUCATION 

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in Room SD– 

430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, chairman 

of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Dodd, Murray, Sanders, Brown, 

Casey, Hagan, Merkley, Franken, Bennet, and Burr. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions Committee will come to order. 

I welcome everyone to our 10th hearing on the reauthorization 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Today’s discussion 

will inform us about what we can do to ensure that more young 

children begin their elementary school education fully prepared to 

learn and succeed. 

We all know that learning starts at birth, and the preparation 

for learning starts even before birth. Yet over three-quarters of 

children ages 3 to 4 do not have access to the early learning opportunities they need. As a result, nationwide, we spend billions of 

dollars trying to close the gaps in student achievement that could 

be tempered by investing in high-quality early learning opportunities. 

By the time most children from low-income families reach kindergarten, their achievement levels are an average of 60 percent 

behind those of their peers from more affluent backgrounds. These 

same children also tend to possess vocabularies only one-third the 

size of their middle-class peers. We know that high-quality early 

learning opportunities provided by committed, well-trained, and 

caring providers can enable children to overcome these challenges 

and close this gap. 

A solid initial investment in young children will save us billions 

in future spending on remedial education, criminal justice, health, 

and welfare programs. Children who participate in comprehensive 

high-quality early education programs are also more likely, over 

their lifetimes, to be healthier, more steadily employed, and earn 

higher incomes and, of course, to lead more productive and fulfilling lives. 
2 

ESEA reauthorization offers an important opportunity to help 

States and school districts ensure that more young children are 

prepared to succeed in school. To ensure that school leaders and 

teachers have the skills and resources they need to support early 

learning, we have to think about how early education programs can 

better align with existing K through 12 systems. 

So reauthorization of ESEA also gives us an opportunity to clarify and strengthen current law, directing States, school districts, 

and schools to coordinate title I activities with Head Start programs and other early childhood development programs. 

We have had a lot of important hearings. This is our 10th one 

in this series, but I think this one today gets it where we have 

sorely been lacking in the last, pick your number of years—20, 50, 

30, 40—somewhere in there, or maybe more. 

I always hold up this book at hearings like this. This is a book 

called ‘‘The Unfinished Agenda: A New Vision for Child Development and Education,’’ put out by the Committee for Economic Development. Actually, it was a subcommittee of the Committee for 

Economic Development. It was first published in 1990. 

This Committee for Economic Development was established by 

the business community, and the leaders are the CEOs and chairmen of Fortune 500 companies, like Mr. Griswell who we have here 

today. It is a who’s who list of the great leaders in business in the 

1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. 

They commissioned this study to better understand what we 

needed to do in education so that our economic future will be 

brighter, so that the economic system of America will continue to 

prosper and grow. 

After about 3 or 4 years of having hearings and conducting the 

investigation, in 1990, Jim Renier, who then was the CEO of Honeywell, and was the chair of this committee, and they brought me 

this book. It was 1990. I was not chairman of this committee then. 

I was sitting clear down there at the end, but I was chairman of 

the Appropriations Committee that funded education at that time. 

They brought me this report, and the executive summary was 

quite important. What they found was, basically, that education begins at birth, and the preparation for education begins before birth. 

This whole thing is just about what we should be doing to improve 

the quality of and access to quality early childhood education. The 

commission focused on the importance of early learning in 1990, 

and we have done precious little since then. 

Here were people that said, you know, don’t forget about high 

school and college, but unless we go down to the earliest ages and 

start investing there, we are never going to catch up. And I think 

the intervening 20 years since 1990 have shown this to be true. 

I am hopeful that this panel will help us start thinking about 

how we redesign ESEA to start focusing on early childhood education, how we strengthen transitions and support kindergarten 

readiness. 

If I ask people to define elementary education, how would you 

define it? 

We could expect all types of responses. So I throw out to all of 

you, maybe we ought to redefine elementary education as beginning at birth, acknowledging that elementary education begins at 
3 

birth. And in that definition should build upon the policies, the programs, and the supporting mechanisms around it. 

But unless we define it, if early childhood education is not reflected in our thinking around elementary education, then what are 

we doing? We are not doing anything. If elementary education begins when you go to kindergarten or go to first grade, well, then 

we are going to continue to have the same problems we had back 

in the 1980s and early 1990s and that we have had ever since. We 

will always be swimming upstream, attempting to catch up. 

So I’ll just throw that out there for your thoughts. I am anxious 

to listen to all of you today. I have read all of your testimony. They 

are great testimonies. 

I will yield to Senator Burr for opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

Senator BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

More importantly, thank you for holding what I think is an important hearing on the topic of early childhood education. I also 

want to thank all of our witnesses for their time, for their experiences, for the knowledge that they will share with us on improving 

early childhood education. 

I want to especially welcome Henrietta Zalkind, the executive director of the Down East Partnership for Children. She is here 

today to share the phenomenal work she has been doing in the 

areas of Nash and Edgecombe Counties, I might say some of the 

most challenging areas of our State and of the country. 

Quality early childhood education and childcare are critically important to ensure that future generations of students are prepared 

for the 21st century. In their early years of development, children 

form cognitive, social, emotional and physical skills that they will 

need the rest of their lives, both inside and outside of the school 

classroom. 

Quality early childhood education and childcare are essential for 

ensuring that all children, regardless of their socioeconomic status, 

race, or disability, enter school ready to learn and, more importantly, ready to succeed. I am especially proud that one of the most 

important studies on the benefits of early childhood education and 

care was conducted in my home State of North Carolina. The Carolina Abecedarian? Abecedarian, am I close? 

[Laughter.] 

The Abecedarian Project was a controlled scientific study of the 

potential benefits of early childhood education for low-income children born between 1972 and 1977. I think that is about the time 

you got here, Mr. Chairman, wasn’t it? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, that is about right. 

Senator BURR. Children from low-income families received highquality educational interventions in a childcare setting from birth 

through age 5. The children’s progress was monitored over time 

with follow-up studies conducted at ages 12, 15, and 21. 

Children who participated in the intervention experienced higher 

cognitive test scores from the toddler years to age 21 and higher 

academic achievement in reading and math. Additionally, children 

in the intervention completed more years of education and were 

more likely to attend a 4-year college. These findings are a testa-
4 

ment to the importance of quality care and education for children 

ages birth to 5. 

While I know today’s topic is the reauthorization of elementary 

education and that we will hear a lot about how title I and other 

ESEA programs can support quality preschool, I think it is also important that we remember the other major Federal programs for 

early education and childcare, especially Head Start, Early Head 

Start, the Childcare Development Block Grant, or CCDBG, and 

IDEA, I-D-E-A. Rather than trying to improve the early childhood 

experience solely through the reauthorization of ESEA, I hope that 

the committee will also take the opportunity to make needed improvements to CCDBG and the Head Start programs. 

While we are behind in reauthorizing elementary education, it is 

important to remember that the Childcare Development Block 

Grant has not been reauthorized since 1996, and there are other 

critical changes needed to that block grant to ensure infants and 

toddlers receive high-quality care in a healthy and safe setting. 

To ensure children age birth to 5 have the best start possible, it 

is essential that all of our Federal programs—ESEA, Head Start, 

the Childcare Development Block Grant, and IDEA—work together 

and that all programs are pulling in the same direction and, more 

importantly, toward the same goal of all children, regardless of 

background, succeeding in school, succeeding in college, succeeding 

in the workplace. That should be our goal and our vision. 

I thank the chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Burr. 

Again, I thank you all for being here. I will introduce the witnesses, and we will start from left to right. 

First, we have Mr. Barry Griswell, someone I have known for a 

long time. Mr. Griswell has had a long and distinguished career in 

the financial services industry, most recently retiring as the CEO 

of the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines. 

Beyond his professional accomplishments, his activities in the 

community are just amazing. He has done much for our State and 

the communities. He is president of the Community Foundation of 

Greater Des Moines, which has directed philanthropic funds and 

private resources to promote collaborative initiatives that improve 

academic achievement particularly for children and youth identified as low income or at risk of dropping out or falling behind. 

Next is Dr. Larry Schweinhart, president of the HighScope Educational Research Foundation in Michigan. HighScope is a nonprofit organization that supports research and good practice in 

early childhood education. He directed a seminal study on the 

Perry Preschool Program that identified long-term effects of a highquality preschool education program for young children living in 

poverty. 

After Dr. Schweinhart, we will hear from Robert Pianta, dean of 

the Curry School of Education and director of the Advanced Study 

of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Dr. Pianta has conducted several large-scale studies on 

the effect of early childhood on children’s development and achievement and is an expert on effective teaching and teacher professional development. 
5 

And finally, we will hear from Henrietta Zalkind, just introduced 

by Senator Burr, the executive director of the Down East Partnership for Children in Rocky Mount, NC. This is a nonprofit organization that works with parents, childcare providers, teachers, 

schools, and other human service agencies to provide high-quality 

early learning opportunities to children in North Carolina. 

Again, I thank you all for joining us here today. Without objection, all of your statements will be made a part of the record in 

their entirety. We will go from left to right, I ask that you sum up 

your testimony in 5 to 6 minutes? Five, I am told. 

[Laughter.] 

Then we can get into a good discussion of this extremely important topic. 

So, Mr. Griswell, again, welcome. It is good to see you here, 

please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF J. BARRY GRISWELL, BOARD MEMBER, 

FORMER CHAIRMAN AND RETIRED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP, PRESIDENT OF THE 

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER DES MOINES, AND A 

MEMBER OF THE BERRY COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 

DES MOINES, IA 

Mr. GRISWELL. Thank you, Chairman Harkin. 

It is nice to see you all, distinguished Senators and staff. I am 

honored to be able to say a few words about a topic that I am very 

passionate about. My passion stems from a couple of different perspectives. 

First, I grew up in a broken home. An alcoholic father, a mother 

that worked two jobs to make ends meet, and I saw it from that 

perspective as a child. But that is not why I am here today, because that is important to me. I am here today, rather, to talk from 

a business perspective and just talk a little bit about how important early childhood education is to the business community and, 

therefore, to our country. 

I will give you a quick story. I did not get very involved in social 

issues until about 10 years ago, and I got involved with United 

Way in our local community. I was so struck by all of the needs, 

and I wanted to work so hard to make sure that those needs were 

taken care of. I found out something that you all know, and I was 

a little late coming to this understanding. And that is the understanding that the real systemic problems in our society around 

crime, around dropout rates, around mental health, around most of 

the problems we have actually stem from poor early childhood development. 

I was quite amazed when I started looking at the studies that 

have already been mentioned—the Perry Preschool, the Abecedarian, and many, many others. As a business person, I began to 

be made aware that these are problems that can be addressed, 

problems that can be solved. And if we don’t do it, the price of unreadiness for school is just enormous. 

So, I became convinced at a very real and personal level that I 

needed to do what I can as a business leader to try to spread the 

word to other business leaders that the real answer to the future 
6 

of our country is to make sure that every single child goes to kindergarten ready and prepared to learn. 

I learned, for example, as you all know, that 85 percent of the 

brain structure is developed in the first 3 years of life. I learned, 

for example, that a third of our kids today enter kindergarten coming out of poverty, and that third that does that go to kindergarten 

behind, and they typically stay behind. By the third grade, they are 

woefully behind and will never catch up. 

We know that that same group actually represents the highest 

rate of dropout in high school. We know that you can actually predict incarceration rates by looking at third and fourth grade reading levels. As a business person, I was amazed at this, and I really 

wanted to rally the troops to do something about it. I am very 

pleased to report that I think the business community is stepping 

up. 

The Business Roundtable—unfortunately, Chairman, I am afraid 

we did let a lot of time lapse from that study that you quoted. But 

the Business Roundtable did another study in 2003, all the major 

corporations in the United States, and they, too, found that for 

every dollar you invest in early childhood, you can get $4 to $7 to 

$8 in return. That is a terrific, terrific investment, and return on 

investment. 

I think it goes beyond that. If you think about our future as a 

country, if you think how are we going to compete in a global economy that is enormously competitive, it seems to me we will never 

do so without maximizing human capital. How can you say that we 

are maximizing human capital if a third of our youth are not getting through high school and college? How can we possibly compete 

with the great countries around the world that are producing great 

students and great workers if we don’t go back to the fundamental 

beginning? 

If I were put in charge of a corporation today and somebody said 

you are putting out a product that has poor quality, I would not 

marshal all of my resources to try to fix the poor quality at the end. 

I would go back to the beginning, and I would try to re-engineer 

what is causing the poor quality. We spend so much of our money 

on incarceration, on prisons, on jails, on mental health. Even on 

post-secondary education, which is vitally important for research, 

but does very, very little if the kids go to kindergarten behind. 

They will never, ever catch up. 

I have just become a very convinced and avid believer that this 

is an issue that we can take on, that we should take on. In Iowa, 

the Iowa Business Council has worked with both Governor Vilsack 

and Governor Culver to provide funding. We need Federal help. It 

needs to be a collaboration between business, State government, 

Federal Government, the research institutions. 

And if we do come together, if we do collaborate, I believe we can 

make a big, huge difference. I think if we don’t, I think we have 

some very rocky times ahead of us. Whether you are an individual, 

a community, a State, or, indeed, the Federal Government, we have 

a great deal at stake in reauthorizing ESEA. 

Thank you, Chairman Harkin. And by the way, 27 minutes early. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Griswell follows:] 
7 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF J. BARRY GRISWELL

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

As an individual who has had nearly 40 years in business, including 8 years as 

the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I have had the experience of evaluating many, 

many investment opportunities. I have found that when one goes looking for investments with reliable predictability of consistently high returns, none of us can go 

wrong with an investment in early childhood development. 

EARLY LOCAL UNITED WAY EXPERIENCE

In 2002, shortly after becoming CEO at Principal, I had the good fortune to serve 

as chair of the United Way of Central Iowa, and as part of the experience, I became 

aware of United Way efforts to build a comprehensive early childhood initiative for 

central Iowa. 

UNITED WAY OF AMERICA

Introduction of Born Learning, and expansion to affiliates throughout the country. 

BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE/IOWA BUSINESS COUNCIL

Increasingly over the last decade, various business organizations have thoroughly 

embraced this issue. 

VILSACK ADMINISTRATION AND PROGRESS MADE

During his terms as Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack pursued an agenda dedicated 

to the principles of opportunity, responsibility, and security. Governor Vilsack created the Iowa Community College Early Childhood Education Alliance to serve as 

an advocate to deliver state-wide quality education and to facilitate the sharing of 

‘‘best education practices’’ in a united and seamless manner benefiting Iowa’s economy, families and children. 

PRINCIPAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER

Having become a strong believer in the need for high quality child care, I worked 

with my company to build the Principal Child Development Center, a state-of-theart facility created to offer high-quality care and education for the children of employees of the Principal Financial Group. 

CONCLUSION

I remain convinced that investing in early childhood education is one of the very 

best investments we can make. 

INTRODUCTION

As an individual who has had nearly 40 years in business, including 8 years as 

the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I have had the experience of evaluating many, 

many investment opportunities. I have found that when one goes looking for investments with reliable predictability of consistently high returns, none of us can go 

wrong with an investment in early childhood development. I came upon this reality 

quite serendipitously. 

EARLY LOCAL UNITED WAY EXPERIENCE

In 2002, shortly after becoming CEO at Principal, I had the good fortune to serve 

as chair of the United Way of Central Iowa, and as part of the experience, I became 

aware of United Way efforts to build a comprehensive early childhood initiative for 

central Iowa. In conjunction with this effort a group of women associated with 

United Way of Central Iowa developed a comprehensive business plan for early 

childhood development to increase the quality of care being provided by care centers 

in central Iowa, and led a fundraising effort to raise the level of quality of care 

being provided in 15 specific centers around Des Moines. The effort focused on those 

with a minimum of centers and home providers whose children in their care are 85 

percent subsidized by the State of Iowa. The goal of working with the centers and 

home providers was to provide incentives and resources to move them up the con-
8 

tinuum of a quality rating system that aims to raise quality of care in the areas 

of: 

• professional development • health and safety • environment • family and community partnership • leadership and administration 

It was through this that I began to learn about the powerful research around 

brain development in the first 5 years, and how early reading rates translate into 

predictors for future school performance, graduation rates, and even incarceration 

rates. I learned things like: 

• By age 3, roughly 85 percent of the brain’s core structure is developed. • The first 5 (and particularly the first 2) years of life are critical to a child’s lifelong development. During the first years of life, the brain develops most rapidly, establishing neural connections that form the brain’s hardwiring. These years are not 

only important to language and cognitive development, they are also critical to social and emotional development—the ability to form attachments and to deal with 

challenges and stress. (‘‘Seven Things Policy Makers Need To Know About School 

Readiness’’ Charles Bruner, Ph.D., January 2005) • Increasing the graduation rate 1 percent can cause a societal savings of $1.8 

billion each year, solely from reduction of crime. • From Art Rolnick, Ph.D. and Rob Grunewald of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank: Persuasive economic research indicates that there is a very promising 

approach to economic development that has been long overlooked. It rests not on 

a strategy of State and local governments offering public subsidies to attract private 

companies from other communities. It rests, rather, on government support of something much closer to home—quite literally: our youngest children. This research 

shows that by investing in early childhood development (referring to investments 

from prenatal to age 5), State and local governments can reap extraordinarily high 

economic returns: benefits that are low-risk and long-lived. 

UNITED WAY OF AMERICA

When I served on the board of United Way of America, I began to see these issues 

from an even larger perspective. For example, I was made aware of the Abecedarian 

Project, a carefully controlled scientific study of the potential benefits of early childhood education for poor children. Children from low-income families received fulltime, high-quality educational intervention in a childcare setting from infancy 

through age 5, and progress was monitored over time with follow-up studies conducted at ages 12, 15 and 21. The young adult findings demonstrate that important, 

long-lasting benefits were associated with the early childhood program. 

Several years ago, the United Way of American launched the Born Learning program to raise national awareness of the importance of early brain development in 

the first 5 years of life. Today, virtually every local United Way has a focus on early 

childhood learning. 

BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE/IOWA BUSINESS COUNCIL

Increasingly over the last decade, various business organizations have thoroughly 

embraced this issue. For example, in 2003, The Business Roundtable and Corporate 

Voices for Working Families joined forces to issue Early Childhood Education: A 

Call to Action from the Business Community, which cited findings on a solid return 

on investment of from $4 to $7 for every $1 spent on quality early childhood education. 

At the same time, the Iowa Business Council has had early childhood education 

as one of its top priorities for at least the past 6 years. The Council worked with 

Governors Vilsack and Culver to get signed into law House file 877—a bill to expand access to quality preschool to nearly every 4-year-old in the State of Iowa. According to the groundbreaking Economic Policy Institute report, for every dollar 

spent in Iowa on universal, quality preschool, by 2050 the State would receive $8.40 

back due to decreased spending on other State programs, higher pay for individuals 

and savings from reduced crime. 

VILSACK ADMINISTRATION AND PROGRESS MADE

During his terms as Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack pursued an agenda dedicated 

to the principles of opportunity, responsibility, and security. He is recognized as an 

innovator on children’s issues and education, economic and healthcare policy, and 

efforts to make government more efficient and accessible. Iowa is known for its 
9 

strong K–12 education system in part due to Vilsack’s initiatives. He developed aggressive early childhood programs, reduced class sizes, created a first-in-the-nation 

salary initiative to improve teacher quality and student achievement, and enacted 

a more rigorous high school curriculum. His leadership also led to Iowa becoming 

a national leader in health insurance coverage, with more than 90 percent of children covered. 

Governor Vilsack created the Iowa Community College Early Childhood Education 

Alliance to serve as an advocate to deliver state-wide quality education and to facilitate the sharing of ‘‘best education practices’’ in a united and seamless manner benefiting Iowa’s economy, families and children. 

PRINCIPAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER

Having become a strong believer in the need for high quality child care, I worked 

with my company to build the Principal Child Development Center, a state-of-theart facility created to offer high-quality care and education for the children of employees of the Principal Financial Group. 

The center serves children from age 6 weeks through pre-kindergarten. Children 

of all ages benefit from the high-quality, age-appropriate curriculum, including one 

that is preschool specific and designed to prepare children for success in school. The 

curriculum encourages learning through child-initiated activities. It incorporates an 

emphasis on global, environmental and health and wellness themes, while respecting and valuing diversity. In addition, all children have the opportunity to participate in a variety of enrichment programs that introduce them to the fine arts and 

physical education while supporting and engaging various community businesses 

and individuals. As a bonus, environmentally friendly practices are incorporated 

into the operation of the LEED-certified center. 

CONCLUSION

I remain convinced that investing in early childhood education is one of the very 

best investments we can make, whether it be as individuals, communities, States, 

or indeed the Federal Government. It would certainly be easier to make such investments when financial times are thought to be good. The harsh reality is that in difficult times, there is greater need and an even greater sense of urgency to make 

the investment to insure that every child has the opportunity to enter kindergarten 

ready to learn and develop. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is pretty good. Thank you very much, Mr. 

Griswell. 

And personally, thank you for all you have done for our State. 

Now we go to Mr. Schweinhart. Mr. Schweinhart, welcome. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE J. SCHWEINHART, Ph.D., PRESIDENT, HIGH/SCOPE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION, 

YPSILANTI, MI 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Thank you. 

I would like to thank Chairman Harkin and the other members 

of the committee for inviting me to speak today in support of early 

childhood education in the Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act. 

I am Larry Schweinhart, president of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, based in Ypsilanti, MI. This year, 

HighScope celebrates 40 years of research, curriculum development, and dissemination in early childhood education. Our mission 

is to lift lives through education, a mission that resonates well in 

the homeroom of this committee. 

Let us be clear that early childhood education programs include 

early elementary programs in schools, as well as Head Start, Early 

Head Start, and childcare programs in community agencies. For 

the past several decades, the HighScope Perry Preschool Study, 
10 

which I direct, has provided a rationale for strengthening all of 

these programs. 

This and several similar studies have found that high-quality 

early childhood education programs help children at risk of failure 

reach higher levels of school and adult job success and commit substantially fewer crimes. The economic return to taxpayers on this 

investment is enormous. A simple response to these findings is to 

add pre-kindergarten classes. A more complete response is to see 

in them a rationale for maintaining high quality in all early childhood education programs in schools, as well as community agencies. 

A decade ago, this Nation made its first national education goal 

that all children will enter school ready to learn, and this goal is 

just as important today. The National Education Goals Panel recognized not only that we need children to be ready for school, but 

also that we need schools to be ready for all children. 

The panel established a study group, which included Robert 

Pianta, who is speaking here today, to clarify the definition of 

Ready Schools. Subsequently, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg 

Foundation, HighScope developed and validated a Ready School Assessment tool to help school stakeholders measure the level of readiness in their school and discuss ways to improve their school’s 

readiness over time. 

Ready Schools smooth the transition between home and school. 

They strive for continuity between early care and education programs and elementary schools. They help children make sense of 

the complex and exciting world. They focus on approaches that 

have been shown to raise achievement. They are learning organizations that alter practices and programs that do not benefit children. They serve children in communities, take responsibility for 

results, and have strong leadership. 

This afternoon, I would like to focus on two research-validated 

principles of Ready Schools that the new ESEA can support—interactive child development curriculum and regular educational checkups. We need to have elementary schools train in and use an interactive child development curriculum. In such a curriculum, children not only follow teacher directions, but also initiate and take 

responsibility for their own learning activities. 

The goals of a child development curriculum extend to cognitive, 

socio-emotional, and physical development—not just literacy and 

mathematics, as important as they are. Children develop cognitively when they learn how to think and solve problems. They develop socio-emotionally by developing commitment to education, a 

strong moral sense, and the ability to get along with other children 

and adults. Children develop physically when they learn how to 

keep themselves healthy and fit. 

We also need to require and support early childhood education 

programs to conduct regular checkups on their curriculum quality 

and its effect on children’s developmental progress not just by 

tests, but also by classroom observations that give teachers the information they need to do their job well. 

With ESEA reauthorization, we have a rare opportunity to kick 

off a national Ready School movement, not just the latest educational fad, but as a well-defined program of educational reform. 
11 

We have a rare opportunity to support highly effective early childhood programs in schools and community agencies as a genuine investment with enormous returns to taxpayers. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Schweinhart follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE J. SCHWEINHART, PH.D. 

SUMMARY

I thank Chairman Harkin and the committee for inviting me to speak today on 

early childhood education in ESEA reauthorization. I am Larry Schweinhart, president of HighScope Foundation, which is celebrating 40 years of research, curriculum 

development, and dissemination in early childhood education. 

Early childhood education programs include early elementary programs in schools 

as well as Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care programs in community 

agencies. For the past several decades, the HighScope Perry Preschool Study, which 

I direct, has provided a rationale for strengthening these programs. This and several 

similar studies have found that high-quality early childhood education programs 

help children at risk of failure reach higher levels of school and adult job success 

and commit substantially fewer crimes. The economic returns to taxpayers on this 

investment are enormous. A simple response to these findings has been to add prekindergarten classes. A more complete response is to maintain high quality in all 

early childhood education programs. 

A decade ago, this Nation made its first national education goal that all children 

will enter school ready to learn, and this goal is just as important today. The National Education Goals Panel recognized not only that we need children to be ready 

for school, but also that we need schools that are ready for all children. The Panel 

established a study group to clarify the definition of ready schools. Subsequently, 

with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, HighScope developed and validated 

a ready school assessment tool, based on the study group’s definition, to help school 

stakeholders measure the level of readiness in their school and stimulate discussion 

about ways to improve their school’s readiness over time. 

The new ESEA can support two research-validated principles of ready schools— 

interactive child development curriculum and regular educational checkups. We 

need to have elementary schools train in and use an interactive child development 

curriculum. In such a curriculum, children not only follow teacher directions, but 

also initiate and take responsibility for their own learning activities. The goals of 

a child development curriculum extend to cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical 

development. In addition, we need to require and support early childhood education 

programs to conduct regular checkups on their curriculum quality and on children’s 

developmental progress, not just by tests but also by classroom observations that 

give teachers the information they need to do their jobs well. 

With ESEA reauthorization, we have a rare opportunity to kick off a national 

ready school movement, not just as the latest educational fad but as a well-defined 

program of educational reform. We have a rare opportunity to better recognize and 

treat highly effective early childhood programs in schools and community agencies 

as a genuine investment with enormous returns to taxpayers. 

I thank Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and the other members of the 

committee for inviting me to speak today in support of early childhood education 

in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. My name 

is Larry Schweinhart and I am president of the HighScope Educational Research 

Foundation. HighScope is celebrating 40 years of research, curriculum development, 

and dissemination in early childhood education. Our mission is to lift lives through 

education, a mission that resonates well in the homeroom of this committee. 

Let’s be clear that early childhood education programs include early elementary 

programs in schools as well as Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care programs in community agencies. For the past several decades, the HighScope Perry 

Preschool Study, which I direct, has provided a rationale for strengthening these 

programs. This and several similar studies have found that high-quality early childhood education programs help children at risk of failure reach higher levels of school 

and adult job success and commit substantially fewer crimes. The economic returns 

to taxpayers on this investment are enormous. A simple response to these findings 

has been to add pre-kindergarten classes. A more complete response is to recognize 

in them a rationale for maintaining high quality in all early childhood education 

programs in schools and community agencies. 
12 

A decade ago, this Nation made its first national education goal that all children 

will enter school ready to learn, and this goal is just as important today. The National Education Goals Panel recognized not only that we need children to be ready 

for school, but also that we need schools that are ready for all children. The Panel 

established a study group, which included Robert Pianta who is speaking here 

today, to clarify the definition of ready schools. Subsequently, with funding from the 

W.K. Kellogg Foundation, HighScope developed and validated a ready school assessment tool, based on the study group’s definition, to help school stakeholders measure the level of readiness in their school and stimulate discussion about ways to improve their school’s readiness over time. 

This afternoon I’d like to focus on two research-validated principles of ready 

schools that the new ESEA can support—interactive child development curriculum 

and regular educational checkups. 

We need to have elementary schools train in and use an interactive child development curriculum. In such a curriculum, children not only follow teacher directions, 

but also initiate and take responsibility for their own learning activities. The goals 

of a child development curriculum extend to cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical 

development, not just literacy and mathematics as important as they are. 

In addition, we need to require and support early childhood education programs 

to conduct regular checkups on their curriculum quality and its effect on children’s 

developmental progress, not just by tests but also by classroom observations that 

give teachers the information they need to do their jobs well. 

With ESEA reauthorization, we have a rare opportunity to kick off a national 

ready school movement, not just as the latest educational fad but as a well-defined 

program of educational reform. We have a rare opportunity to better recognize and 

treat highly effective early childhood programs in schools and community agencies 

as a genuine investment with enormous returns to taxpayers. 

HIGHSCOPE

HighScope Educational Research Foundation, based in Ypsilanti, MI, is one of the 

world’s leading early childhood research, development, training, and publishing organizations. We envision a world in which all educational settings use interactive 

education to support students’ development so everyone has a chance to succeed in 

life and contribute to society. David Weikart, who died in 2003, established 

HighScope in 1970 to continue activities he initiated as an administrator in the Ypsilanti Public Schools. The name ‘‘HighScope’’ refers to the organization’s high purposes and far-reaching mission. 

HighScope is perhaps best known for its research on the lasting effects of early 

childhood education and its early childhood curriculum. The research has influenced 

public policy on early childhood education throughout the United States and around 

the world. The HighScope curriculum is used just as widely in programs throughout 

North America and in South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. 

HighScope receives funding from local, State, and Federal Government agencies, 

foundations, and individuals. From 1971 to 1993, HighScope was a model sponsor 

in the federally funded National Follow Through project of curriculum reform in cooperation with local schools. HighScope has long been a partner with the federally 

funded Head Start program, including being home to one of eight Head Start Quality Research Centers from 1995 to 2004. 

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INCLUDES EARLY ELEMENTARY GRADES

Early childhood is generally defined as the time of life when children are relatively young, from birth to age 8. It is a time of life, not a particular institution 

or setting. In the United States, almost all young children live at home with their 

families. By age 5, three-fifths of them have also spent time in one or more of a 

variety of other settings—family, friend, and neighbor care; child care homes and 

centers; public and private schools; and Head Start programs. From ages 5 to 8, virtually all of them spend time in public and private schools. 

Young children experience some kind of early childhood education whether they 

stay at home all day or experience child care and education in other settings. Some 

of these settings provide children with early childhood education on purpose. But 

intentionally or unintentionally, all of them are providing young children with early 

childhood education because all of them are providing young children with experiences that affect them for the rest of their lives. These settings vary greatly in expectations for young children, parents, and teachers or caregivers; as well as in 

available resources, rules, governance, and organization. Some receive government 

funding, and others do not. Some are regulated by the government, and others are 

not. 
13 

When children reach 5 years of age, society’s expectations for early childhood education become more uniform. Nearly all States require public schools to provide kindergarten and first through third-grade classes for 5- to 8-year-olds. But the difference in how we treat children before and after their fifth birthday is rooted more 

in adult expectations and traditions than it is in children’s development. 

The HighScope Perry Preschool Study reveals the promise of early childhood education. This study, which I direct, randomly assigned young children living in poverty to an early childhood education program or to no program and has followed 

them to age 40. By comparing the two groups, we have found evidence that the 

early childhood education program contributed a great deal to children’s development. The program group had higher achievement test scores and greater commitment to school. The group had higher high school graduation and adult employment 

rates and committed only half as many crimes. The return on public investment was 

enormous, better than the stock market in the good years. But while this program 

focused on 3- and 4-year-olds, its findings apply generally to the potential of early 

childhood education for a wider age range of children up to 8 years of age. The Perry 

study is not only a reason to invest in Head Start and State pre-Kindergarten programs. It is also a reason to engage in early elementary school reform. 

READY SCHOOLS

The idea of the ready school probably goes back to the annual task of preparing 

schools for the start of a new year. The increasingly important concept of the ready 

school is more recent. It grew out of President George H.W. Bush’s 1989 Education 

Summit in Charlottesville, VA, with the National Governors Association. This meeting produced the National Education Goals and the appointment of a National Education Goals Panel consisting of State and Federal policymakers. 

To the National Education Goals Panel, ensuring that children start school ready 

to learn was vitally important, but ensuring that schools were ready for children 

was equally important. We’re talking about the opposite, in fact, the complement, 

of children getting ready for schools. We’re talking about schools getting ready for 

children. For this reason, the Panel established the Ready Schools Resource Group, 

a group of early childhood education experts and leaders. The Resource Group’s 

1998 report sought to answer the questions: How can we prepare schools to receive 

our children? How can we make sure that schools are ready for the children and 

families who are counting on them? 

The report identified 10 key features of ready schools, as follows. They: 

1. Smooth the transition between home and school. 

2. Strive for continuity between early care and education programs and elementary schools. 

3. Help children learn and make sense of the complex and exciting world. 

4. Are committed to the success of every child. 

5. Are committed to the success of every teacher and every adult who interacts 

with children during the school day. 

6. Introduce or expand various approaches that have been shown to raise achievement. 

7. Are learning organizations that alter practices and programs if they do not benefit children. 

8. Serve children in communities. 

9. Take responsibility for results. 

10. Have strong leadership. 

These key features are further defined in the text of the report and capture well 

the concept of ready schools. But reports such as this one have a short shelf life. 

Concerned with this fact, and with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 

HighScope developed and validated a Ready School Assessment tool to make the 

features listed above real for elementary school teachers, administrators, and other 

stakeholders. We have worked with elementary school staff around the country, especially in North Carolina and Mississippi, to help make their schools more ready 

for all the children they serve. 

Participants must provide documentation to back up what they say about their 

school. They can’t simply check off items from a list. This documentation makes the 

assessment evidence-based. It is a self-assessment, which is much more effective in 

motivating action than is having outsiders come in to rate schools. It brings school 

stakeholders together to build partnerships—such as a school administrator, a kindergarten teacher, a preschool teacher, a parent, and a community representative. 

In one State, these stakeholders met every quarter, for the first time in most communities. Then researchers work with staff to review results and focus on school 

districts’ strengths and weaknesses in developing an improvement plan to address 
14 

1 Heckman, James J., Malofeeva, Lena, Pinto, Rodrigo and Savelyev, Peter A. (2010). ‘‘Understanding the Mechanisms Through which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult 

Outcomes.’’ Unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago, Department of Economics. 

and correct the area of need. The ready school focus fits right into school improvement plans. 

I’d like to focus on two aspects of early childhood education—curriculum and assessment—that show up in many of these features of ready schools. Curriculum and 

assessment are also essential to highly effective early childhood education programs 

that lead to long-term effects and return on investment. 

INTERACTIVE CHILD DEVELOPMENT CURRICULUM

We need to have elementary schools train in and use an interactive child development curriculum. Let’s unpack all these ideas. In an interactive curriculum, children not only follow teacher directions, but also initiate and take responsibility for 

their own learning activities. In a non-interactive, directive curriculum children 

learn letters by copying A’s, N’s and so on using a practice sheet. In an interactive 

curriculum they learn letters by writing a note to a friend or a story about their 

dog. Which approach do you think gets children motivated to learn their letters?’’ 

The goals of a child development curriculum extend to cognitive, socio-emotional, 

and physical development, not just literacy and mathematics as important as they 

are. The heart of cognitive development is that children learn how to think and 

solve problems for themselves. The heart of socio-emotional development is that 

children develop motivation to learn, commitment to school, a strong moral sense, 

and the ability to get along with other children and adults. The heart of physical 

development is that children learn how to keep themselves healthy and fit. We have 

been working with economist James Heckman and his colleagues to analyze just 

what factors affected by the Perry Preschool Program led to its long-term success. 

We found that the socio-emotional factors I mentioned above were even more important than cognitive skills.1 Yet we direct all our attention to children’s literacy, 

mathematics, and other academic skills rather than these socio-emotional factors. 

Some of the evidence for using an interactive child development curriculum in 

early childhood education programs comes from a longitudinal study we conducted 

called the Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study. This study involved randomly 

assigning young children to three different curriculum models. In HighScope, young 

children learned actively in a plan-do-review process and group times. In Nursery 

School, young children learned primarily through play. In Direct Instruction, teachers followed a script in which children’s lines were the right answers to rapid-fire 

questions. HighScope and Nursery School were interactive child development curricula, while Direct Instruction was not. We found that all three curricula improved 

children’s cognitive ability quite a bit, an average of 27 points. This effect diminished over time, but was still 17 points higher at age 10. But group differences appeared in social development as time went on. In their school years, only 6 percent 

of the HighScope and Nursery School groups required treatment for emotional disturbance, as compared to 47 percent of the Direct Instruction group. Only 10 percent of the HighScope group and 17 percent of the Nursery School group committed 

felonies by age 23, as compared to 39 percent of the Direct Instruction group. Only 

36 percent of the HighScope group said that people gave them a hard time, while 

over 60 percent of the other two groups. The interactive child development curricula 

contributed more to participants’ social development than did the Direct Instruction 

curriculum. 

This study illustrates that the long-term effectiveness of the curriculum models 

used in early childhood education should be validated by longitudinal research. 

While this is the case for the HighScope curriculum, we have not made the national 

investment needed to identify other early childhood curriculum models that can 

achieve similar success. We need a national program of early childhood curriculum 

development and longitudinal research. This program could serve as the linchpin of 

our investment in the future of our children. 

Adequate in-service training is essential to the adoption of a validated interactive 

child development curriculum. The U.S. Department of Education recently invested 

in a program of Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research, but no curriculum 

model required more than 6 days of initial training and follow-up coaching, and very 

few effects were found. HighScope offers and expects teachers to successfully complete 20 days of curriculum training and follow-up coaching. The Department of 

Education project may have seriously underestimated how much curriculum training is actually needed for it to effectively change teaching practices. 
15 

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATIONAL CHECKUPS

We need to require and support early childhood education programs to conduct 

regular checkups on their curriculum quality and its effect on children’s developmental progress. This dual focus on curriculum quality and children’s progress is 

essential to highly effective early childhood education, but Head Start and child care 

programs emphasize meeting program regulations and program performance standards, while schools emphasize children’s performance on tests of their progress. We 

need both in all early childhood education programs. Schools and Head Start and 

child care programs should conduct regular checkups on their curriculum quality 

and children’s developmental progress. 

To accomplish this dual-focus assessment program, we do not have to give young 

children more tests. We need to use observational assessment. To assess teaching 

practices, we should be using validated classroom observation systems, such as 

HighScope Program Quality Assessment and Pianta’s Classroom Assessment Scoring System. 

Similarly, to assess children’s developmental progress, we should be using observational assessments, not more tests. Traditional testing constrains young children’s 

behavior in ways they are not used to. Further, it requires young children to answer 

questions that have one right answer, each child alone without assistance. This procedure works for knowledge and some skills in literacy and mathematics. But it excludes much of children’s development—social skills in working with others, creativity, collaborative problem-solving, taking initiative and responsibility, and so on. 

While it may be appropriate to administer tests to samples of children, our primary 

assessment procedure with young children should be to use validated observational 

assessments such as HighScope’s Child Observation Record and the Work Sampling 

System developed by Sam Meisels. 

With ESEA reauthorization, we have a rare opportunity to kick off a national 

ready school movement, not just as the latest educational fad but as a well-defined 

program of educational reform. We can call on all elementary school administrators, 

teachers, parents, and other adult stakeholders to make their schools into ready 

schools. We can provide them with the materials, training, and coaching to do so. 

In doing so, we can reap the rewards of children’s greater educational success and 

subsequently greater success and responsibility in their lives. We can make ESEA 

a national investment in our young people that really pays off for everyone. 

ATTACHMENT

HOW ESEA CAN GET LASTING RETURNS ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

INVESTMENT

Larry Schweinhart, Ph.D., President 

HighScope Educational Research Foundation 

HIGHSCOPE: MISSION AND VISION

Mission—To lift lives through education. 

Vision—Widespread interactive education so everyone can succeed in life and contribute to society. 

HIGHSCOPE: ACTIVITIES AND AUDIENCE

Activities 

• Evaluative research 

• Product and services development 

• Publishing and training 

Audience 

• Teachers, caregivers, administrators and all concerned with programs serving 

young children. 
16 
17 

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION EFFECTS FOUND IN THREE STUDIES

• Childhood intellectual performance 

• Teen school achievement 

• Fewer teen births 

• Placements in regular classes 

• High school graduation 

• Adult earnings 

• Fewer crimes 

• Up to $16 return on the dollar 

(HighScope Perry Preschool Study, Abecedarian Child Care Study, Chicago ChildParent Centers Study) 

BUT OTHER STUDIES FIND ONLY MODEST EFFECTS

• Recent studies find only modest short-term effects on children’s literacy and social skills, raising a question about whether they have long-term effects and return 

on investment. 

(National Head Start Impact Study, Head Start FACES Study, Early Head Start 

Study, Even Start Evaluations, Five-State Prekindergarten Study) 

IMPLICATON—TO GET WHAT WE GOT . . . DO WHAT WE DID THAT WORKED

Early childhood education takes place in schools and community agencies. 

• Early childhood education includes early elementary, Head Start, Early Head 

Start, and child care programs for children up to age 8. 

• All of them can be highly effective and contribute to long-term effects and 

strong return on investment. 

• While the Perry program focused on 3- and 4-year-olds, its findings apply to all 

young children. 

TWO MAJOR INGREDIENTS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE ECE PROGRAMS

1. Learn and use a validated, interactive child development curriculum. 

2. Continuously check up on program quality and child development. 

1. Learn and Use a Validated, Interactive Child Development Curriculum 

• Learn: Requires interactive training, study, and practice. 

• Validated: Evidence of effectiveness with children to be served. 

• Interactive: Children and teachers design learning activities. 

• Child Development: All aspects of development. 

HighScope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study—Three Curriculum Models 

• HighScope—Children learn actively through plan-do-review and group times. 

• Nursery School—Children learn primarily through play. 

• Direct Instruction—Teacher-directed script with children’s lines focused on 

academics. 
18 

2. Continuously Check Up on Program Quality and Child Development 

• Check on implementation of an effective program model. 

• Check on all aspects of children’s development. 

• Attune teaching using these checkups. 

• Keep program accountability local. 

Implications for ESEA 

• Support demonstrated quality/effectiveness in all early childhood education programs in schools and community agencies. 

• Support schools working to meet the guidelines of the National Education Goals 

Panel for ready schools to make more schools ready for all children. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now Mr. Pianta. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. PIANTA, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA 

Mr. PIANTA. Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Burr, and 

members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak 

with you today, and let me commend you on your interest in early 

childhood education in the context of reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

It is sensible for you to seek ways of connecting early childhood 

education, which, for the purposes of my remarks, refers primarily 

to programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, but as has been noted, should 

also include birth to 3. Learning is, indeed, cumulative, and the 

skills and knowledge children acquire early are foundational 

underpinnings for later success. And with almost 80 percent of children age 3 and 4 in some form of early education setting, the time 

for policy work connecting early childhood programs in K–12 education is now. 
19 

It is abundantly clear that even the loosely organized collection 

of early education opportunities to which young children are exposed between the ages of birth and 8, including childcare, Statefunded pre-K programs, Head Start programs, and K–3, are a point 

of leverage for addressing low levels of and gaps in achievement. 

We see in scaled-up programs, not even the best programs, the gap 

can close by almost a half in 1 year of exposure. The challenge is 

that those programs are very uneven in quality from time to time 

and very inconsistent over time. 

So despite significant investments and benefits, the promise of 

early education as a scaled-up asset for fostering learning is not yet 

being fully realized for too many children and depends on a more 

complete integration of early education and care experiences for 

young children with the K–3 system. And it requires considerable 

reform of teacher quality and professional development. 

For example, although preschool experiences can help close 

achievement gaps and have longer-term benefits, most evidence 

also suggests too many holes and misalignments in the system. In 

the same community, we see different approaches to teaching literacy to young children, depending on whether they are enrolled in 

Head Start, pre-K, kindergarten, or first grade. We see different 

tests, different teacher qualifications, different professional developments. Some kids are in full-day programs. Other kids are in 

part-day programs. 

And this doesn’t even touch the other challenges, such as summer program learning gaps that lead to loss of skills, or the lack 

of effective teaching in too many classrooms. I would argue that 

ESEA reauthorization should set in motion policies that design a 

new entry portal into public education, one that ensures effective, 

aligned educational experiences for children from 3 to 8. 

And perhaps the biggest gap or hole in early education in the 

United States is the spotty nature of effective teaching. As you do 

this policy work, it is critical to understand the importance of the 

adults, the teachers, and the unique features of teaching young 

children. What matters for children in these younger grades and 

ages are the ways in which adults foster learning and development 

through careful, sensitive, stimulating interactions. 

Proven effective teaching requires skillful combinations of explicit instruction, sensitive and emotionally warm interactions, responsive feedback, and verbal engagement and stimulation all intentionally directed to ensure children’s learning and embedded in 

a classroom that is not overly regimented or structured and, hopefully, using a clear and educationally focused curriculum. I would 

like to say that these adults are strategic opportunists. 

Of even more importance for policy work—this is critical—is that 

these features of teaching can be quantified. They can be observed 

in a standardized manner across thousands of classrooms and improved through effective professional development that, in turn, 

closes skill gaps. You have the opportunity to move the system. 

The odds are, however, stacked against children getting the kind 

of early education experiences that close gaps. My team and others 

have observed several thousand teachers across the country, and 

these observations indicate that young children across the country 

are not exposed to the features of teacher-child interactions in their 
20 

preschool, in their pre-K, in their kindergarten, in their first grade, 

or in their third grade classrooms that produce learning regularly 

or close gaps. 

Instructional interactions, those features that appear to matter 

most for children’s achievement are particularly poor in quality. 

And in nearly every study that includes a large number of classrooms, the variability of features of teacher interactions that foster 

learning—variations from teacher to teacher, from classroom to 

classroom, from grade to grade—is exceptional. 

This means that if you are a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, or an 8- 

year-old in the United States, being exposed to the kind of teaching 

that has been shown to foster learning is, itself, a fairly rare event, 

occurring around roughly half the time. It rarely occurs in consecutive years and essentially seems like an accident. In short, educational opportunity for young children in the United States is not 

a guarantee, but a matter of luck. 

The professional development of teachers, both practicing teachers and those in teacher preparation, to be effective in interacting 

with children to produce learning could not be a more important 

priority for policy. Such professional development has to be aligned 

and integrated across the age span. 

That we now have proven effective approaches for improving 

teaching that also improve student learning—coursework, coaching, 

curricula—for these ages and grades is an opportunity for major reform of teacher preparation, certification, and professional development. Too many dollars, however, and too much teacher time is 

spent on garden-variety professional development that, in and of 

themselves, do not contribute to effective practice or learning. 

Let me be clear again. Effective teaching can be measured, can 

be improved systematically, and will have benefits for children 

learning, but only if we are serious about measuring and holding 

teachers, school districts, programs, and higher education to higher 

standards based on our knowledge of child development and investing in the kind of professional development and training that really 

works. I will say it again. Garden-variety degrees will produce a lot 

of irrelevant coursework and time spent. 

The conclusions for many sensible analyses of the extant data 

are fairly straightforward. First, early education opportunities in 

this country are a nonsystem. Publicly supported early education 

programs encompass such a wide range of funding streams, program models, staff qualifications, curriculum assessments, and 

teacher capacities that it cannot be understood as an organized aspect of the public support for children in this country. 

But despite stunning variability and fragmentation, there is compelling evidence that these experiences do, indeed, boost development and learning that can close achievement gaps and have 

longer-term benefits to children and learning. That interactions 

and effective teaching can be assessed offers you an opportunity. 

Finally, and perhaps most promisingly, teacher skills in children 

learning can be improved with specific and focused professional development and training. We need policies that incent and reward 

participation in effective, proven effective methods. 

A policy that works, that demonstrably affects support for adults 

working with young children could pave the way for tremendous 
21 

positive change in outcomes for those teachers and for the young 

children and our society. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pianta follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. PIANTA

SUMMARY

The loosely organized collection of educational opportunities to which young children are exposed between the ages of 3 and 8, including child care, State-funded 

pre-K programs, HeadStart programs, K–3, is a point of leverage for addressing low 

levels of, and gaps in achievement. The time for policy work connecting early childhood education with K–12 is now. Effective and efficient early education interventions targeted toward learning in the 3–3d period are essential, not only for children, but for the economic and social health of communities. But despite significant 

investments and benefits, the promise of early education as a scaled-up asset for fostering learning is not yet being fully realized for too many children and depends on 

a more complete integration of early education and care experiences for 3- and 4- 

year-olds with the K–3 system. ESEA reauthorization can set in motion policies that 

design a new entry portal into public education, one that ensures effective, aligned 

educational experiences for children from 3 to 8. Failing to take advantage of this 

opportunity only costs more downstream. 

What matters for young children are the ways teacher foster learning and development through careful, sensitive, stimulating interactions. The odds are stacked 

against children getting the kind of early education experiences that close gaps. Observational studies including several thousand teachers, indicate that young children are not exposed to features of teacher-child interaction in their pre-school, PreK, K, 1st and 3d grade classrooms that produce learning or close gaps. Instructional 

interactions, features that appear to matter most for children’s achievement, are 

particularly poor in quality. And in nearly every study that includes a large number 

of classrooms, the variability in the features of teacher-child interaction that foster 

learning—variation from teacher to teacher, classroom to classroom, grade to grade, 

is exceptional. The professional development of teachers, practicing teachers and in 

teacher preparation, to be effective in interacting with children to produce learning, 

could not be a more important priority for policy. And such professional development has to be aligned and integrated for teachers serving children across the age 

3–3d grade span. 

The conclusions from any sensible analysis of the extant data are fairly straightforward. First, early educational opportunities in this country are a non-system. 

Publicly supported early education programs (child care, Head Start, State-funded 

pre-kindergarten, K–3) encompass such a wide range of funding streams, program 

models, staff qualifications, curriculum, assessments, and teacher capacities that it 

cannot be understood as an organized aspect of the public system of support for children. Second, despite stunning variability and fragmentation, there is compelling 

evidence that early educational experiences can boost development and learning, 

can close achievement gaps in elementary school, and can have longer-term benefits 

to children and communities. Third, interactions between teachers and children can 

be observed and assessed using standardized and scalable approaches. Finally and 

perhaps most promisingly, teachers’ skills and children’s learning can be improved 

with specific and focused professional development training and support. The challenge for policy connecting ESEA and early childhood education is to incent construction and delivery of scalable and effective opportunities for teacher professional 

development and preparation, using new approaches to credentialing and certification and observational assessments of teachers’ classroom performance. Recent 

statements by professional organizations reflect an openness to innovation that, 

paired with demonstrably effective supports for teachers, could pave the way for tremendous positive change in outcomes for teachers serving children from 3–8 and for 

those children and society. 

Let me start by commending the committee on its interest in early childhood education as part of the approach to ESEA authorization. The loosely organized system 

of educational and developmental opportunities to which young children are exposed 

in child care, State-funded pre-K programs, Head Start programs, K–3 classrooms, 

and a host of other settings (including children’s homes), increasingly is viewed as 

a point of leverage for addressing low levels of, and gaps in, K–12 achievement. This 
22 

is sensible policy: learning is cumulative and the skills and knowledge that children 

acquire early are foundational underpinnings of what they learn later—fall behind 

early and stay behind is the rule. The time for serious policy and program work connecting early childhood education with K–12 is now. 

We now know that the long-term effects of early gaps in achievement and social 

functioning are so pronounced that effective and efficient early education interventions targeted toward these gaps in the pre-school period are essential, not only to 

the developmental success of children, but to the economic and social health of communities. Both small experimental studies and evaluations of large-scale programs 

show consistently the positive impacts of exposure to pre-school. The evidence comes 

from studies of child care, Head Start, and public school programs using a wide 

range of research methods including experiments. Lasting positive impacts have 

been found for large-scale public programs as well as for intensive programs implemented on a small scale, though even some of the intensive small-scale interventions were public school programs. Overall the positive long-term effects of preschool education include: increased achievement test scores, decreased grade repetition and special education rates, increased educational attainment, higher adult 

earnings, and improvements in social and emotional development and behavior, including delinquency and crime. Obviously, if programs provide child care they also 

benefit parents and can increase earnings in both the short- and long-term. Increased income that results from providing families with free or subsidized child 

care also has positive benefits for young children’s development, though these are 

likely small relative to the direct benefits of high-quality pre-school programs for 

children. 

Who can benefit from educationally effective pre-school programs? All children 

have been found to benefit from high-quality pre-school education. Claims that preschool programs only benefit boys or girls, or one particular ethnic group, or just 

children in poverty do not hold up across the research literature as a whole. Children from lower-income families do tend to gain more from good pre-school education than do more advantaged children. However, the educational achievement 

gains for non-disadvantaged children are substantial, perhaps 75 percent as large 

as the gains for low-income children. Some concerned with reducing the achievement gap between children in poverty and others might conclude that pre-school 

programs should target only children in poverty. Such an approach ignores evidence 

that disadvantaged children appear to learn more when they attend pre-school programs with more advantaged peers, and they also benefit from peer effects on learning in kindergarten and the early elementary grades when their classmates have 

attended quality pre-school programs. 

But we must be very clear about the magnitude of effects, whether short- or longterm. Any of the evaluations cited above indicate pre-school programs produce modest effect sizes overall, somewhat greater effects for low-income children, with some 

evidence that gains last through early grades. Typical child care has considerably 

smaller short- and long-term effects than more educationally focused programs such 

as selected Head Start programs or higher-quality pre-school programs linked to 

public education. And across studies and program models/features effects range from 

near-zero to almost a standard-deviation on achievement tests (the size of the 

achievement gap for poor children). There is no evidence whatsoever that the average run-of-the-mill pre-school program produces benefits in line with what the best 

program produce. Thus on average, the non-system that is pre-school in the United 

States narrows the achievement gap by about 30 percent. 

Thus despite significant investments and obvious benefits, the promise of early 

education as a scaled-up asset for fostering learning and development of young children in the United States is not yet being fully realized—too many children, particularly poor children, continue to enter kindergarten far behind their peers. Results 

from the first follow-up of the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS–B) show a gap of roughly one standard deviation 

on school readiness skills for children below the 20th percentile on family socioeconomic status. Because the wide-ranging and diverse set of experiences in preschools are not, in aggregate, producing the level and rate of skills gains required 

for children to enter school ready, it is argued that simply enrolling more children 

in more programs, although helpful, will not close, or even narrow in noticeable 

ways, the skills gap at school entry. Rather there is a dire need for investments and 

attention (in research, program development, and policy initiatives) that enhance the 

positive impacts of existing and expanding educational offerings on the very child 

outcomes on which skills gaps are so evident. 

How to construct delivery systems for the equitable distribution of such experiences, ensure the training and expertise necessary to support the value of early education, and evaluate the extent to which the delivery system produces desired out-
23 

comes for children pose serious challenges for scientists and policymakers. K–12 

education policy and practice is now grappling with, and relying on, early childhood 

education to an unprecedented extent, the strategic use of which is undoubtedly in 

the interest of America. It is quite clear that realizing the promise of early education in the United States depends on a more complete integration of early education and care experiences for 3- and 4-year-olds with the K–3 system. Your opportunity, in ESEA reauthorization, I believe, is the set in motion policies that design 

a new entry portal into public education in the United States, one that ensures effective, integrated, aligned educational experiences for children from 3 to 8. Failing 

to take advantage of this opportunity only costs more downstream. 

THE LANDSCAPE OF EARLY EDUCATION—SCHOOL STARTS AT 3, SORT OF

One might ask, 

‘‘How can school start at 3? Kids are at home or in child care, and compulsory 

education doesn’t even start at age 5 in most States—and in some they don’t 

even have universal kindergarten!’’ 

In some ways this perception is correct; from age 3 until whatever age enrollment 

in the K–12 system is mandatory, children spend time in a very loosely organized 

collection of settings that provide a mixed assortment of opportunities for learning. 

This could hardly be described as ‘‘school’’ if our referent point was the local elementary school. On the other hand, parents think child care is school—in the 2000 Current Population Survey, 52 percent of parents reported their 3- and 4-year-old children were ‘‘in school,’’ some 4,000,000 children overall. Many parents seek out child 

care that is advertised as ‘‘improving your child’s school readiness’’ and some purchase billions of dollars worth of educational materials to which they expose their 

children as early as the first months of life. 

Early education and child care settings historically have viewed learning and 

achievement as by-products of enrollment or exposure—one could hardly describe 

that as a ‘‘school.’’ But in the last decade the early education and care system has 

systematically re-focused and re-organized into loose collection of opportunities to 

learn that are increasingly intentional, purposeful, and driven by education policy 

and standards—a virtual school distributed across various settings. State and Federal pressure on early education and care is revealed in voters’ expectations that 

investments in the increasing formalization of this system will produce ‘‘school readiness’’ in the children who enter kindergarten and the analyses of economists who 

present the financial benefits to a community of investment in early education. K– 

12 education is now paying attention to the early education and care pipeline. 

Over the past four decades, the Federal Government and most States have invested heavily in providing public pre-school programs for 3- and 4-year-old children. The percentage of pre-schoolers in child care increased from 17 percent in 

1965 to about 80 percent in 2008. A marked increase in publicly funded programs 

accompanied this overall increase; Head Start was established in 1965 and by 2007– 

2008 served nearly 900,000 children in this age range. State-funded public prekindergarten programs greatly expanded during the past 20 years. Now 38 States 

offer these programs, which served approximately 1.1 million children across the 

Nation in 2007–8. By 2008, about 80 percent of American children attended a center-based pre-school program the year prior to kindergarten, most in private programs. Just over half attended a center-based program the year before that (at age 

3), with two out of three of these in a private program. The combination of increased 

enrollment, expansion of publicly funded pre-school programs, and recognition of the 

unique role of early education experiences in the establishment of education success 

has led to a current state in which school, for all intents and purposes, starts for 

the vast majority of children in the United States at age 4, and for many, at 3. However, despite this general pattern, the fragmentation of policy and programs is considerable. 

A widely understood example of policy fragmentation and its impact on experience 

is the set of regulations regarding access to K–12 opportunities. The age for compulsory school attendance in the United States ranges from 5 to 8 (Education Commission of the States [ECS], 2000), while kindergarten attendance is mandatory in 

some States and optional in others. Kindergarten lasts 21⁄2 hours in some States, 

and a full day (6–7 hours) in others and State-funded pre-K programs range from 

as short as 2.5 hours per day and as long as 10 hours per day. 

The situation is far worse with regard to the balkanization and fragmentation of 

programs for younger children. The term ‘‘pre-school’’ encompasses a diverse array 

of programs under a variety of names and auspices for children who have not yet 

entered kindergarten. Again we focus here only on three broad types of programs 

serving children at ages 3 and 4 linked to largely separate public funding streams: 
24 

private child care centers, Head Start, and pre-K programs in public education. Yet 

the real landscape of pre-school is far broader and more complex. 

Enrollment of 4-year-olds is split nearly 50-50 between public (including special 

education) and private programs. Private programs serve about 1.6 million 4-yearolds, including children receiving public supports such as subsidies to attend these 

private programs. Public programs include about 1 million children in pre-K (regular and special education and 450,000 4-year-olds in Head Start. At age 3, private 

programs predominate, serving roughly 1.4 million children. State-funded pre-K 

(regular and special education) serves only about 250,000 children at age 3, while 

Head Start serves about 320,000 3-year-olds. The point here is that even if we focus 

only on a narrow ‘‘slice’’ of the age 3–3d grade span, in this case, opportunities for 

3- and 4-year-olds, we see little to no evidence of consistency in policy or on programmatic initiatives that create the templates for local opportunities for children 

and families. In thousands of communities across the country, children, particularly 

the most vulnerable, are funneled into one program at 3 and then shuffled to another at 4, and yet another at 5—or worse they are among those who lack access 

to any of these opportunities. And most have some other sort of child care (subsidized or not) at some point in the day or week. To be concrete, if the public schools 

cannot manage to offer universal full-day kindergarten, then how does one go about 

conceptualizing and designing a system of early education and care that is aligned 

with it? I hope you can see the need for an age 3–3d grade approach to policy and 

program improvement. 

For the considerable investments of time, money and effort in early education of 

3- and 4-year-olds to pay off, a primary goal of policy and program development 

must now be the alignment of the learning opportunities, standards, assessments, 

and goals in early education with those in K–12. 

THE WORKFORCE

Enrollment of 3- and 4-year-olds in early education programs is pressuring the 

supply chain for early childhood educators and for effective training of those educators. Universal pre-K programs for 4-year-olds will require at least 200,000 teachers, with estimates of 50,000 new, additional teachers needed by 2020. Ninety-five 

percent of the workforce currently staffing formal pre-school and early education 

programs comes from 4-year and 2-year early childhood training programs and certified teachers from the K–12 system, with some unknown number of adults with 

unknown credentials staffing family-based child care and informal care. Unlike 

K–12 in which the supply chain is regulated by a single State entity and typically 

requires a 4-year degree from an accredited institution (or equivalent), training of 

the early education and care workforce is widely distributed and loosely regulated. 

Even in State-funded pre-K programs, rapidly ramping-up has forced many States 

to rely on teachers with elementary grade certifications and teachers with 2-year 

degrees ‘‘grand fathered’ into certification. Growing demand has created problems 

both in relation to supply of early educators who can staff expanding programs and 

in terms of providing new teachers with appropriate training, staff development, 

and support to ensure that they create learning opportunities that produce achievement. 

The attributes and skills of the adults who staff elementary school and pre-school 

educational settings tend to be very different. At the kindergarten level, nearly all 

States require a Bachelor’s degree and some level of specialized training in education for adults to be certified to teach and over 95 percent of the teachers in kindergarten classrooms meet both criteria. Even though many have only sparse training in teaching your children. 

In contrast, pre-school teachers vary widely in their level of training and, on average, receive less training and education than their elementary school counterparts. 

There are large differences even among teachers in State-funded pre-K programs. 

Minimum requirements range from a Child Development Associate (CDA) certificate 

to an Associate’s degree to a Bachelor’s degree. Furthermore, some States require 

that the 2- or 4-year degree be in early childhood education or child development, 

while others do not specify a field of study. Even in the fairly well-regulated domains of State-funded pre-kindergarten programs and kindergarten, there is substantial variance in the preparation and qualifications deemed necessary for the 

workforce, a reality that seems indefensible given the developmental needs of 4- and 

5-year-olds. How could fostering early literacy for a 4-year-old require such a different preparation than fostering literacy in a 5-year-old? 

Head Start has national standards for program structure, operation and teacher 

credentials, but does not require all teachers to have college degrees. Head Start is 

increasing their educational standards for teachers and educational coordinators, 
25 

with aims that all Head Start teachers will have at least an Associates (AA) degree 

specialized in early childhood, and all education coordinators have at least a BA degree specialized in early childhood by the 2011 school year. And at least 50 percent 

of the Lead teachers in Head Start must have at least a BA degree by 2013. As 

I will note later, there is no evidence that garden variety educational experiences— 

coursework—will lead these teachers to be more effective in the classroom. 

For children enrolled in the less-regulated ecology of family- or center-based child 

care, exposure to credentialed or degreed staff is even lower. The 2007 child care 

licensing study was one of the more recent and comprehensive studies of the child 

care workforce. Drawing on data gathered from 49 States and the District of Columbia, in the vast majority of States (42) directors of child care centers are only required to have some occupational/vocational training, some higher education credit 

hours in early childhood education, or a Child Development Associate’s credential. 

Only one State required that directors of child care centers hold a Bachelor’s degree. 

Similarly, for individuals considered as teachers in licensed child care centers, 40 

States required some combination of a high school degree and experience. Only 10 

States required some vocational program, certificate or CDA, and 13 States had no 

requisite educational qualification for child care teachers. 

Capable early education is a complex and challenging task—teachers need to 

know a lot about basic child development, far more than the typical course—and 

they need to know about how to teach and stimulate vocabulary, conversations, 

early literacy, knowledge of science and the community, and early mathematics— 

all the while handling sensitively the varied needs of 15–25 3–8-year-olds—and 

within a classroom of 3-year-olds the range of skills can go from 2 years to 5, while 

in a classroom of 8-year-olds it could range from 2–12. Imagine the training and 

support required to support the developmental and educational growth of all those 

children! 

Clearly we have not settled on a set of minimal qualifications for adults serving 

in the role of teachers of young children, whether this teaching takes place in community child care, Head Start, public Pre-K or K–3 classrooms. And we have not 

even begun to address the need to be consistent in our regulation and training of 

those skills across the 3–3d grade span. 

In short, to the extent that teachers play an essential role in fostering effective 

learning opportunities for young children, children passing through the pre-school– 

3d grade period can expect a stunning level of variation from year to year and setting to setting in even the most basic features (i.e., educational level) of these personnel. 

And consistent with nearly every other form of teacher training, there is so little 

evidence linking pre-service or in-service training experiences or teacher credentials 

to child outcomes or to observed performance for teachers, that there is considerable 

debate about whether requiring a 4-year degree is the best way to ensure early education programs help children learn. Addressing workforce needs in this system will 

require a re-thinking and re-balancing of several factors, including incentives, the 

content and processes of training, and efforts to professionalize the workforce and 

integrate the early education system with K–3. 

WHAT MAKES FOR AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER IN PRE-K–3?

Degrees are poor proxies for the instructional and social interactions teachers 

have with children in classrooms. Children’s direct experiences with teachers, such 

as the ways teachers implement activities and lessons; whether a teacher is encouraging and able to assist the child if he/she is struggling; whether the teacher uses 

the opportunity to engage the child in conversation are the features of early education that are responsible for children’s learning. The active ingredient for learning 

is what a teacher does, and how she does it, when interacting with a child. 

Effective teaching in early education, including the elementary grades, requires 

skillful combinations of explicit instruction, sensitive and warm interactions, responsive feedback, and verbal engagement/stimulation intentionally directed to ensure 

children’s learning while embedding these interactions in a classroom environment 

that is not overly structured or regimented. These aspects of instruction and interaction uniquely predict gains in young children’s achievement, have been directly 

tied to closing gaps in performance, and are endorsed by those who advocate tougher standards and more instruction and by those who argue for child-centered approaches. But unlike for older children, to be effective, teachers of young children 

must intentionally and strategically weave instruction into activities that give children choices to explore and play, engage them through multiple input channels, and 

should be embedded in natural settings that are comfortable and predictable. The 

best teachers are opportunists—they know child development and exploit interests 
26 

and interactions to promote it—some of which may involve structured lessons and 

much of which may not. 

Interactions with teachers determine the value of enrollment in pre-school and 

contribute to closing performance gaps. As one example, we examined whether children at risk of early school failure exposed to high levels of observed instructional 

and emotional support from teachers would display higher achievement than at-risk 

peers not receiving these supports. Two groups of children were identified: those 

whose mothers had less than a 4-year college degree and those who had displayed 

significant behavioral, social and/or academic problems, who, on average, were behind their peers at age 4 and further behind by first grade. Yet if placed in classrooms in which teachers demonstrated the type of interactions described above these 

gaps were eliminated: children from low-education households achieved at the same 

level as those whose mothers had a college degree and children displaying prior 

problem behavior showed achievement and adjustment levels identical to children 

who had no history of problems. 

These results are consistent with a cluster of experimental and well-designed natural history studies that show a return to achievement from observed classroom 

quality of between a half to a whole standard deviation on standardized achievement tests, with greater effects accruing to children with higher levels of risk and 

disadvantage. Experimental studies, although few and involving far fewer children, 

show similar effects. In fact, findings are almost uniform in demonstrating significant and meaningful benefits for enrollment in early education settings in which 

teacher-child interactions are supportive, instructive, and stimulating. Yet these ‘‘effects’’ studies do not provide information on the prevalence and distribution of such 

‘‘gap closing’’ classrooms within the system of early education and care, or how to 

produce gap-closing settings. 

QUALITY IS LESS AVAILABLE THAN YOU THINK

Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against children getting the kind of early 

education experiences that close gaps. Observational studies including several thousand settings, indicate that young children are exposed to moderate levels of social 

and emotional supports in their Pre-K, K, 1st and 3d grade classrooms and quite 

low levels of instructional support—levels that are not as high as those gap-closing, 

effective classrooms described above. The quality of instructional interactions, particularly the dimensions that appear to matter most for children’s achievement, is 

particularly low (the average levels hover around a ‘‘2’’ on a 7-point scale). 

In addition to somewhat low levels of instructional support, in nearly every study 

that includes a large number of classrooms, there is also an exceptional degree of 

variability in the opportunities that appear to contribute to increased performance. 

Observations that include several thousand child care settings, pre-K, kindergarten 

and first grade classrooms show that some children spending most of their time engaged in productive instructional activities with caring and responsive adults who 

consistently provide feedback, challenges to think, and social supports. Yet for others, even in the same program or grade, most of their time is spent passively sitting 

around, having few if any interactions with an adult, watching the teacher deal with 

behavior problems, exposed to boring and rote instructional activities. In some programs, even in classrooms right next to one another that share the same materials 

and curriculum, the exposure of children to high quality learning and social supports is so dramatically different that one would conclude the difference was 

planned. Children in some classrooms may be exposed to few, if any, instances of 

any form of literacy-focused activities, whereas in others children received more 

than an hour of exposure to literacy-related activities, including narrative story-telling, practice with letters, rhyming games, and listening. 

Drawing from the very large sample of State-funded pre-K classrooms in the 

NCEDL study, we used the statistical procedures of multi-stage cluster analysis to 

group similar classrooms together as a way of profiling this sector of American education (the NCEDL sample represents 80 percent of pre-K programs serving 4-yearolds in the United States). They show that only about 25 percent of pre-K classrooms show high levels of emotional and instructional support—the type of classroom setting almost universally described as high quality (this is not unique to preK; we find the same rates in first and third grade). Even further troubling is evidence that the pre-schooler lucky enough to experience a pre-K classroom likely to 

contribute to achievement is unlikely to be enrolled in a similarly high quality, gapclosing classroom in kindergarten or first grade. Rather it appears that exposure to 

gap-closing classroom quality, although highly desirable from nearly every perspective imaginable, is a somewhat random and low prevalence event that is even more 

unlikely for children in poverty. 
27 

These realities about the level and distribution of high quality early education 

classrooms in the United States probably reflect the convergence of at least three 

factors. First, teaching young children is uniquely challenging and is not easy. Second, many of the publicly funded early education programs that are included in 

large-scale studies (such as Head Start and State pre-K) are composed of a high percentage of children who live below the poverty line who can bring with them a collection of features that make teaching even more challenging, especially when concentrated in a classroom. Third, the system of early education operates on a shoestring of support and is not at all aligned with K–12—it is often less well-funded 

than K–12, classrooms are housed in trailers or makeshift locations, and teachers 

tend to not use the same curricula, assessments, or approaches to teaching across 

these years. There is no systematic approach to connecting pre-school—what takes 

place for 3- and 4-year-olds—with early elementary school—and so we lose much of 

the potential leverage for early education impacts on later learning and achievement 

simply by the way the system is (not) designed. 

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO IMPROVE TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS AND

EARLY EDUCATION IMPACTS 3–3D

Too few of the students who are in greatest need of effective teaching in their 

early education experiences receive them and the few that do are unlikely to receive 

them consistently, making it unlikely that the positive effects will be sustained for 

children who need consistent supports. 

These findings should spark an interest in raising and leveling the quality of 

classroom supports available to young children across the ages of 3–8—this is truly 

a critical period for learning skills required later. One option is to focus on structural features of schools and classrooms such as teacher education and certification, 

class size, and curriculum and enact policies to ensure that these proxies for quality 

are uniformly in place. The available data do not provide compelling support for this 

option, although it should not necessarily be discarded altogether. Another option 

is to aim regulation and support at what teachers do in classrooms as they interact 

with children and find ways to more directly change and improve the dimensions 

of instructional and social interactions teachers have with children in large numbers 

of classrooms. 

A first step in that direction would be more systematic, objective, standardized descriptions of such interactions and professional development and training systems 

for teachers that actually support them to interact more effectively with their students. Ultimately, such systems, if based on strong and valid metrics, may be a 

more cost-effective mechanism for effecting real change for teachers and children in 

part because rather than focusing personal and financial resources in the pursuit 

of proxies that show little relation to teacher quality and child outcomes, such a system could be organized around direct assessments of teacher/classroom quality 

shown to be related to children’s outcomes. Increasingly there are tools to help facilitate progress toward this goal. Observational measures such as those we have 

developed—the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or CLASS—and those used 

in other large-scale applications, that focus on standardized observation of instruction, are reliable and valid measures, directly linked to improvement in student outcomes. These tools, spanning the 3–3d period could form the basis of strategic scientifically based development of a new generation of professional development and 

policy initiatives aimed at increasing educational opportunity by forming a coherent 

and consistent view of teaching and learning across these ages, one predicated on 

an understanding of how young children learn through interactions with adults. 

Others and we are innovating with technologies for conducting classroom observation at-scale. It may be quite feasible to imagine a system of program development 

and improvement teachers/classrooms can be observed on an annual basis using an 

instrument that assesses dimensions of classroom experience that contribute to 

child achievement. 

More important than being able to observe and measure social and instructional 

interactions in classrooms is to design and test models for improving these opportunities to learn. What is emerging, through more systematic evaluations of professional development programs that are closely linked to classroom practice, such as 

mentorship and coaching, is that direct training and constructive feedback and support to teachers based on observation of their interactions with children in classrooms yield promising results for improving early education practice and children’s 

performance. Challenges remain in how to further develop, validate, and scale-up 

such approaches, but the science of early education holds considerable promise for 

advancing these possibilities. 
28 

For the early childhood education system to move toward the goal of active and 

marked advancement of children’s skills and competencies, the quality and impacts 

of programs must be improved through a vertically and horizontally integrated system of focused professional development and program designs/models that are educationally focused (as described earlier). In short, programs themselves need to realign around educational aims (in key developmental domains and appropriately articulated) and teachers must receive preparation and support to deliver classroom 

experiences that foster those aims more directly. Teaching would entail providing 

teacher-student interactions that promote the acquisition of new skills, delivers curricula effectively, and individualizes instruction/interaction based on children’s current skill level, background, and behavior. Programs require (and policy should 

incent use of) proven-effective professional development supports through which 

teachers would acquire the skills in effective teacher-child interactions and implementation of curricula and assessment in developmentally synchronous ways. 

Improvement of early education impacts rests on aligning professional development and classroom practices with desired child outcomes. In particular, the field 

needs a menu of professional development inputs to teachers (pre-service or in-service) that are proven to produce classroom practices (e.g., teacher-child interactions) 

that in turn result in the acquisition of desired skills among children (e.g., literacy 

skills). Efforts to develop such a system of aligned, focused, and effective professional development for the wide-ranging early childhood workforce are underway 

through the auspices of the Department of Education-funded National Center for 

Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) and by several other investigators, which target children’s early literacy and language development, and mathematics. 

Targeted intervention to improve teacher interactions with children and instruction in academic skills such as the NCRECE My Teaching Partner approach does 

increase effective teaching and children’s social and academic gains. Other research 

groups have demonstrated similar results—that coaching teachers in interactions 

that are linked to instructional supports for learning and good implementation of 

curriculum can have significant benefits for children. Mentoring and training are 

difficult to measure and to bring to scale, though relatively ‘‘easy’’ to prescribe as 

the professional development answer. One critical component of bringing mentoring 

to scale concerns the ability of systems to prepare and regulate mentors; yet only 

three States have defined core competencies for technical assistance providers. 

Professional development approaches optimally should be designed for ‘‘highpriority’’ skill targets, such as pre-school language and literacy or math, and start 

with defining these targets and ensuring that there is a curriculum in place that 

reflects these targets. A high priority target for literacy or math instruction is one 

that (a) is consistently and at least moderately linked to school-age achievement, (b) 

is amenable to change through intervention, and (c) is likely to be under-developed 

among at-risk pupils. It is clear that increasing teachers’ knowledge of developmentally relevant skill progressions can be a key aspect of improving their instruction and child outcomes yet teachers also require dedicated attention to implementing that knowledge through their interactions in the classroom. 

AN INNOVATIVE WEB-BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TREATMENT FOR IMPROVING

SCHOOL READINESS

Because effects of organized curricula on children’s skills are mediated and/or 

moderated by teacher-child interactions, these interactions must be a central focus 

of PD interventions aiming to improve child outcomes. The average pre-K–3 child 

experiences teacher-child interactions of mediocre-low quality, but small increments 

produce skill gains. 

MyTeachingPartner (MTP) Coaching focuses on improving teacher-child interactions defined and measured by the CLASS. Because the majority of teachers’ 

interactions fall below the threshold levels most pre-school classrooms do not operate 

in the ‘‘active range;’’ small incremental improvements are associated with meaningful changes in children’s skills. Importantly, MTP is capable of moving teacher-child 

interactions into (and through) the range in which they improve children’s readiness. 

For example, the improvements yielded from MTP were substantial. MTP coaching of teachers improved their interactions and instruction and closed the achievement gap in literacy and language development for poor children by almost a third. 

Coaching was delivered to teachers entirely through the web; this is perhaps one of 

the first completely web-based professional development approaches that is effective, 

individualized, and improves teacher-child interactions across any curriculum. And 

the use of the web in this and other novel and effective approaches to professional 
29 

development affords potential for scalability and cost-savings for travel, and location 

is not a pre-condition to individualized feedback to teachers. To illustrate, MTP is 

among the least expensive professional development for teachers for which cost has 

been documented with effects larger than those typically reported in the literature. 

And MTP and other web-mediated approaches can be aligned with training, certification, and degree requirements for teachers. 

The best approaches to professional development focus on providing teachers with 

developmentally relevant information on skill targets and progressions and support 

for learning to skillfully use instructional interactions, and effectively implement 

curricula. These approaches align (conceptually and empirically) the requisite 

knowledge of desired skill targets and developmental skill progressions in a particular skill domain (e.g., language development or early literacy) with extensive opportunities for: (a) observation of high-quality instructional interaction through 

analysis and viewing of multiple video examples; (b) skills training in identifying 

in/appropriate instructional, linguistic, and social responses to children’s cues, and 

how teacher responses can contribute to student literacy and language skill growth; 

and (c) repeated opportunities for individualized feedback and support for high-quality and effectiveness in one’s own instruction, implementation, and interactions with 

children. This is a system of professional development supports that allow for a direct tracing of the path (and putative effects) of inputs to teachers, to inputs to children, to children’s skill gains. 

Again, evidence is very promising that when such targeted, aligned supports are 

available to teachers, children’s skill gains can be considerable, on the order of a 

standard deviation. Unfortunately, pre-school–grade 3 teachers are rarely exposed 

to multiple field-based examples of objectively defined high quality practice and receive few if any opportunities to receive feedback about the extent to which their 

classroom interactions and instruction promote these skill domains. And at present, 

there is also very little evidence that the policy frameworks and resources that 

should guide and incent professional development and training of the early education workforce actually are aligned with the most promising, evidence-based forms 

of effective professional development. Thus there is little wonder that teachers with 

a 4-year degree or 2-year degree do not differ from one another substantially in either their practice or students’ learning gains, or that investments in courses and 

professional development appear to return so little to children’s learning. It truly 

does ‘‘depend’’ on the nature and type of professional development and future considerations for policy aimed to improve the quality and effects of pre-school must 

very clearly address this disconnect and make investments in professional development far more contingent on what we know is beneficial to teachers and children 

as opposed to convenient or beneficial to professional development providers. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions are fairly straightforward. First, early educational opportunities 

in this country are a non-system. Publicly supported early education programs (child 

care, Head Start, State-funded pre-kindergarten, K–3) encompass such a wide range 

of funding streams and targets, program models, staffing patterns and qualifications, curriculum, assessments, and teacher capacities that it cannot be understood 

as an organized aspect of the public system of support for children. This is unfortunate because evidence is so clear the opportunities to learn, and learning that takes 

place, in this age range are simply more important than at other ages, for the longterm well-being of individuals, families, and communities. 

Second, despite this stunning variability and fragmentation, there is compelling 

evidence from well-controlled studies that early educational experiences can boost 

development and school readiness skills, can close achievement gaps in elementary 

school, and can have longer-term benefits to children and communities over time. 

Unfortunately, the effects of various program models are quite varied, with some 

rather weak and ineffective while other scaled-up programs narrowing the achievement gap by almost half. And it is quite clear that programs that are more educationally focused and well-defined produce larger effects on child development. 

Third, for children enrolled in pre-school, features of their experience in those settings matter—particularly the ways in which teachers interact with them to deliver 

developmentally stimulating opportunities. The aspects most often discussed as features of program quality regulated by policy (such as teacher qualifications or curriculum) have much less influence on children than is desired and their influence 

pales in comparison to what teachers actually do with children. Critically important, 

interactions between teachers and children can be observed and assessed using 

standardized and scalable approaches (as is evident in the use of CLASS in Head 

Start and many school districts). Unfortunately, when assessed in this manner, it 
30 

is evident that most early education classrooms fall short on teachers’ demonstrating gap-closing interactions. Finally and perhaps most promisingly, teachers’ 

skills and children’s learning can be improved with specific and focused professional 

development training and support. 

If effective models of professional development can indeed change child outcomes, 

then the potential for scaling and building incentive and policy structures around 

these models becomes an important feature of systemic improvement and policy. 

The recent development and expansion of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems 

in early childhood are one such example of a set of policy initiatives that integrate 

measurement of inputs and outcomes with incentives and resources for teacher improvement. 

Finally, one might also envision professional preparation and credentialing models 

based on what we are learning from studies of effective professional development 

and its evaluation. To the extent that these models of support and education for 

teachers can be demonstrated to produce gains in teacher competencies that produce 

child outcome gains, then it seems critical to build such opportunities for professional preparation ‘‘back’’ into the ‘‘pre-service’’ sector and to find methods for 

credentialing and certifying teachers on the basis of participation in effective professional development and demonstration of competence. In fact, new policy statements 

related to professional development and career development being suggested by the 

National Association for the Education of Young Children explicitly identify teachers’ performance in classroom settings, specifically their interactions with children, 

as a dimension of career advancement that should be credentialed and tied to professional development. Such statements by professional organizations reflect openness to innovation that, paired with demonstrably effective supports for teachers, 

could pave the way for tremendous positive change in outcomes for teachers and 

children. 

In an era of high-stakes testing in which even young children may be held to uniform, minimum performance standards, it is disconcerting to note that the system 

on which the Nation is relying to produce such outcomes provides exceptional variability in the nature and quality of actual opportunities to learn. It seems unreasonable to expect universal levels of minimal performance for students when the opportunities in early education are so unevenly distributed. As the system of early education serving children from 3–8 in the United States evolves as an integral component of the solution to a host of problems related to schooling and achievement, serious attention is needed to policies, particularly for teachers and their professional 

development and support, that help re-design this portal into public education in 

terms of aligned, effective experiences in classrooms that indeed foster children’s 

learning and development. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Pianta. 

Now, Ms. Zalkind, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HENRIETTA ZALKIND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

DOWN EAST PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN, ROCKY MOUNT, 

NC 

Ms. ZALKIND. Thank you. 

Thank you for having me here today. Thank you, Senator Burr, 

for the wonderful introduction. 

I am here today on behalf of the hundreds of people locally who 

have made this work possible over the last 16 years, who have 

committed themselves to not leaving any child behind. 

The Down East Partnership for Children—we call it DEPC—is 

committed to successfully launching every child in our two counties 

as a healthy lifelong learner by the end of the third grade. DEPC 

believes that the developmental period for children 0 to 8 is critical 

to their long-term healthy growth and development. That is when 

they are learning to learn. It is also a critical period for parents, 

learning to parent and learning to engage in their child’s education. 

We were founded as a nonprofit in 1993 and work on a model 

of services that works in collaboration with two local school systems—Nash-Rocky Mount and the Edgecombe County Public 

Schools—early care providers, human service agencies, and other 
31 

community leaders. We have a 27-member board, representing the 

multiple stakeholders that you need for this work to work in concert to build a strong foundation for student achievement. Annually, we bring in about $7 million of different funding from 

the State, from the Federal Government, from private sources, to 

either do three programs directly—a childcare resource and referral 

program, a family resource program, and a coordinated subsidy 

program—and then we fund 20 total agencies, 20 programs in 10 

other agencies, including the health department, the schools, the library, the Department of Social Services, and other area nonprofits. 

And all of these different programs have to go to support our 

three long-term goals—unique support for each child and family, 

high-quality early care and education environments, and access to 

coordinated community resources. Everything that we do directly 

or that we fund through the different agencies go through an annual bid process with annual outcomes that help us move towards 

those three long-term goals. 

We work off an integrated multi-agency strategic plan that is on 

our Web site that has intermediate outcomes toward those longterm goals. My testimony today really focuses on a few major components of our system that I think bear on the reauthorization of 

the No Child Left Behind and the ESEA. 

First, our Family First system that provides comprehensive services to families, including intake and assessment, referrals to a 

whole continuum of services ranging from early education subsidies 

to evidence-based parent education. We have a coordinated subsidy 

system that works in collaboration with the subsidy money, the 

CCBD—it is hard for everybody to say—the Department of Social 

Services, title I preschool programs, private childcare providers, 

and Head Start to maximize the use of all subsidy funds for children 0 to 12 by ensuring that children are served in the most appropriate early care and education program available. 

It is also our single-biggest way that we control the quality by 

mandating that people who participate in that system operate at 

a certain level of quality and contracting with those people for that 

level of quality, that provides not only access to the care, but it provides access to high-quality care. 

We have a system of home-school contacts that operate through 

both school systems that provide transition from home to childcare, 

to early education, to school—that is our outreach system to make 

sure that we know all of the children before they get to school and 

that we can follow them through the third grade and that they are 

successfully launched by the end of the third grade. 

The thing that I will focus the most on today is our Ready 

Schools Initiative, really designed to build the capacity of the 

schools to meet the needs of all children so that children are not 

just ready for school when they get there, but that the schools are 

ready for them. And then, finally, our Ready Communities Initiative, which wraps community leadership—including business, faith, 

and community—around schools to support them in their effort to 

launch every child as a successful learner by the end of the third 

grade. 

Five minutes goes fast. 
32 

[Laughter.] 

The Ready School Initiative we launched about 5 years ago, really works off the HighScope Ready Schools Assessment that Dr. 

Schweinhart talked about. We build school-community teams that 

assess the school’s capacity around the Ready School pathways, 

leader and leadership, transition, teacher supports, engaging environments, effective curriculum, family-school-community partnerships, respecting diversity, and assessing progress. 

And to date, we have done 14 out of the 19 public elementary 

schools in our two districts. We have done a wide variety of things 

that have really improved the school capacity, the schools’ capacity 

to both be ready for the children, but to utilize their title I funding 

to move from where they are in terms of being more ready for 

every single child. We have seen great results around improving 

leaders and leadership, transition, family-school-community partnerships, and diversity. 

Eight of those 14 schools have now gone through the HighScope 

a second time with wonderful results, and that process of building 

the community team, seeding it with leaders and leadership that 

we have generated through our Ready Communities process is really the thing that has worked to move the process forward, and that 

is what I would really recommend in terms of embedding in the 

law as you move forward. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Zalkind follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HENRIETTA ZALKIND

SUMMARY

The Down East Partnership for Children (DEPC) is committed to successfully 

launching every child as a healthy, lifelong learner by the end of the 3rd grade. 

DEPC believes that the developmental period for children from 0 to age 8 is critical 

to their long-term healthy growth and development. 

Founded as a nonprofit in 1993, DEPC has 16 years of experience with a model 

of services that works in collaboration with two local school systems (Nash-Rocky 

Mount Public Schools and Edgecombe County Public Schools), early care providers, 

human service agencies, and other community leaders and organizations. DEPC has 

3 long-term goals: Unique Support for Each Child and Family, High Quality Early 

Care & Education Environments, and Access to Coordinated Community Resources. 

The testimony will focus on the key components of the DEPC model, including: 

• Supporting a Family First system to provide comprehensive services to families, 

including intake, assessment, referrals, and a continuum of services, ranging from 

early education subsidies to evidence-based parent education. 

• A Coordinated Subsidy system in collaboration with Departments of Social 

Services, Title I Preschool Programs, private child care providers, and Head Start 

to maximize the use of subsidy funds for children 0–12 by ensuring that children 

are served by the most appropriate subsidized early care and education program 

available. 

• Creating smooth transitions from home, early care settings, and throughout elementary school through a system of home-school contacts. 

• Ready Schools Initiative designed to build schools’ capacity to meet the needs 

of all children through assessment, planning, and coaching. 

• Ready Communities Initiative designed to develop community-based leadership 

to support early care and education and connect them with their local elementary 

school. 

Based on our lessons learned in implementing our model of early care and education, DEPC recommends: 

• Increase investment in early care programs to promote prevention rather than 

intervention. 

• Build infrastructure for Ready Schools that have the capacity and resources to 

be ready to meet the needs of all children. 
33 

• Promote flexible funding that will encourage innovation, developmentally appropriate classrooms Pre-K–3, connections and alignment with early care providers, 

and family engagement. • Build the capacity of teachers and administrators to individualize instruction to 

meet the varying needs of children in their classrooms. • Utilize family-school-community partnerships as a cornerstone of the school improvement process. 

• Fund leadership development at all levels to support early care and education 

for children birth to age 8. 

BACKGROUND

The Down East Partnership for Children (DEPC) is committed to successfully 

launching every child as a lifelong learner by the end of the 3rd grade. Located in 

Rocky Mount, NC, DEPC serves Nash and Edgecombe counties with nearly 18,000 

children under the age of 8. The majority of these children face risk factors for success; including poverty, low high school graduation levels of their parents, and high 

percentage of single parent households. 

Founded as a nonprofit in 1993, DEPC has 16 years of experience with a model 

of services that works in collaboration with two local school systems (Nash-Rocky 

Mount Public Schools and Edgecombe County Public Schools), early care providers, 

human service agencies, and other community leaders and organizations. The DEPC 

Model of Family & Child Services (See Appendix A) is a continuum designed to 

serve children ages 0–8 and their families. The model incorporates multiple components to meet families’ diverse needs so that services are available ‘‘For Every 

Child.’’ 

DEPC’s model is intended to lead to long-term success on indicators for child and 

family well-being and community success. DEPC’s work is driven by a comprehensive strategic plan developed to support the healthy growth and development of children 0–8 in all domains of child development. 

DEPC operates 3 programs directly through its Family Resource Center: Child 

Care Resource & Referral, Family Resource, and Coordinated Subsidy. Research & 

Evaluation and Community Collaborative initiatives, including Ready Schools, 

Ready Communities, Healthy Kids Collaborative are also a part of DEPC’s organizational model (see Appendix B). Annually DEPC strategically invests more than $7 

million into the local economy to support 20 programs at DEPC and in 10 other 

agencies and organizations, including health department, school systems, library, 

departments of social services, and other area non-profits. These programs are supported through a combination of local, State, and private funds. All programs are 

funded through an annual bid process and must demonstrate annual outcomes and 

how they will move DEPC toward its three long-term goals. 

DEPC is one of North Carolina’s local Smart Start Partnerships and the local administrator for the State’s More at Four pre-kindergarten program. DEPC was also 

one of the local demonstration sites for the national Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK) Initiative funded by W.K. Kellogg Foundation to align 

early care and education systems to support Ready Kids, Ready Families, Ready 

Schools, and Ready Communities. As a result, DEPC has been a leader in Ready 

Schools in North Carolina over the past 5 years. 

The following are DEPC’s long-term goals used to guide the organizational and 

community efforts. 

UNIQUE SUPPORT FOR EACH CHILD AND FAMILY

DEPC values and respects that each child and family is unique and, as such, has 

unique strengths and needs. 

• Children will have access to resources that support their growth and development in the 5 domains of child development (cognition, language and communication, approaches to learning, social and emotional, and health and physical). 

• Families will have increased knowledge and access to resources to support their 

child’s growth and development from prenatal through age 8. 

To achieve this goal, parents gain access to information, referrals, and services 

through the Family First system, including parent education classes, support 

groups, child care subsidies and other parenting resources. 

HIGH QUALITY EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTS

DEPC believes that the developmental period for children from 0 to age 8 is critical to launching them as lifelong learners. During this time, children are exposed 
34 

to a variety of environments. Each of these environments (home, child care, and 

school) must be of high quality for children to be successful. 

• Families will have the skills and knowledge to be their child’s first teacher by 

creating a high quality learning environment at home. 

• Child care facilities will have formally educated staff that can nurture and stimulate the growth and development of individual children utilizing developmentally 

appropriate practices. 

• Schools will be able to model ready school best practices to transition children 

effectively into engaging and developmentally appropriate environments that continue to nurture and develop each individual child’s growth. 

•Families, child care providers, and schools will collaborate to create effective 

transition strategies between environments. 

Strategies to achieve this goal focus on improving the quality of early care and 

education environments across the 0–8 spectrum, including training and technical 

assistance to child care providers, parent-child playgroups to model developmentally 

appropriate practice for the home environment, and the Ready Schools Initiative. 

ACCESS TO COORDINATED COMMUNITY RESOURCES

DEPC has been built on collaboration and the role it plays in coordinating resources to increase availability and access to services that meet the needs of the 

community. 

• Individuals will have the leadership skills and knowledge to effectively advocate 

for resources in their community. 

• Service systems will be aligned to increase access to resources based on ongoing 

assessments of community needs. 

To achieve this goal, DEPC facilitates leadership development through its Community Fellows program, connecting leaders and organizations with the DEPC mission through the Ready Communities Initiative, and supporting communication and 

advocacy strategies. 

THE KEY COMPONENTS OF THE DEPC MODEL OF SERVICES

To achieve its mission, DEPC engages on various fronts to make system-wide 

change: 

• Ensuring availability of and access to high quality early childhood care and 

education; 

• Supporting families to effectively parent and meet the needs of their individual children; 

• Facilitating a positive transition to school; and 

• Building ‘‘ready schools’’ and ‘‘ready communities’’ that can successfully 

launch all children as learners. 

BUILDING ACCESS TO QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION

DEPC works on both the supply and demand side of early care and education. 

DEPC educates parents, businesses, and the community about the importance of 

quality child care and provides referrals for parents looking for child care. Through 

training, technical assistance, salary supplements, and other support to child care 

centers and homes, DEPC has increased the availability of quality child care in our 

two counties. 

DEPC facilitates a Coordinated Subsidy system in collaboration with Departments 

of Social Services, Title I Preschool Programs, private child care providers, and 

Head Start to maximize the use of subsidy funds for children 0–12 by ensuring that 

children are served by the most appropriate subsidized early care and education 

program available. Subsidy providers utilize a combined early care and referral form 

and a coordinated waiting list. 

This system includes access to a Smart Start Scholarship program that focuses 

on serving 0–3 year olds. This not only provides at-risk children and their families 

with access to high quality care during the most critical time in their development, 

it also serves as intake into a system that will then connect them with additional 

services throughout the rest of their early childhood period of development (or 

through 3rd grade). 

DEPC also administers the More at Four Pre-Kindergarten program to provide 

high quality care to at-risk 4-year olds through classrooms in public schools, Head 

Start, and private child care centers. 
35 

• The percentage of children in high quality child care has increased from 6 and 

7 percent in 1993 in the highest quality settings to 69 percent and 70 percent in 

Nash and Edgecombe counties, respectively. 

• Annually, over 1,000 children access high quality care by receiving Smart Start 

Scholarships (0–3 year olds) and preschool slots through the More at Four program. 

• 83 percent of Nash County and 81 percent of Edgecombe County children receiving any form of early childhood education subsidies are in 4- or 5-star (highest 

rated) care. 

FAMILY FIRST

DEPC recognizes that a parent is a child’s first teacher and plays a critical role 

in a child’s development during the early years and throughout his/her life. 

Throughout this phase in a child’s development, the needs of both the child and the 

family may vary greatly. DEPC seeks to address this by offering a continuum of evidence-based strategies and programs. 

Trained Family First counselors conduct needs assessments with families to determine the resources that will best address their needs. Families may receive information on child development and parenting issues, referrals to community resources, 

or access to subsidized child care. 

Families are connected with a variety of services including parent-child 

playgroups that model appropriate interactions; support groups for parents of children with special needs or teen parents; parent education through evidence-based 

curricula including Parenting Wisely, Strategic Training for Effective Parenting 

(STEP), or Incredible years; additional information through a Parent Information 

Center or workshops on topics such as money management, healthy eating, helping 

your child have a smooth transition to Kindergarten, or effective communication at 

parent-teacher conferences. 

SMOOTH TRANSITIONS

DEPC has worked with both school systems to create a system of home-school 

contacts that facilitate a variety of transition strategies for children and families. 

Funded through title I, More at Four, and Smart Start, these contacts provide home 

visits for entering Kindergartners, coordinate with parents and child care providers 

to facilitate school visits for children to spend time in a Kindergarten classroom, and 

provide workshops for parents to learn strategies to support their child’s transition 

and healthy growth and development. 

These contacts help to identify children early for Kindergarten (over 90 percent 

of children are identified before the first day of school) that not only allows for the 

opportunity to participate in transition activities (65 percent of Kindergarten families participated in three or more transition activities), but also allows the school 

more planning time for student placement. 

Finally, districts also invite child care providers to professional development opportunities with school staff to promote alignment between early care and elementary school. 

By blending the funding for these contacts, they are able to not only ensure 

smooth transitions into Kindergarten, which is linked with increased school readiness, but then provide continued support throughout Kindergarten and into the 

older grades. These contacts have also been key members of the school-community 

teams for the Ready Schools assessment and planning process. 

IMPACT OF QUALITY PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS

Through data collected on 250 children that entered Kindergarten in fall 2009, 

DEPC knows that this system of early care and education is having an impact on 

children’s having the skills and behaviors needed to be successful in school. 

• 85.6 percent of these children had some type of early care experience (More at 

Four, Head Start, Public Pre-Kindergarten, center-based child care, family home) 

the year before Kindergarten. 

• Children with early care experience rated higher on the teacher-completed Hawaii School Readiness Assessment than those with no experience in overall readiness and in each sub-dimension (Approaches to Learning, Literacy, Math, School 

Behavior & Skills, Social Emotional Behaviors, and Physical Well Being). 

• Children with early care experience, including those in More at Four or Public 

Pre-Kindergarten programs the year before Kindergarten had fewer problem behaviors based on parent-completion of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales. 
36 

The Bracken Basic Concept Scales includes a school readiness composite, which 

measures children’s abilities on concepts traditionally needed to be prepared for 

early formal education, including colors, letter recognition, number recognition and 

counting, sizes/comparisons, and recognizing 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional shapes. It 

also measures children’s abilities on 5 additional sub-tests (direction/position, selfsocial awareness, texture/material, quantity, and time/sequence). 

Children who attended More at Four or Public Pre-Kindergarten the year before 

Kindergarten outperformed comparison children on the Bracken Basic Concept 

Scales School Readiness Composite. 

READY SCHOOLS

Early childhood research and DEPC’s own data have clearly shown that access 

to quality child care has significant impacts on children’s readiness for Kindergarten 

and in many cases long-term success. However, often these effects begin to ‘‘fade 

out’’ without continued intervention in the early elementary grades K–3. 

To build on the success of getting children ready for Kindergarten and help ensure that by the end of 3rd grade children are launched as learners, DEPC started 

its Ready Schools Initiative to increase the capacity of elementary schools to be 

ready for all children. In 2007, the NC State Board of Education endorsed the definition and Pathways to a Ready School. Included in this recommendation was direction that schools develop a ‘‘ready school plan’’. Ready Schools is now in 42 of 100 

counties throughout North Carolina. Most recently, the Office of Early Learning was 

created by DPI to strategically focus on the early years and reform education for 

all NC children, pre-kindergarten through third grade. (See Appendix C for the NC 

Definition of Ready Schools, Map of Ready Schools) 

In 2005, DEPC developed the Ready Schools Innovation Awards (RSIA) process 

that includes an assessment, development and implementation of a workplan, and 

coaching and technical assistance from one of DEPC’s Ready Schools Coordinators. 

To participate in the RSIA process, interested schools bring together a school-community team that includes Pre-K–3 teachers, administrators, early care providers, 

parents, business, and other community representatives to assess their practices in 

eight dimensions of Ready Schools’ practices (Leaders and Leadership, Transitions, 

Teacher Supports, Engaging Environments, Effective Curricula, Family, School, and 

Community Partnerships, Respecting Diversity, and Assessing Progress) using the 

nationally validated, research-based High/Scope Ready Schools Assessment (RSA). 

The school-community team then creates a workplan to implement strategies 

based on areas of need identified. These workplans have often focused on professional development needed for teachers and administrators, such as Ruby Payne’s 

Framework of Poverty training; building effective transition strategies between 

early care, home, and school and between grades; establishing family resource cen-
37 

ters within the school to promote a welcoming atmosphere to families to prompt better home-school communication and family involvement; and materials and training 

to increase the use of developmentally appropriate practices and active learning centers within K–2 classrooms. Innovative strategies have been tested using privately 

funded grants, but then enhanced and/or sustained with title I funds, such as a family resource center at Winstead Avenue elementary, in-school transition support for 

K–1 children at Red Oak elementary. 

To date, 14 of the 19 area public elementary schools in our two districts have participated in this process. 

Following implementation of their workplan, schools completed the High/Scope assessment a second time. Schools showed improvement in four dimensions: Leaders 

and Leadership, Transitions, Family, School, and Community Partnerships and Respecting Diversity. 

All schools noted the strength of this process, including coaching as key elements 

of success. 

READY COMMUNITIES

DEPC has worked with local stakeholders, including child care providers, businesses, faith-based organizations, and community leaders to create champions who 

can provide and advocate for positive change in their community. 

• DEPC has a network of over 75 community leaders that have completed either 

Community Fellows (a 2-year leadership development program) or Community 

Voices (a 15-session leadership training series). As a result of these learning experiences, these individuals have the skills to be collaborative community leaders. 

• Investment in early childhood education, including child care, not only helps 

prepare future generations of the workforce, it is also a critical component of supporting the current economy. DEPC has built the economic engine of small businesses by training nearly every child care provider/owner in the two counties. 

• DEPC is strengthening relationships with both the faith-based community and 

the Latino/Hispanic community in the two counties. Over 50 faith-based leaders 

have attended recent education forums to learn more about how to be engaged in 

their local schools, with the Healthy Kids Collaborative, or on advocacy-related 

issues in their community. 

• Healthy Kids Collaborative launched in 2008 and has over 50 partners working 

together to increase access to healthy foods, opportunities for physical activity, and 
38 

increasing awareness and education on ways to address the issue with parents, 

child care providers, medical providers, and the broader community. 

DEPC connects leaders and resources with each area elementary school in order 

to achieve the following outcomes: increased student achievement as well as less 

student behavior problems; access to resources to support students and families; increased family engagement, including PTO membership, better attendance at school 

functions, and more effective parent-teacher communication; increased support and 

resources for teachers; decreased teacher turnover; and enhanced positive regard for 

schools. 

To establish these partnerships, DEPC has developed an intensive process, the 

Ready2 Initiative, to wrap a network of engaged parents, community leaders, and 

community resources around each participating school. 

• Over 60 people are participating in the Ready2 Initiative with 2 elementary 

schools. 

• This process has created new community-school connections, resulted in increased availability of family involvement opportunities, such as mentoring for children, parent engagement workshops on behavior and parent-teacher conferences, experiences for children provided by community members, such as tours of museums 

and community locations. 

• Schools are discussing and clarifying the definition of family engagement for 

their school. 

• Next Steps: Build district-level capacity/infrastructure for family and community engagement. DEPC has created a plan with Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools 

and Edgecombe County Public schools to continue its Ready Schools and Ready 

Communities work with an increased focus on family engagement, including implementation of evidence-based options for K–2 family support. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on our own lessons learned in implementing a model of early care and education for children birth to age 8, DEPC makes the following recommendations as 

you work on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

ENCOURAGE INVESTMENT IN EARLY CARE PROGRAMS

• Promote access to high quality care from birth, including community-based providers and public pre-kindergarten classrooms. Early care should be seen as a component of the education system and resources should be in place to ensure all children may access this care, as well as support quality improvement of these environments. 

• Support joint professional development among community-based and schoolbased early care providers to promote consistent standards and alignment among 

Pre-K–3 classrooms. 

• Promote strategies that focus on prevention and early intervention to ensure 

children enter school ready to succeed and have the support they need during early 

grades when they are setting their foundation for lifelong learning. 

SUPPORT THE CREATION OF READY SCHOOLS THAT HAVE THE CAPACITY AND RESOURCES

FOR SCHOOLS TO BE READY TO MEET THE NEEDS OF ALL CHILDREN

• Encourage schools to assess their capacity to model Ready Schools best practices to meet the needs of all children with a tool such as the High/Scope Ready 

School Assessment. Provide coaching to schools on implementing Ready Schools 

process and best practices. 

• Promote use of title I funding to create infrastructure and support staff to provide coaching and technical assistance on Ready Schools. 

• Encourage other States to adopt Ready Schools definition, pathways, and PreK–3 State and local infrastructure. 

• Support the creation of innovative strategies that will promote developmentally 

appropriate classrooms Pre-K–3, connections and alignment with early care providers, family engagement, and build the capacity of teachers and administrators to 

individualize instruction to meet the varying needs of children in their classrooms. 

• Establish data systems to track developmentally appropriate assessment data 

on children Pre-K–3 and provide professional development to teachers on ways to 

effectively use assessment data to individualize instruction. Measure schools based 

on growth toward high standards and alternate outcomes, not only on end-of-grade 

testing. 

• Increase flexibility in funding for schools to implement strategies based on local 

student need for all children Pre-K–3, not strictly economic status. 
39 

INVEST IN SUPPORT FOR FAMILY-SCHOOL-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

• Invest in coaching and infrastructure to support development and implementation of effective and meaningful family involvement plans. 

• Encourage active partnerships between schools, early care providers, and other 

community resources to meet all needs of children, including access to services for 

health and family support. 

CONCLUSION

Throughout our history, DEPC has learned that to create long-term, sustainable 

change, there must both be the public and political will to support the work. We 

need to build capacity and leadership at all levels to implement a comprehensive 

early care and education system of services for children birth to age 8, to ensure 

that all children will be successfully launched as healthy, lifelong learners. 

For more information on DEPC, please visit us at www.depc.org or call 252–985– 

4300. 

APPENDIX A 
40 

APPENDIX B 

APPENDIX C 

NC DEFINITION & PATHWAYS TO A READY SCHOOL

Listed below is the definition and pathways to a ready school as approved by both 

the NC Ready Schools Task force and the NC State Board of Education. 

DEFINITION

A ready elementary school provides an inviting atmosphere, values and respects 

all children and their families, and is a place where children succeed. It is committed to high quality in all domains of learning and teaching and has deep connections with parents and its community. It prepares children for success in work and 

life in the 21st century. 

PATHWAYS TO READY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

1. Children succeed in school. The school sets high expectations for all students and facilitates healthy growth and development in five domains suggested by 

the National Educational Goals Panel: physical well-being; social relationships and 

emotional development; learning approaches that incorporate cultural aspects of 

learning styles; use of language; and cognition, general knowledge, and problem 

solving. Children acquire culturally relevant knowledge and skill sets necessary and 

valuable to the functioning of a modern economy. 

2. A welcoming atmosphere. The school projects an open, child-focused, welcoming atmosphere characterized by friendliness, respect, high teacher and staff morale, and the use of appropriate discipline. The building and grounds are inviting 

and developmentally appropriate. Children’s work is prominently displayed and bulletin boards contain family-oriented material. 

3. Leadership. School leaders believe that all children can learn, teachers and 

staff can develop professionally, and all schools can meet or exceed State performance standards. The principal possesses the skill sets necessary for leading effectively and creating a learning community. The school connects with and garners 

support from the superintendent, school board, and the NC Department of Public 

Instruction. In turn, the superintendent, school board, and the NC Department of 

Public Instruction provide a coherent and appropriate set of policies and regulations. 

4. Connections to early care and education and across grades. There is ongoing communication and coordination between early care and education (ECE) and 

elementary school teachers for quality assurance from Pre-K through grade 3. 

Standards and curriculum are aligned between ECE and the school at the local, district, and State levels. The school participates in or provides a number of transition 
41 

experiences for children entering Pre-K or kindergarten such as school and home 

visits, staggered entry, and orientation sessions for children and families. Assessment data are obtained from ECE providers in order to plan and individualize children’s learning. In addition, curriculum, instruction, and assessment are aligned 

and integrated within a classroom, within a grade level, and across grade levels. 

5. Connects culturally and linguistically with children and families. The 

school seeks to help children from all circumstances and backgrounds succeed. The 

school uses a culturally appropriate curriculum to enhance learning. Children and 

families are encouraged to share their backgrounds and experiences with other children and families. 

6. Partners with Families. The school communicates and partners with all families in a wide range of activities from providing information to engaging parents 

in policy and decisionmaking. Outreach strategies are implemented to ensure that 

families of diverse populations are welcome to participate in all school-related activities. 

7. Partners with the community. The school functions as a community center 

drawing children and families from surrounding neighborhoods for multiple activities and purposes. It partners with the community to provide opportunities and 

services to children and families such as health screening and health services, 

courses in the English language, courses in other languages, and instruction in GED 

preparation, computers, and parenting. 

8. Uses assessment results. The school uses assessments, both formal and informal (daily interactions with the child, communications with parents), to plan and 

tailor instruction to individual needs. There are strategies in place to improve test 

scores and reduce achievement gaps. The school ensures that assessments are reliable, valid, individual and developmentally and culturally appropriate. 

9. Quality Assurance. The school strives to grow by following a written improvement plan that includes a strategy for maintaining its mission and goals over time. 

It supports staff in professional development and consults with educational and noneducational experts for staff training and quality assurance. Leadership uses data 

and research on effective practices for decisionmaking. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Zalkind. 

Thank you all for excellent testimony. 

I will start off a 5-minute round of questioning with a question 

I want you all to roll around in your heads. 
42 

We are under a lot of budget constraints around here, and we 

have got to get our budget priorities in order to improve our economy. But everything depends upon priorities. So if you have $1 to 

spend on early childhood education, that is prior to kindergarten, 

or elementary education or high school, all those three, how would 

you spend it? How would you divide up that $1? 

Think about it. We will come back to that when I have my next 

round of questions. 

It seems to me that we all recognize the importance of investing 

in early childhood education. We have recognized for some time, 

you all have attested to it, and we have had studies like the one 

conducted by the Committee on Economic Development to underscore the fact. Mr. Griswell mentioned another study conducted in 

2003. We keep hearing about the importance of investing early, 

over and over again. We have got to focus more on early childhood. 

Yet we just have a potpourri of different investments out there. 

There are people doing wonderful things to improve the quality 

of and access to early childhood education in some places. In other 

places they are not doing very much. Even if a Federal level were 

investing in multiple ways. We have prenatal care programs. We 

have the Childcare Development Block Grant that is Senator 

Dodd’s child. That is the one that he has been champion of for so 

long. We also have Head Start, Early Head Start, and Title I Preschool. 

This committee provided $2 billion in funding for the Childcare Assistance Block Grant and also $2.1 billion for Head Start and 

Early Head Start, $4.1 billion. But I am not certain that collectively these investments are resulting in optimizing the provision 

of high quality, early learning services. I am saying I don’t know 

if there is a sufficient educational component to these programs. 

That is something for us to wrestle with. How much of the reauthorization should include early childhood education reforms that 

focus on strengthening too. 

And since we are not dealing with those bills right now, should 

we deal with that in ESEA? I am not afraid of breaking new 

ground. I asked similar questions when the Childcare Development 

Block Grant was last reauthorized in 1996. So a lot of things have 

changed since then. 

So I guess, for all of you, my basic question is: Should we, in this 

reauthorization of ESEA, break new ground and really move ahead 

forcefully in an area of early childhood education and focus more 

on investigating early learning? Rather than just focusing on elementary and secondary education, should we focus more on preschool education in this bill? 

And if so, how? We will just go left to right. Barry. 

Mr. GRISWELL. Oh, that is a tough one. It is a big one. You know, 

I do think that somebody, somewhere has to take a holistic view 

of how we are delivering education, and I think that view has to 

start at birth. And I am not sure exactly how you do it, whether 

it is through this committee or through others. 

But I think if we fail to look at education as starting at birth, 

we will always be fragmented. And we need leadership. We need 

somebody to stand up and say this is the view of what education 

looks like. Here is how we are going to try to get organized to ac-
43 

complish it. It is complicated because States are involved, childcare 

deliverers are involved. But somebody has got to create a vision 

that we can all rally behind. 

And maybe if it is just principles, I, for one, am of the view that 

the Race to the Top, some of the innovative things that have been 

going on in some of the other parts of the education system in the 

United States are positive. I think the charter school movement is 

positive. 

We need to have some of that very same focus on early childhood, and we need to stay with it for a long period of time. So I 

think I have answered your question. Yes, I think it should be zero, 

and I would spend my $1—50 cents on early childhood, probably 

25 to 30 cents on elementary, and what is left on secondary. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. That is interesting. 

Mr. Schweinhart. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. We are kind of handed a lot of institutions 

that started a long time ago. Schools pretty clearly started at age 

5 or 6 in order to take advantage of the fact that kids were starting 

to learn how to read and manipulate symbols and that sort of 

thing. We have come a long way since those days, and we understand the way children develop a whole lot better today than we 

did back when we institutionalized schooling. 

So we know that rather than a tight focus on reading and mathematics, children are developing cognitively, socially, and physically. 

And because that is the way they are developing, that is the way 

our institutions ought to be focusing. 

I am no expert in policy tools. That is what you guys do, and it 

seems to me how we put those policy tools together is largely the 

purvey of this committee. Whether it is Head Start or Childcare 

Development Block Grant or ESEA, those are balancing acts. I 

think, generally speaking, our society needs to invest more in children’s development in order to be as healthy and powerful as it can 

be in the future. 

Now, how we get there is a question of balancing one thing 

against the other, but I think—I remember a quote from Urie 

Bronfenbrenner some years ago. They asked him what age was the 

most important. He said birth is the most important, and 1 is the 

most important, 2 is the most important, 3 is the most important, 

and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8. Every age of a child is the most important, and that is what we have got to do. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Mr. Pianta, should we address early childhood education in the reauthorization? 

Mr. PIANTA. Yes. Break ground. I think it is time to do that. My 

remarks were pretty consistent with that. 

I think, Senator Harkin, you raised the issue of whether there 

should be an educational component to many of the investments 

that you are currently making? I would say, yes, there should be 

an educational component. That we could argue about what the nature of that component would be—there would be a difference of 

opinion about that—but these environments are—you are paying 

for environments that are too passive right now. 

You need environments that are actively engaging kids and intentionally engaging kids in learning, however we would appro-
44 

priately define that for 2-year-olds or for 7-year-olds. And I think 

that is the key leverage point that you have. I think right now whether you spend $1 or $10, you are paying 

for a lot of activities. You are paying for a lot of adults. You are 

paying for a lot of space. And my point would be a lot of that could 

be better utilized if focused more intentionally and the goals and 

methods defined a little more clearly. So those would be my points. 

Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Back to that dollar. 

Mr. PIANTA. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Zalkind, please, I am way over my time. 

Should we address that in this bill? 

Ms. ZALKIND. We certainly should address that in that bill, and 

I would spend my whole dollar on early childhood education, obviously, because I think that is where you get the most bang for the 

buck. That if kids are failing by the end of the third grade, you are 

going to keep spending money to remediate. So if we invest early, 

we get more bang for that dollar than anywhere else. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Burr. 

Senator BURR. Henrietta, North Carolina—More at Four, Head 

Start, Smart Start, CCDBG. If I made the statement that I don’t 

think we are as successful as we could be and I were to blame that 

on the lack of coordination, what would you say? 

Ms. ZALKIND. I would say the coordination is something that we 

work on every day at the local level. I think that is something that 

this reauthorization could address. I think that if we promote a 

paradigm that uses a framework like Ready Schools to coordinate 

all the different opportunities and funding sources toward common 

ends that communities can build on their strengths and coordinate 

and leverage all different opportunities, depending on families’ diverse needs. 

Senator BURR. I think I heard Mr. Griswell say, we have all 

these things out there, and there is nobody really driving the train 

here. We are not using the assets that are in the system as effectively, and what works for one might not work for another. What 

works in this community might not necessarily be the optimal 

thing. 

So this is not necessarily about replicating success. It is taking 

the tools that we know work and applying them effectively, and coordination is an absolute key. 

Many of you in your testimony today talked about the need to 

ensure better transition between early childhood education and elementary schools so that the positive effects of that quality early 

childhood education don’t fade. So let me ask anybody that would 

like to talk, to expand on that just a little bit more. 

But also I would say since many low-income children enter elementary school from a federally supported program like Head Start 

or CCDBG programs, what policy recommendations do you have for 

us for those two programs specifically that we need to address in 

this legislation? I will let anybody who would like to take it on. 

Mr. PIANTA. You could start requiring that there would be articulation of the curriculum used across Head Start programs and the 

local school system. That would be one thing. You could start by 
45 

requiring that those teachers, the adults who are working with 

kids in Head Start programs, were exposed to the same form of 

professional development so that professional development occurred 

jointly from those Head Start-funded programs and elementary 

age. 

I would argue don’t stop with Head Start. Try to extend into the 

other kinds of settings and programs that are serving young kids, 

too, so that a coherent approach to educating young kids exists in 

a community. 

Mr. GRISWELL. Senator, if I might? First of all, I would like to 

thank North Carolina for being a role model in so many ways. I 

know when a lot of States set out to try to figure out what to do 

in early childhood, North Carolina is often brought up as a State 

that is doing it better than most. So I congratulate you on that. 

I think one of the things that I would point out is this enormous 

need for quality rating systems, whether it be in the Government 

program or in the private sector. And it is amazing to me how 

much resistance you get to quality rating systems. People don’t 

really want to be held accountable for having a childcare center 

that meets certain standards, and you will get a lot of pushback, 

well, if you did that, there will be fewer facilities. And I think we 

have got to hold the line and make sure that quality, above all else, 

is included in all the efforts, whether it be Government programs 

or private programs. 

Business is stepping up. My company, 2 years ago, developed its 

own childcare center in conjunction with our company. So we 

partnered with Bright Horizons. And so, we now have, as part of 

the experience of working for the Principal Financial Group, we 

have a 5-week to 5-year-old childcare facility right in our complex. 

So we are going to make sure that we are doing our part to make 

sure that employees of the Principal—but it shouldn’t be just employees of Principal. It ought to be every child ought to have that 

kind of quality experience. 

Senator BURR. Tremendous. Tremendous. 

In the counties of Nash and Edgecombe County, where Ms. 

Zalkind is from, nearly one-third of the children between the ages 

of 2 and 4 are either overweight or at risk for obesity. These numbers represent a health crisis in my estimation. 

The Down East Partnership, Ms. Zalkind, has recently launched 

a wellness and prevention strategy in those counties, in those 

schools aimed at instilling good ideas and healthy lifestyles in children at a very, very young age. Let me just ask, do you have any 

recommendations on how we might better attend to the health and 

physical domain of children’s development across various Federal 

programs—school lunch, other food programs, CCDBG, Head Start? 

And as a side note, from a standpoint of the free and reduced 

school meals, should we—the Federal Government—since we fund 

them, set a nutritional value that might have an influence on everything else that is served in a cafeteria? To whoever would like 

to take it. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PIANTA. Is there any question? 
46 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. But I would like to speak to the thrust of 

your questioning, too. It seems to me that what could be really 

helpful is clarity of objectives. The objective that I think is particularly important here is contributing to children’s development—cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical. If we keep a clear focus on 

that, a lot of stuff will flow from that and certain kinds of policies 

that we have now that are not clearly serving that end would be 

sort of identified as such. 

A lot of our early childhood programs operate with a confused 

agenda. You go back to Head Start, it was a part of the civil rights 

movement as well as the child development movement, and there 

are conflicts within it because of that dual heritage. Childcare Development Block Grant clearly was very much focused on helping 

families to get more people into the workforce. And to the extent 

that that was the case, we are not contributing to children’s development as much as we could with that law. 

And it seems to me that Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act has had various kinds of more tight focus over the years when, 

in fact, a general focus on children’s development across those 

three laws, I think, in particular could help to clarify what we are 

trying to do. 

Senator BURR. Anybody else? 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Burr. 

And in order of appearance on this side anyway, it is Senators 

Brown, Sanders, Franken, Murray, Bennet, Casey, Dodd, and 

Merkley. 

Senator Brown. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWN

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for the insight all of you showed. I first want to make 

an observation that all of you made such compelling cases for early 

childhood education and what we need to do. 

My State of Ohio, the legislature just recently passed, required 

full-day kindergarten. It had been half day until 2 or 3 years ago. 

That is the good news. The bad news is that schools right now are 

asking for waivers to scale back to a half a day, and in some cases, 

where school districts had half-day kindergarten prior to the new 

law and half-day early childhood, they are petitioning to eliminate—or I guess they are not even petitioning in this case. They 

are eliminating early childhood programs because of space and cost 

to make room for the full-day kindergarten. 

I hope that in light of the case you made—and I wish there were 

more Senators at this hearing—this brings us to real consensus on 

not what we do programmatically, but also on spending the money 

we need on early childhood education. We are all seeing terrible 

budget cuts in our States, almost every State here, on education 

and on everything else. 

I know that every dollar, as the chairman’s question suggests, 

that we spend or don’t spend or cut on early childhood education 

inflicts so much damage and, as Mr. Griswell said, more time in 

prison, more mental health dollars, more dropout dollars, more 

dropouts, all of that. That is my observation. 
47 

But I hope, as we move on this budget coming up, as we move 

on particularly Chairman Harkin’s idea with spending money directly on teachers that we will see the kind of consensus in this 

Senate that we ought to see on these kinds of issues. 

Question of Ms. Zalkind, if I could? The kind of collaboration you 

have is what we would like to replicate in Ohio and I think so 

many States, so many people, so many of us would all over the 

country. I am working on legislation that will help communities in 

developing better ways to coordinate and integrate and provide 

services to strengthen student achievement, ranging from early 

education to tutoring and extended learning time to healthcare and 

social support. 

Schools clearly are the best vehicle to connect children and families to the support they need to be successful on a whole range of 

issues. Tell us more about how Down East Partnership built that 

collaboration. And how we can use that and replicate that other 

places, if you would? 

Ms. ZALKIND. Well, it has been a 16-year process, and when I 

ever talk about how we built it, we built it one activity at a time 

where we had consensus, where we had strength, where we had 

something to build on. Senator Burr is looking at our Healthy Kids 

collaborative map, and we have just launched that. 

But if you start where you have consensus, and that is one of the 

things that I think I feel so strongly about—the Ready Schools 

process—that if you bring a group of people together and you use 

a validated instrument to look at where are we strong, where can 

we build our capacity? And start where people agree and build out 

from there, that every dollar does have to count. 

Sometimes, what you really need is the plan, and giving people 

the time and the space and the process to plan where are they? 

How can they move from this place to this place to this place? To 

move at intermediate steps toward long-term goals. 

That is another thing I think that could be integrated into the 

law, that certainly we want every child doing well on the third 

grade end-of-year test, but there are intermediate outcomes to getting to everyone launched at the end of the third grade. And doing 

the HighScope or any other kind of assessment like that lets people 

see the visible progress working together and also lets them see 

what it is that they need that they may not have to spend money 

on, that they may be able to get a church to donate, that they may 

be able to get a business to sponsor. 

So, really giving people the space and the time to plan across 

those stakeholder groups where they can find those consensus 

points and move forward and then build out from there because everything leads back. All of the issues are interconnected. 

Senator BROWN. For any of you, how do we write ESEA to foster 

that kind of collaboration? Any thoughts that any of you have on 

that? 

Mr. Schweinhart. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. It is important for school folks to recognize 

that there are communities beyond the schools. To the extent that 

you simply make it clear that when there is community collaboration, it involves the whole community with representation beyond 

the schools, that would help a lot. 
48 

Ms. ZALKIND. And to have aligned standards and joint professional development and a curriculum that operates at a high quality that recognizes that there are a variety of providers at all levels 

from 0 to 8, from Early Head Start to private providers, to the 

schools, and to State-funded programs so that if you put the money 

that is coming from the Federal Government and No Child Left Behind and title I into a context, into a system. 

We have been blessed in North Carolina to really be working off 

a joint system. Now we are always working to make that system 

better, but you have to keep all of those balls in the air at the same 

time in terms of teacher wages and quality standards and school 

articulation agreements. But you have to envision that paradigm as 

a prevention paradigm and align those standards. 

And I think Dr. Schweinhart’s point about there is life outside 

the school, and life outside the school can help. But schools are 

afraid because they have been penalized if they don’t meet those 

standards. So they are very focused on teaching to the test. And 

so, breaking down and giving them some other ways to show success and letting people try some things and try some innovation 

and try some new ways of reaching out, I think that dollar will go 

farther. 

Mr. PIANTA. I would add a couple points to that. So you have the 

opportunity to extend data systems into the younger ages. So the 

longitudinal data systems that you are investing in from K on the 

way up should be extended down lower so that the kids in programs in those lower age programs are connected to those data systems. 

Qualifications and training would be the same way. The mention 

of quality grading and improvement systems, this idea that you go 

in and rate and give stars to incent improved quality in early childhood, why not do that in K–3? So I think there are lots of opportunities in the bill. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Sanders. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR SANDERS

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this hearing on an issue 

which in no way gets the kind of attention that it deserves. 

Let us be very clear, and let me not mince words. The way we 

treat children in this country is an international embarrassment, 

and the way we do childcare is a national disgrace, which, as Mr. 

Griswell and some of the others indicated, impacts every aspect of 

our lives, from our economy to the number of kids that we have in 

jail. 

We have, at 18 percent, the highest rate of childhood poverty in 

the industrialized world, and we are all very shocked that we end 

up having more people in jail than China, a country much larger 

than ours, communist, authoritarian society. We have more people 

behind bars than they do at $50,000 a head. 

Now the good news is, Mr. Chairman, you have assembled an excellent panel. The bad news is that, in all due respect, my guess 

is that in the last 30 years, we have had people sitting right where 

you are sitting saying exactly the same thing. It is not rocket 

science. 
49 

If you ignore the needs of little children, you know what? They 

are going to fail in school. And if they fail in school, you know 

what? They are going to do crime, and they are going to end up 

in jail, and they are not going to be good employees. It has probably been said here 800 times, and yet we have not bitten the bullet on this issue. 

So the first issue that—and then you have got absurdity right 

now, as we speak, millions of kids whose parents are working. You 

know, we have forgotten that this is not the 1950s, where daddy 

goes to work and mommy stays home and takes care of the kids. 

Guess what? That is not the case anymore. 

In Vermont, something like 70 percent of the children in the 

State have working parents. Mom and dad are both working. What 

do we do with the kids? Well, if maybe we are lucky, their grandma 

can take care of them, or maybe the neighbor down the street can 

take care of them who doesn’t have any background at all, or 

maybe we can hire somebody at $9 an hour without any benefits. 

We have got to ask some very basic questions. The chairman 

talked about priorities, and he is right. And we have screwed this 

up royally, and it is time that we rethought it, and it is going to 

cost us money. But at the end of the day, I think we save money. 

So let me start off. There are countries around the world which 

do things like say, you know what, a childcare worker is as important as a college professor. At the very least, we are going to train 

that employee, make it a dignified profession, and pay them the 

same wages as other teachers get. 

No. 2, the simple question—all right, we have done a whole lot 

of talking here. Let us get to the root of it. Should every child in 

this country, because of Federal law, have the right to quality 

childcare from birth to kindergarten? That is the $64 question. I 

believe that we should. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Especially for 

little kids, you have to have a high ratio of employees for the kids. 

It is expensive. 

I think you save money down the road, as Mr. Griswell indicated, 

by having kids do better in school, become better workers, fewer 

people in jail. That is my first question, and it is an expensive 

proposition. 

We are in the midst of a recession. We have a huge national 

debt. Mr. Griswell, should every kid in the—and I would like all 

of you to answer. Should every kid in this country, as a right of 

citizenship, be entitled to good-quality childcare? Yes, no, maybe? 

Mr. GRISWELL. I believe they should. I believe children of 

wealthy and middle-income people get it anyway. This is about 

poverty. This is about income. This is about socio-economics. I believe they should. I believe it is a crime that they are not. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Schweinhart. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I was just thinking about welfare reform and 

how we saved money, but we didn’t make any. And it is harder to 

do investment because there is a delay in getting the returns. But 

if we don’t—in any business, if you don’t make investments, you 

can’t cut your way to a successful business, and it is completely 

analogous to the situation we have got here. 

If we don’t invest as much as we possibly can in our children—— 
50 

Senator SANDERS. Should every child, by right, have access to 

high quality child care? Right now in the State of Vermont—I 

guess each State does it differently—every kid has got to be in 

school in the first grade. They get free education through high 

school. Should that same opportunity be available for kids when 

they are born in terms of childcare? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Of course, every child deserves a good early 

childhood education. The only question—— 

Senator SANDERS. And it is the Government’s responsibility to 

make sure it happens? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. It is a question of where Government comes 

in and how we balance that. 

Senator SANDERS. OK. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I don’t want to say Government has to do it 

all, but we have to do it all. 

Senator SANDERS. Well, I am not sure who else is going to do it. 

Mr. Pianta. 

Mr. PIANTA. I think it is the Government’s job to make sure it 

happens. I am not sure it is the Government’s job to provide it for 

all children. I agree with Mr. Griswell. So I think we should be absolutely paying attention to whether every kid in this country is exposed to the kind of learning opportunities that help them be successful. 

Senator SANDERS. Now I am not saying that every program has 

got to be run by the Government, but there has to be the funding 

there in the same way kids go to the first grade, somebody is poor, 

they are going to walk into that public school. Right now, if they 

are poor, they don’t walk into quality childcare. Should the Government make sure that that happens? 

Mr. PIANTA. The Government should make sure that the playing 

field is equal in childcare as a way of doing that. 

Senator SANDERS. Ms. Zalkind. 

Ms. ZALKIND. I would agree. Where we have come down in terms 

of our planning is to make sure that every child has high-quality 

early care and education environment. And to make sure that 

every environment, whether that is home, whether that is a family 

home childcare, whether that is a childcare center, whether that is 

Head Start, whether that is a public school, that all of those environments have adequate funds and adequate supports to make it 

high quality. 

So I think you have to build parent choice into the equation, but 

that the Government should provide adequate funding to make 

sure that all of those environments are high quality and that every 

child gets a chance to succeed. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I would just conclude, and it is an issue that has 

not come up, and maybe Mr. Griswell wants to say a word on this. 

It is not only for the children. It is not only for their parents. It 

is for the economy as well. 

If I am a single mom going to work, how do I do my job if I don’t 

know that my kid has good quality care? And I have got to tell you 

in Vermont, it is very hard to find—my daughter’s middle-class 

baby, hard to find affordable, good-quality childcare. 

But it affects people’s jobs, right? 
51 

Mr. GRISWELL. Absolutely. I mean, I did say in my remarks that 

in a competitive global economy, we are not going to compete if we 

don’t solve this problem. We are wasting 25 to 30 percent of our 

human capital. There is no way we are going to compete if we don’t 

solve this problem, I believe. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you all very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Sanders. 

Senator Franken. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. I am going to echo what some of my colleagues have talked about, which is the return on investment, and 

I am echoing what you have talked about. And as a Congress, we 

are all concerned about the deficit, but we are most concerned 

about long-term deficit. And I agree with colleagues on both sides 

of the aisle that it is wrong to saddle our children with debt by allowing our long-term deficit to spiral out of control. 

But as you have all testified, quality early childhood education 

programs produce high returns on investment, and we have had 

Art Rolnick from the Federal Reserve in Minnesota and James 

Heckman talk about the returns ranging from, I don’t know, I have 

heard anywhere from $3 to $17 for every $1 spent. So if you are 

talking about long-term deficits, I think we are being penny-wise 

and pound-foolish by not spending now on early childhood. 

I want to talk about a program in Minnesota because I think this 

has to start prenatally and go through the rest of school. In Minnesota, we have this great home visiting program called Dakota 

Healthy Families. And basically, pediatricians and social workers 

and obstetrician/gynecologists identify at-risk parents. This is all 

voluntary. 

The obstetrician/gynecologists make sure that the mom has good 

prenatal care, and then they make sure that they give the parents 

parenting training, which Ms. Zalkind talked about, and then they 

do home visits. And they do home visits until the child goes to preschool. They have learned this program pays for itself simply in the 

number of children—in the reduced number of child abuse caseworkers that need to be hired. 

Now my daughter taught third grade in the Bronx for 3 years, 

the first 3 years out of college. She is now working in the DC elementary schools. Her experience was there would be two or three 

disruptive kids in the class. You can imagine that kids who have 

been abused are just more disruptive than kids who haven’t been 

abused. 

So this isn’t just affecting those kids. It is affecting every kid in 

the class, and it is affecting every teacher. I guess my question is, 

have you looked at these kind of early visitation programs, this 

kind of program like Dakota Healthy Families, and why aren’t we 

doing it everywhere? Anybody? 

Mr. GRISWELL. I would just point out in Minnesota, you have 

something else. You have the first early childhood program of 

United Way that is called Success by 6. And indeed, I think United 

Way and other organizations like that are taking a leadership role. 

One of their national priorities, called Born Learning, is to raise 
52 

awareness and to share best practices on programs like you are 

talking. 

So I think there are a lot of those. Certainly, I would point out 

United Way has been one that is doing similar programs to what 

you just mentioned. 

Ms. ZALKIND. And clearly, home visiting is one of the things that 

there are many good evidence-based—not many, but there are good 

evidence-based models behind. They show great returns on investment. And focusing on young children, 0- to 3-year-olds is where 

you are going to get the most return on the investment. 

So I think that that goes back to Senator Harkin’s comment, 

where does Early Head Start fit into this? 

Senator FRANKEN. What the chairman was talking about was 

where do we put our dollars? He had that question for you all. And 

every witness we have, the ones who are talking about adolescents 

said we don’t spend enough in eighth grade. 

And what this is, is about return on investment. And if we are 

really serious, I am talking really serious about not saddling our 

kids with debt—and I say this to my colleagues on both sides of 

the aisle. If we are really serious about that, we have to focus on 

what kind of resources we are devoting. And we don’t want to 

waste money, and we want to coordinate right, and we want to do 

that right. 

I guess we are going to do another round, but I want to talk to 

Mr. Pianta about teaching, about preparing teachers, about teaching assessment because I know that you might have some kind of, 

I don’t know, regime that works for assessing early childhood 

teachers. Do you know of one? 

Yes, just as a 10-second question. 

Mr. PIANTA. Yes. Yes. So we have—— 

Senator FRANKEN. What is it called? 

Mr. PIANTA. Classroom Assessment Scoring System, that is the 

one we developed. That is one of them. There is one called the 

Early Childhood Environment Rating System. That is another one. 

There are others. 

Senator FRANKEN. And I have run out of time. So I will respect 

that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

I just might point out to my friend from Minnesota that in the 

healthcare reform bill, there is a $1.5 billion mandatory program 

over 10 years for home visiting that will inpart, provide additional 

support for expectant mothers’ prenatal care. 

Senator FRANKEN. Yes. I am also talking about once the child 

has been born and continuing that visitation until the child is actually going to preschool. 

The CHAIRMAN. That money can be used for that, too. 

Senator FRANKEN. Yes. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for having 

this hearing. 
53 

I have to say that after our 10th hearing on the Elementary and 

Secondary Education Act, it is wonderful to see so much passion 

about an issue that I think we all care about. I come to this not 

just as a U.S. Senator, but as a mom who put my kids through 

school, a PTA member, a school board president, but probably most 

importantly, the only preschool teacher up here on this panel. 

This is a real passion of mine, and I think we know the research 

and know how important it is. And as Senator Sanders said, we 

keep talking about it and haven’t done it. So I see this as a tremendous opportunity for us to really make some progress on this. 

My home State of Washington has really embraced investments 

in early childhood education. Back in 2006, our Governor and the 

legislature, in partnership, created the State Department of Early 

Learning. I think it is the first cabinet-level agency in the country 

focused on this and really looking at how we can bring together all 

the partners, which many of you alluded to. You can’t just do it 

with one agency. You need your State, your local governments, 

businesses, parents, tribes, and teachers. Everybody has to be involved in this, and I appreciate that. 

My question to all of you is, every one of you talked about highquality early learning, and I can tell you, as a preschool teacher, 

I knew the first day of class which kids came into my classroom 

with some kind of high-quality childcare or education before and 

which ones had not. It is essential, but we throw that term around 

very loosely. 

I wanted to ask all of you what do you mean by ‘‘high quality?’’ 

Is it a teacher, or a curriculum, or are you talking about parental 

involvement? What is it that defines ‘‘high quality’’ for you? 

Mr. GRISWELL. Well, I think the answer to that is, yes. One of 

the programs I was involved with was we took a lot of the innercity daycare centers and we put a 4-year effort to try to improve 

quality. In fact, everything you just mentioned, you start with a 

teacher and elevating the professionalism of the teacher and give 

them opportunity for development. 

You look at the curriculum and make sure you have nationally 

accredited curriculum. You look at the facilities. You look at outreach to the parents to make sure that they are engaged in the 

learning process. And if you change those things dramatically and 

if you track the progress of the kids coming into a system like that, 

you will see 60 to 70 percent improvement over 4 or 5 years, something you already know. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I actually spoke about what I think is the 

heart of quality, which is good interactive child development curriculum and regular checkups or generally making sure you are 

doing the job. A couple of other things that I would have said if 

I had a little more time was that we really need qualified teachers. 

You all have heard of those. 

And we need, what ‘‘qualified’’ means, quite simply, is teachers 

who know what they are doing. There has been some discussion 

about whether Bachelor’s degrees are real indicators of quality or 

not. The real point is that you need people who know what they 

are doing. And that means you need clarity of goals of what early 

childhood education is all about, and I have tried to speak to that. 
54 

Then I want to echo what was just said, that we also need to 

have strong outreach to parents so that parents are really seen as 

partners with the teachers in raising the kids. 

Another point I want to say in response to what you are asking 

and kind of echo something that came from Senator Franken earlier, we have really got to focus on quality control of programs that 

are known to work and make sure that they are really being the 

programs that work. We need to invest what it takes into the programs themselves to make sure that those programs are really 

doing what needs to be done to get the long-term return on investment. 

You can’t build a luxury hotel at cut rate and expect it to have 

the same kind of drawing power as if you put all the money into 

it. We need to have really good programs that have solid investments in order to get the return on investment. 

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Pianta. 

Mr. PIANTA. Well, I think you already know the answer to your 

question, Senator Murray, because quality is what the adults do 

with kids. So it is all about the engagement of adults in interactions that are tuned in ways to push kids’ development, whether 

those are conversations and language development, whether it is 

comforting a kid when the kid is upset, or whether it is pointing 

out to a kid the conceptual nature of something rather than just 

memorization. 

Those features of interactions between kids and adults can be assessed. They can be quantified. They can even be put into regulations. Head Start is using our measure, the Classroom Assessment 

Scoring System, and has used others as assessments monitoring 

tools for a large-scale program. The quality rating and improvement systems that Mr. Griswell mentioned are also those. 

So quality is about what teachers do with children, and I would 

argue, with all due respect to Mr. Sanders, that 10 years ago, we 

would not have drawn that conclusion as clearly. I think we have 

moved the needle. The question is whether policy can catch up with 

that. 

Senator MURRAY. Ms. Zalkind. 

Ms. ZALKIND. I would agree with everything that has been said. 

In North Carolina, we have a five-star rating system that focuses 

on teacher interactions, but also focuses on facilities, focuses on 

making sure that children are progressing in all five domains of 

child development. And so, that is a standardized measure of quality, but we use the environmental rating scale as a way to measure 

that. 

But again, there are other factors that go into that in terms of 

parent interaction. You can have a four or five star, but if you still 

don’t interact with the parents and still don’t deal with all five domains of child development, don’t do transitions and have a working relationship with the school so that we can keep building out, 

we miss the mark. But you have got to have some minimum standards so people are working off the same set of benchmarks. 

Senator MURRAY. OK. I appreciate that, and I am out of time. 

I just want to make one other comment. Whenever we have this 

discussion about assessments, we get back to are we going to have 

a test that we hand these kids, and if they pass, then the teacher 
55 

is doing well? I just have to tell everybody, if you put 24 4-yearolds in front of me, and you show them a picture of a pig, they may 

or may not answer that day, dependent on their day, not yours. So 

we have to be really careful of how we implement assessments. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for that lesson, teacher. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator Bennet. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for all of 

the hearings, including this one. 

And to the panel, thank you very much for your testimony. 

We had some experience with this in Denver, where we passed 

a sales tax, which is not the ordinary source of funding for schools. 

And what we said was the revenue from that is available to everybody, to all providers, public and nonprofit and private providers. 

And that families would get more, depending on how poor they 

were or what their income level was and the quality of the program 

they went to. 

So the higher the poverty, the better quality of the program, the 

more the subsidy that you got, which I thought was a clever way 

of trying to deal with the quality issue as well as the issue of access. 

I was looking at some numbers here that show that there are 

roughly 19 million children served by title I dollars in this country. 

And of that 19 million, there are roughly half a million that are 

age 0 to 5 getting preschool services. Do you have any idea why if 

it is so blindingly obvious to everybody here that we should be investing in early childhood that only 3 percent of the children served 

by title I are the kids that we are all talking about today? 

Does anybody have a view on that? 

Ms. ZALKIND. I think we don’t have a prevention paradigm in the 

title I law. I think we have an intervention and a remedial paradigm that we have to shift, and I think the time to shift is now. 

And in our local communities, that paradigm has shifted, and 

they spend a significant portion of their title I money on early education because it is worth it to them. They wanted to know the kids 

who came to kindergarten before they came to kindergarten so they 

spent money on the system of home-school contacts. They spent 

money on staff that would staff preschool 4-year-old programs. 

Senator BENNET. Dr. Pianta, do you have a view on that? You 

have been seeing a lot of districts. Why aren’t they spending their 

money on early childhood? 

Mr. PIANTA. I just think there are structural issues that prevent 

that from flowing. So very oftentimes, those dollars are flowing into 

a K–12 system that organizes itself as a K–12 system, defines itself 

as a K–12 system, and early education sits outside of that system. 

Senator BENNET. So you and I, we didn’t practice this, but that 

is exactly where I was headed. 

[Laughter.] 

I think the question that I have is if you look at title I, you look 

at the way ESEA works, you look at Head Start, you look at the 

Childcare Development Block Grant, you can see that these aren’t 
56 

even administered by the same agencies in Washington. Even within the bureaucracies, they are administered by a couple of places. 

And I guess the question that I have is from the vantage point 

of people serving kids, does that make a lot of sense, or should we 

be figuring out how to drive and incentivize the kind of cooperation 

and collaboration that might actually make these dollars go a much 

longer way with a much more sensible set of priorities than the 

ones that we seem to be chasing right now? 

Doctor, I will start with you again. 

Mr. PIANTA. I just think that is a sensible approach, and I think 

it is echoed in Senator Murray’s statement about what Washington 

State is doing to integrate at the State level. We need to incent 

that kind of integration at all levels. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I would just like to add to that. I don’t know 

every line in the current ESEA, but it seems to me there are pretty 

clearly incentives for K to 12. We are telling them where to put the 

money, and we are not incentivizing kids younger than that. So it 

would be really good to take a look at that and see if there would 

be a way to incentivize kids so that we can get the biggest bang 

for the buck rather than whether they are in the system or not. 

Mr. GRISWELL. A mentor of mine one time said, you know, we 

have kids being thrown in the river, and people downstream are 

picking them out of the river and saving them one person at a 

time. And everybody is focused on that, and it is important. But 

nobody has thought yet to go back upstream and see who it is that 

is throwing these kids in the river and how we can stop them from 

being thrown in. 

I don’t think you stop it until we get organized and coordinated. 

And quite frankly, I don’t want to be disparaging toward the Government, but I worry whether you have the ability to connect all 

the dots because you have so many things in so many different 

places. 

Senator BENNET. Well, I think the question maybe is a slightly 

different one because it is sort of a balance between how prescriptive we want to be from here versus how much flexibility we want 

to give people to make the right decisions and how we make sure 

we don’t create a set of incentives and disincentives that don’t lead 

people in the wrong direction or spend their time fighting for what, 

no matter what we all say, fighting for whatever very, very scarce 

resources rather than beginning to focus on the child and working 

backwards from there. 

Mr. GRISWELL. I was trying to agree with you. Perhaps not so. 

But I think having all of your work spread out between so many 

different committees and departments, I mean, it would seem to 

me you would want to have all things related to child development 

and family development somehow at least coordinated so that these 

programs—I mean, it is a patchwork of things that you, that the 

Government—we put out there. I don’t want to blame it on you. 

All well intended, but what is out there right now is a patchwork, and I don’t know how you make your way through a cohesive 

view of child development when you have to go so many places. I 

think States and businesses and others have to take the lead locally, but I hope that we can somehow reach into our taxpayer dol-
57 

lars that go through you to find ways to have them better coordinated. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think, Mr. Griswell, aligning these programs 

and systems is one of the things we really have to focus on. The 

current system is a patchwork. There is nothing really pulling 

them together, this is one of our challenges. 

Mr. GRISWELL. And I will just say this, as a business person who 

walked into this field, there are more acronyms, there are more 

people, there are more things going on in this. You think it should 

be pretty straightforward, and you start stirring around in this pot, 

and you will find the Abecedarian and all of these research. And 

all of a sudden, you find there are so many ways to go at it, and 

every State is going at it differently. 

In some ways, you have got to hold up the North Carolinas and, 

to some extent, Georgias and other States. I think it is the University of Vermont that has this enormous study that they do that 

lists, State by State, who is doing the best job of solving this problem, who is the most efficient. And we ought to be learning the lessons from those. 

Colorado is doing a great job with Colorado Care. We ought to 

really learn from the States that are doing it right and try to model 

those, I think. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just asked my staff to get that study. What is 

it, a Vermont study? 

Mr. GRISWELL. I will locate it for you. I believe it is the University of Vermont that does it. It is in Connecticut or Vermont, 

Maine. But they are looked at—I am sorry—— 

[Laughter.] 

You know, Iowa, Ohio, Idaho? 

[Laughter.] 

They are renowned for their annual study. Maybe some of the 

colleagues know which one it is. 

Senator FRANKEN. Not that renowned. 

Mr. GRISWELL. Apparently. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Casey. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR CASEY

Senator CASEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank our panelists for your testimony and for the 

work you are doing in this area. 

The way I approach this issue I think is the way that everybody 

in this room does in one way or the other. There are at least two 

good reasons to move forward with a strategy on early education. 

One, of course, is I think the obligation that all of us feel about 

children, no matter whose child they are. 

We believe, as a country, that every child who is born in this 

country has a light inside them. And for some children because of 

their circumstances, because of advantages or who their parents 

are or where they were born, that light will be incandescent. The 

reach of it will be blinding. But for other children, the light will 

be a lot more limited. And whatever the reach of that light or 
58 

whatever the potential, we believe we should make sure that every 

child realizes that potential. 

In some areas, we are doing a pretty good job as a country. In 

some areas, we are not. We finally moved forward with an investment in children with regard to their healthcare a couple of years 

ago. It is rather recent. In the last 15 years, we have made 

progress there. 

On the issue of early childhood education, we have made very little progress if you set aside what we have done in a very positive 

way with Head Start. But on a national commitment to early education, we are a long way from getting there. Nutrition is one way 

that we can have a tremendous impact on children, and other than 

healthcare and early learning and nutrition, safety or protecting 

our kids is probably the fourth. 

But I think the second reason that we are here is because we believe that an investment in a child in the dawn of his or her life, 

as Hubert Humphrey talked about a long time ago, not only has 

positive benefits for the child and their family, but long term for 

our workforce. Whether it is making sure that the bright light in 

a child is realized, the potential of it is realized, or whether we are 

worried about our workforce, I think that is why we are here. 

And we have a number of people on this committee who, for 

many years, have been fighting this battle one way or the other. 

Chris Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee, a longtime member of this committee. Tom Harkin, Patty Murray, who have been 

here long before I got here on these issues. 

But we have to take action. We have talked about it too much 

or talked about it enough at least, and we haven’t made progress. 

One way to do it this year is to take advantage of this opportunity, 

and I think that is one of the reasons we are here. 

I have a bill that gets to a lot of it. It is S. 839, the Prepare All 

Kids Act. It has the elements of a research-based curriculum, making sure the quality is there with regard to teachers, but also making sure that if we are going to help States do this, and a lot of 

them need the incentive to do it, that they have a monitor. And it 

can’t just be any commitment. It has to be a commitment to quality. 

And we have to measure results. We have to make sure that we 

are making a full investment. 

The question I have is: How do we get there in terms of implementing this on a national scale? We have a lot of good models. 

You mentioned a number of States. I would add Pennsylvania to 

the list, but I know you were getting to that. 

[Laughter.] 

But some States need more incentives, and some States, frankly, 

just need help. They have expended a lot of money and had to fight 

battles. In our State a couple of years ago, Governor Rendell had 

to fight long and hard to get $75 million in a big State like that, 

but it was a tough fight. 

So, I would ask you: What is the best way to get there? Some 

would say just passing a bill like the bill we have, and I would certainly favor that. Some would say, no, let us work it into title I. 

Others would say, no, the President has an initiative. There is a 

way to get it done there. 
59 

I would ask you, it is both a policy and a strategic question, but 

what do you think is the best way to get there in terms of not just 

getting anything done or something done, but doing it in a way 

that will have an impact that will be consistent with what States 

are doing already? And we have 33 seconds. 

Mind if we go left to right? 

[The prepared statement of Senator Casey follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT P. CASEY, JR. 

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to thank you for holding this hearing 

today to discuss what, in my opinion, is one of the most critical 

issues affecting our Nation’s children, our continued prosperity and 

our position as a world leader. 

As Hubert Humphrey once said, 

‘‘The moral test of a government is how it treats those who 

are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, 

the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.’’ 

As to our children, we are not doing enough. By not providing 

every American child equal educational opportunities, we are failing to allow them to seize every opportunity to succeed. 

I believe that every child is born with a bright light inside of him 

or her. We can help to make sure this light shines as brightly as 

possible—and, in turn, illuminates people and places around 

them—by providing him or her with the right tools and resources 

to shine. 

High-quality education early in life will prepare all American 

children—not just some, but all—for success in academics, career, 

community, and beyond. 

As we discuss reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act—and how to make sure that our Nation’s children 

graduate ‘‘career-’’ or ‘‘college-ready’’—we need to recognize that if 

we want our children to end up on the right path, we need to start 

them off on the right foot. 

The opportunity to educate a child, and prepare them for success 

in life, does not begin when a child first walks through the door 

the first day of kindergarten. It begins at birth. 

Public education is a long-standing American commitment that 

provides great value for our children. The time has come, however, 

to reconsider the strengths of the investments we are making in 

our children and whether our current system is adequately serving 

our Nation’s needs in the twenty-first century. 

Many say that in light of current economic and fiscal concerns, 

our hands are tied—we don’t have the resources to invest in all the 

things that merit consideration. I would say that when it comes to 

our children—the very future of this country—we cannot afford not 

to. An investment in children and high-quality education for all is 

an investment in our Nation’s long-term economic and fiscal stability that will pay dividends down the road. 

The research on return on investment in early childhood education is irrefutable. Investing in our children in their earliest 

years greatly improves their life outcomes. Conservative estimates 

put the savings to our economy at about $7 for every $1 we invest. 
60 

This is really about two things. It is certainly about our obligation 

to our children. But it also is about our obligation to our economy 

and our ability to deliver skilled workers to compete in a world 

economy. 

Early childhood education offers the greatest opportunity to ensure that every American child reaches their potential. We know 

that for some American children, starting in kindergarten is already too late. For some of the most disadvantaged children, there 

is an achievement gap between them and their more privileged 

peers that sometimes never closes. One study showed that before 

entering kindergarten, the average cognitive scores of preschool-age 

children in the highest socioeconomic group were 60 percent above 

the average scores of children in the lowest socioeconomic group. 

To make early childhood education a priority, I’ve introduced the 

Prepare All Kids Act. The Prepare All Kids Act is about investing 

in and preparing all kids. Not just some but all. The Prepare All 

Kids Act will assist States in providing at least 1 year of high quality pre-kindergarten to children, focusing on those who need help 

the most. Pre-kindergarten will be free for low-income children who 

are ready to learn, if only given the opportunity. 

As we have heard from our panelists today, it is absolutely imperative that we don’t see children in ‘‘pieces’’—that we not create 

silos as we begin to focus on the kinds of investments our children 

really need. The Prepare All Kids Act would make sure that early 

childhood education is of high-quality, with lasting results, by ensuring that teachers are adequately trained and that pre-kindergarten programs utilize a research-based curriculum that supports 

children’s cognitive, social, emotional and physical development 

and individual learning styles. 

Critically, under the Prepare All Kids Act, States will not be able 

to divert designated funding for other early childhood programs 

into pre-kindergarten. We want pre-kindergarten to build upon and 

support other early childhood programs like Head Start and child 

care. We do not want pre-kindergarten to replace these programs 

in any way. 

It is my deep conviction that as elected public servants, we have 

a sacred responsibility to ensure that all children in this country 

have the opportunity to grow in a manner where each child reaches 

their potential, to live the lives they were born to live. The Prepare 

All Kids Act is a big step in that direction and I ask my colleagues 

to join me in supporting this bill within the context of ESEA Reauthorization. 

Our children are our future. With high-quality early education 

for all, we will let them shine their brightest and our future will 

be brighter for it. 

Mr. Griswell. 

Mr. GRISWELL. I am not sure why I get to go first every time. 

But I think what Senator Brown said, that at the end of the day, 

I think you need to take a holistic view that the education in this 

country starts at birth, and you need to build systems that address 

that. We need to get away from this thinking that it is somebody 

else’s responsibility until they are age 5, and then it is the public’s 

or the Government’s responsibility. 
61 

That is backward thinking. It ought to go down to zero, and 

whatever it takes to get us to think about it that way. When it 

comes to local States, I am a big proponent in getting the business 

community involved, getting government involved, getting the providers involved. And I think that is what they have done in North 

Carolina and other States, but particularly, as she said there on 

the panel, is you have got to get a consensus and a collaboration 

going among all the people who benefit from having quality early 

childhood. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I think I would suggest we build from the 

basis that we have already started to build. We have Head Start, 

which has a whole lot of unmet potential that can do a whole lot 

more than it has done. 

I think with childcare, we need to get our priorities straight. We 

need to be clear what we are trying to do, and the fact that we 

haven’t had a reauthorization since 1996 makes that even more 

clear. Things have changed so much since then. And the commitment, though, is still the same. How do we have a national policy 

of quality childcare, and what do we have to do to make that happen? 

And I think the other thing, which is right before you right now, 

is elementary schools and the fact that elementary schools have invested more into early childhood education both what they have always done with first, second, third grade, and then kindergarten 

and then pre-K is a growing phenomenon. 

Let us recognize the realities of elementary schools and do what 

we can to help them become a part of this great early childhood 

education movement. 

Mr. PIANTA. So I have mentioned a couple of things, but I think 

the extension, the inclusion of early childhood policies; and structurally, within discussion of title I, how you spend title I money; 

title II, focusing on the adults and the qualifications and the standards for the adults that are going to work with kids is very important. 

I keep coming back to whatever you can do to push information 

that helps people drive decisions and policy. So these, you know, 

Race to the Top with longitudinal data systems, whatever you do— 

and I am sensitive to Senator Murray’s comment about not testing 

a lot of kids. We don’t even know where kids are right now. 

The kinds of settings that kids are spending time in, the numbers of settings, the qualities of those settings, we are not attending to those in ways that you can make sensible policy on the basis 

of that. So I think there is just a whole lot of information investment that could go a long way. 

Ms. ZALKIND. I would say take every opportunity you can and 

don’t try to put it all in one place. So, right now, you have an opportunity to embed the Ready Schools process in the No Child Left 

Behind Act. You took an opportunity that was before you to put 

home visiting in the healthcare reform. You can reauthorize the 

Childcare Development Block Grant with higher quality standards 

and State systems that align pre-K to 3. So I don’t think that you 

should miss any opportunity to shift the paradigm, to focus and to 

start early and get the most bang for the buck because they will 
62 

all lead to the other eventually. That is how you build momentum, 

and that is how you build success. 

It is all the same people at the local and the State level who are 

looking at how to feed kids nutritious meals in childcare and 

schools. They are all the same people looking at making sure that 

kids have good healthcare. So take every opportunity that you can. 

Senator CASEY. Thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dodd. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR DODD

Senator DODD. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There are so many things to talk to you about on all of this. First 

of all, it was 20 years ago that Orrin Hatch and I wrote in 1990 

the Child Care and Development Block Grant. This year is the 

20th anniversary of when he and I wrote that bill. And then, of 

course, you are right. We haven’t reauthorized it since 1996. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Helen Blank is in the 

audience, and Helen Blank helped me write that legislation 20 

years ago. I thank you, Helen. Stand up. Be recognized. Helen 

Blank. 

[Applause.] 

And in 1996, we did welfare reform, and there were 21 of us here 

in the U.S. Senate that voted against that bill at the time. It was 

a very popular idea because this was going to end welfare as we 

knew it. It was going to cut off cash payments within 5 years. And 

of course, the promise was that we were going to make sure that 

every child after that 5 years would get all the protection they 

would need and nutrition and childcare, and of course, it didn’t 

happen. 

Today, only one in seven children who are eligible are receiving 

any kind of assistance under the Child Care and Development 

Block Grant program. And I say that respectfully. We were going 

to end welfare as we know it. The overwhelming majority of cash 

welfare recipients are children. We always think the recipients are 

the families, but in fact, it is children who depend upon it. 

And the idea that you are going to eliminate the ability of children to get the kind of assistance that they needed was always 

breath-taking to me when we fail to understand that it isn’t just 

jobs, as I said, Mr. Schweinhart, it was also about education. It 

was about providing a safe, nurturing place where that child has 

a chance to develop the skill sets they need to be ready to learn. 

The achievement gap is defined by age 3. By age 3, that is when 

the achievement gap is defined. So 36 months into a child’s life, 

that achievement gap is defined. So this notion of waiting until 

they get into school or even 5 or 6 is beyond me in many ways. 

And of course, we know that every dollar we invest in early 

childhood development saves $10, $1 for $10. There is no debate 

about that. So just in simple math numbers, the investments we 

make up front make a huge financial difference. I always say if we 

weren’t impressed by the ethics and the morality of it or the decency of it, just the sheer economics of it ought to compel you to 

understand what we are talking about. 

So it has been a passion of mine over the 30 years I have been 

in this body and sitting on this committee. And the point that Ber-
63 

nie Sanders was making and others have made is that this is the 

basic program. Obviously, I am a strong advocate and have been 

of Early Head Start and Head Start and pre-K programs. Again, 

Tom has done a great job with these hearings including this one 

over the last number of months. 

I apologize for not being at all of them, but we have had other 

matters that I have had to attend to. But we are going to start, 

with the chairman’s permission, we have organized between now 

and October a series of four or five hearings—I was telling Senator 

Casey about it a little while ago—on the status of the American 

child. And I would like, either through the Casey Foundation or 

Save The Children, to start a report card on child well-being, so we 

can start really making determinations on how we’re doing for children. 

Only 4 percent of title I money, goes to early childhood education, and that is an estimate because there is no data collected 

on it by the Federal Government. It is an approximate number we 

have. So we don’t have a real number. So 96 percent of those resources are going to elementary and secondary, which are vitally 

important. But only 4 percent is going to early childhood education, 

and yet we know statistically how important those years are in 

people’s development along the way. 

Of course, the article I read on cuts to subsidized child care programs, I thought, was very, very good. Peter Goodman wrote a 

rather lengthy piece that appeared in the New York Times on May 

23rd, which I thought was a very compelling piece. I strongly recommend it for people to get a sense of actually what happened with 

States cutting back the number of children they cover with child 

care subsidies. 

California’s governor has proposed eliminating child care assistance altogether. It would leave a million children without any support. Eleven thousand children in the State of Arizona are on the 

State’s waiting list for child care assistance. And you can get your 

numbers State by State, and a lot of the States may surprise you 

as the ones that are cutting way back, some of the States we normally associate and think of as being a bit more progressive when 

it comes to caring for children’s needs. 

And I understand. I am not unmindful of the budget problems 

that States are facing. But I think Al Franken mentioned it. I 

think everyone on this committee at one point or another in their 

comments and questions have raised the issue about how pennywise, pound-foolish it is when we are talking about once again recovery, getting on our feet and cutting off people. 

So I guess this isn’t a lot of questions, except that we have listed 

a number of things here, and having been the chairman of a committee and listening to all my colleagues with various amendment 

ideas, I know Tom Harkin will be delighted to hear about my 

amendment ideas. 

[Laughter.] 

But there are any number of them on title I data collection, the 

professional development piece. Memorandums of Understanding— 

Head Start is required to get it, but the elementary and secondary 

schools are not. So you have no comparative assessment as to how 

this is working. So I am hopeful we can include the memorandum 
64 

of understanding language in this legislation as well and that we 

really do get the data that we need to understand it. 

The parental aspects of this. Again, going back to childcare, as 

well as we know that Head Start requires programs to encourage 

parental involvement. In the first grade parental participation is at 

33 percent, it drops down to less than 8 percent participation by 

seventh grade. And there is nothing better, in my view, than linking up parents and children in the educational process and, obviously, parents and children in the childcare development programs. 

Actually, Orrin Hatch and I went back even earlier, started with 

the childcare ideas of the early 1980s, when it wasn’t terribly popular—we had magnificent childcare in this country in World War 

II. I invite people who like history to go back and look at what we 

did during the war years between 1941 and 1945. It was stunning, 

the quality of childcare. 

I mean the availability of it, the cost were always major factors. 

But the quality of it was remarkable. And we all understood with 

the young men, most of the young men fighting in the European 

and Pacific theaters, women involved in war production, in these 

automobile plants and so on, turning out airplanes and tanks. We 

had to have childcare. It was a national security issue. 

So we understood it, and we did it almost 70 years ago. And yet 

here we are in the 21st century, and there is a disconnect between 

what our parents and grandparents did, understanding it, and we 

just haven’t picked up on it. We dropped it. Instead of picking up 

the models used where they had great healthcare providers, good 

education opportunities, great ratios, and the like. 

Jerry, it is good to see you again. We saw each other when I 

spent a lovely time in Iowa. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GRISWELL. We miss you as a resident, sir. 

Senator DODD. It was very brief. Appreciated the 99 counties, 

too, Jerry, and actually going by and meeting the folks at Principal 

when I was there. 

But if you would, again, coming to the business standpoint in all 

of this, why is it we have had such difficulty? I mean, there was 

incredible opposition to the Childcare Development Block Grant 

program when Orrin Hatch and I wrote it. And the business community’s opposition to this was—how do you explain that? 

Mr. GRISWELL. I really do believe the last decade has been a decade of enlightenment for business leaders, and I would encourage 

you to take another look. As I mentioned earlier, the Business 

Roundtable is onboard with this. It is one of their primary initiatives. In Iowa, the Iowa Business Council, one of its primary priorities is early childhood. Rockwell Collins in our State has wonderful 

childcare right on their facilities. 

I believe the mood has changed. I believe business now gets it, 

and I would encourage all of you to re-engage business. I believe 

they are ready to be engaged. I think, like me, many of them were 

oblivious, I am afraid, just not paying attention to the research and 

the wonderful data that is out there to connect the dots for us. I 

have become a believer, and I believe many of my colleagues have. 

Senator DODD. I hope you are. Kit Bond, who is retiring this 

year, and Dan Coats, who sat on this committee and is running for 
65 

the Senate again, were my partners when I wrote the Family and 

Medical Leave Act. Took us 7 years, went through 2 vetoes. Sixty 

million Americans have been able to take advantage without pay 

of being able to be with a sick child or parent during a crisis. 

We are now trying to get paid leave because, obviously, that is 

a burden. And yet, again, just as we had tremendous opposition to 

that basic concept—I mean, we applaud our colleagues here who 

leave the Senate, miss votes for weeks on end to take care of a 

spouse or a child. In fact, they would be in deep political trouble 

if they didn’t do it, I would suggest to you, and yet that same concept of it being possible for parents and children to have that time 

together during these critical issues and periods is—again, we are 

facing Herculean opposition to this concept. 

Yet we are only one of four countries left that I can identify in 

the world that doesn’t provide that basic right, it seems to me. And 

again, I say to Jerry, I applaud what you are doing, and I admire 

it. But kind of the same mindless opposition at a time when productivity rates, retention rates, loyalty, and so forth are critically 

important to business. Again, completely lost on an audience, it 

seems to me. 

Any explanation? 

Mr. GRISWELL. No, sir. 

[Laughter.] 

I am telling you, we are becoming enlightened. 

Senator DODD. I am retiring. I hope you get enlightenment. Bob 

Casey of this crowd takes over and moves up the table here. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Dodd. 

But I would point out again, as I keep holding this book up, as 

I have for many years, that the business community in the 1980s 

identified the need to and benefit of investing in quality early 

learning programs. This group included CEOs of major corporations in America. Jim Renier, the CEO of Honeywell chaired the 

effort. The Freeman Company, Aetna Life, Sun Company, Pacific 

Mutual Life, Ciba-Geigy, Texas Instruments, and so many other 

companies were involved. 

This Commission, in the 1990s, said we have to rethink education, that education begins at birth and the preparation for education begins before birth. So if we have fallen back or moved away 

from this, I don’t know why. 

You say that they made another attempt to communicate the importance of investing in early learning in 2003. Is that right? 

Mr. GRISWELL. That is when the Business Roundtable did its full 

study, which came out with its economic view that every dollar invested in early childhood gave $4 to $7, which is a very modest— 

I mean, we know some studies show $17. It depends on what you 

add into that. 

And there are a lot of business-education alliances out there. 

There is a Business Higher Education Forum. I think you really 

need to try to engage the right business leaders. I think maybe 

something is askew here. Everybody I talk to understands the importance of this. 

Senator DODD. Tom, in 1995, 9.1 million children on a yearly average were getting assistance through the welfare system. 
66 

The CHAIRMAN. 9.1 million. 

Senator DODD. 9.1 million, 60 percent of children in poverty at 

that time. Today, it is 3.3 million children, 20 percent of children 

in poverty. And so, you are getting—these are not with any kind 

of assistance at all or very little kind of assistance. And here we 

are 15 years later, the number of children in poverty obviously 

have gone up. 

The CHAIRMAN. Daunting, yes. 

Senator Merkley. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

A couple of decades ago, I was listening to a radio program 

where a childhood expert said that the thing you should keep in 

mind is that in the first year of childhood, you should hold your 

child as much as possible and talk to them as much as possible. 

And after that, you should spend 15 minutes an evening reading 

books and that the impact has a huge effect on their social skills, 

their sense of bonding, and they almost universally end up loving 

to read, which has all sorts of educational benefits. 

And I thought, boy, that is such a simple, straightforward, and 

inexpensive approach. But now I have all of you here. Is that right? 

And if so, should we also be talking about investment in parents, 

more investment in parent education or a national reading hour 

from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., where parents are encouraged to do that 

nightly reading, more education about the impact of holding, talking to, and interacting with children? 

I know we are talking a lot about quality childcare, but should 

this be a component equally well emphasized? 

Ms. ZALKIND. I would clearly say yes, and the money for family 

support and family preservation is very, very hard to come by. But 

those dollars spent, especially if they are spent in concert with 

high-quality childcare, that maximizes the investment. So what we 

have found is that when childcare providers and parents and 

schools work together on a common agenda, and they all are 

trained to work with the others so that teachers have professional 

development about working with parents and parents have training around how to productively work with their schools, that is 

where you really see the synergy and children thrive. 

Senator MERKLEY. Go ahead, please. 

Mr. PIANTA. I guess I would just add that I couldn’t agree more 

that capturing those connections across the family and childcare 

settings are really very important in terms of what adults are 

doing with kids. But it is also important to recognize that teaching 

a kid to learn how to read also requires a fair amount of technical 

skill, that people involved in those interactions have to know quite 

a bit about how reading develops, how language develops. 

If you begin to talk about, we haven’t mentioned it at all here, 

math and science. I suspect you will be worried about that when 

you talk about high school, but when you talk about promoting 

math skills and science skills with young kids, that requires a fair 

amount of skill and technical capacity that teachers should be 

trained to exercise. We would love it for adults in the home to be 

able to do that, too. 
67 

So I think you are right on capitalizing on both of those settings, 

but I would argue that it is not as—sometimes it is just not as easy 

as sitting a kid on your knee and reading for 15 minutes every 

evening. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Schweinhart, I appreciate the work of the HighScope, and I 

believe it is the Perry Preschool Study that has the 17-to-1 statistic, if I recall right? I didn’t see that in your testimony. But 

wasn’t it your study that had that 17-fold return? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. What I think is maybe the most important 

thing to say about all those dollars is that it is enormous. That is 

actually what I said. But I found using numbers seems to get people’s attention better. 

A $1 return on investment is enough to justify an investment, a 

$1 return. And we are talking about many times that, and I think 

whether it is $5 or $10 or $15, gosh, it is a lot. It is so much that 

it is just really worth doing, no matter what. 

We have been doing some work with Jim Heckman to try to identify exactly what it is, and we have come up with 150 different estimates and all that sort of thing. And that is what makes me kind 

of fall back on a simpler way of saying it, except that if people 

want the precision, we sure do have the precision. 

Senator MERKLEY. There is a piece of your study I wanted to 

draw attention to, and that is what you found was that it wasn’t 

simply the development of cognitive skills, but the development of 

socio-emotional factors. And it goes back to what that childhood expert said about bonding with the amount you hold your child and 

talk to them, and that this has a big impact on whether people end 

up in prison, whether they can function in a work environment, 

whether they are interested in education, a whole series of things. 

So this isn’t just about training the little brains to learn to read 

or count. It is also about how to interact with others, and I know 

that this is where the quality childcare comes in. 

I must say every time I encounter a family where little children 

are being parented primarily by sitting in front of videos, my heart 

drops because I suspect that does not produce the type of interaction that is necessary either for the cognitive development or for 

the socio-emotional side. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Everything about education is developing relationships, and particularly with young children, it is all about developing relationships. With parent education, you can’t really talk 

about the kind of transfer from knowledgeable people to less knowledgeable people the kinds of things they need to know unless you 

are doing it in the context of solid relationships. So the question 

is always about how to develop those relationships. 

One of the things that we found with respect to the specific prevention of crime is the developing of a strong moral sense. And that 

is done in the context of learning how to get along with other children and getting along with adults. It is coming from what it looks 

like. It looks like that. 

Now the cognitive stuff is important because I think, ultimately, 

one of the really great purposes of early childhood education is to 

teach kids how to be good students in the best sense of that term. 
68 

Not ‘‘sit down and shut up,’’ but really becoming actively engaged 

in their learning. 

And to the extent that they learn that, that is going to be with 

them all of their lives, and it is going to lead to all this kind of 

success that we have been talking about. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you all very much. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Merkley. 

Senator Hagan. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAGAN

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, and thanks for 

holding this hearing today. 

I tell you, as a mother of three children, I know personally how 

important it is to have early childhood education. And as Senator 

Dodd said, the first 3 years of life are critical. 

I especially wanted to say thank you to Henrietta Zalkind for 

being here today. I know the Down East Partnership is doing a fabulous job. And Down East in North Carolina is a wonderful word 

for a special place in our great State. So I appreciate your being 

here. 

I think a lot of you here know that I spent 10 years in the State 

Senate, and that I was particularly involved in the appropriations 

committee and, co-chairman of the budget committee. And just so 

that you all here know, in 2005, we had about $51 million going 

to one of the early childhood education programs, and we ended up 

combining Smart Start with another program, More at Four. And 

last year, that funding in our State was about $171 million. 

Mr. Griswell, we haven’t met, but I particularly appreciated your 

comments about North Carolina. We are certainly doing some great 

things. It is certainly not that we have it all right, but I just think 

we have got to be cognizant of the impact that States and the Federal Government needs to have on children from 0 to 3, 0 to 5, and 

obviously, 0 to 8. It is just absolutely critical. 

One of the things that we are trying to do is be sure that when 

children go to school, they are healthy and ready to learn. We also 

know that just providing a place for children to hang out doesn’t 

mean that they are going to have the best quality childcare. We 

have got to be focused on the types of childcare programs we offer 

and the education of the people who are staffing the childcare programs also bring a lot to bear. 

In North Carolina, we have implemented a star rating program 

to help parents be better informed when choosing a childcare and 

early education program for their children. In our State, the programs are monitored by State officials on three basic components— 

the education of the staff, the program standards, and quality. 

We actually have a five-star rating, where five is the highest, 

with one the lowest. We also use some of our funding from the 

State to actually help the childcare facilities improve their star ratings, and improve the education of their staff. We must examine 

ways in which childhood education can be included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, to that 

end. I was wondering what thoughts you might have on ways that 
69 

we can encourage all States to adopt a quality rating system similar to the one that we have. 

Ms. Zalkind, do you want to start? 

Ms. ZALKIND. Thank you, and thank you for those nice comments. 

I think that that quality rating system has been a key to aligning systems across funding streams. This spring, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction created a new Office of Early 

Learning, and all of the different programs, regardless of where the 

money comes from, whether it is the State or title I or the subsidy 

program, everyone is working off that same standard. 

Different States have different systems, but ours, I think, applies 

to all of the different folks who are providers. It applies to Head 

Start. Gives you a way to hold folks to the same quality standards, 

and it focuses across the board. 

Now, quality costs. And so, I think that that is one of the things 

that we need to make sure that there is enough money to make 

sure that people are not edged out of the system. 

Mr. PIANTA. They are terrific ideas. The quality rating and improvement systems are terrific policy tools. So to the extent that 

you can encourage them in all States, I think they are great. I 

think you have to be very careful about what a star means, and 

what you put in those systems will be what the system produces, 

OK? That is the incentive structure. 

So people will spend their money on those things. And if what 

you put in those systems don’t matter for kids’ learning, they are 

not going to help. So I think you have to be very rigorous in what 

those standards mean and the evidence for them. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Obviously, States require response to incentives and that is something to think about. The one thing I would 

like to add to what my colleagues here have said is that a lot of 

childcare takes place in homes, not in centers. And it is important 

to be thinking about how to support caregivers in homes, as well 

as in centers. 

I think that what they need a whole lot more than rating is support, and the question is how to give them the kinds of educational 

relationships that is going to give them the support they need to 

move forward. 

Senator HAGAN. You are talking about the parents now? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Actually, I am talking about home caregivers. 

Senator HAGAN. Home caregivers. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. There are parents at home taking care of 

kids, but I am talking about people who are taking care of other 

people’s kids. And there is a whole lot of them, particularly for 

birth to 3, and there is very little support for them. The pay is less 

than even center care. 

And one of the things we have done in southeast Michigan that 

I want to mention is we have tried to form early learning communities with hubs in the middle of those communities where there 

are people who provide support, develop relationships with all the 

caregivers in a given geographic area. And I think that may be the 

kind of complement that we need to the quality rating and improvement system, which is primarily center-based and schoolbased. 
70 

Senator HAGAN. Great. 

Mr. GRISWELL. I agree with everything that has been said, really 

not much to add. 

Senator HAGAN. North Carolina is one of a few States that does 

use a portion of our title I dollars to fund early childhood education, and I know that our title I preschool programs serve 4-yearolds and is designed to prepare young children before they enter 

kindergarten. What can be done to increase flexibility at the State 

level to promote the use of title I and other funding for children 

before they enter school? Any thoughts? 

Ms. ZALKIND. Well, I think there are several things, and I would 

give an example of the school as one of the hubs, that you can use 

title I money for staff that then goes and works with the teachers 

in the childcare centers to help them develop professionally on activities that will lead to better outcomes on EOGs, better outcomes 

on math scores, better outcomes on reading scores. 

And so, how you strategically use your title I money not just for 

slots, not just for children going to 4-year-old programs, but how 

you use it to build a system so that the school does become the instructional hub and that people are working off of the same system 

of quality. I think that that is really important and our Office of 

Early Learning has been behind—and really, the whole Ready 

Schools movement in North Carolina, I gave as part of my testimony the map of the places where Ready Schools was happening 

in North Carolina. 

We were one of the pilot sites for Kellogg’s SPARK Project, but 

it is now happening in almost 40 of the 100 counties in North Carolina, and that is really exciting. So trying to embed those kind of 

processes, give people the flexibility to move out and try some different opportunities I think has really been a key for us. 

Senator HAGAN. We have a great panel. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Hagan. 

Mr. Griswell, he just hit the ball right away. When I asked about 

the dollar, he was like 50 early, and then 25 and 25. Now, of 

course, Ms. Zalkind said invest the whole dollar. Would you like to 

revisit that, maybe 90 cents? 

Ms. ZALKIND. OK. 

[Laughter.] 

Until third grade. Maybe I will go to fifth grade. 

The CHAIRMAN. We have to have resources to invest in secondary 

education, you know? 

Mr. Schweinhart, you have a dollar. We have early learning. We 

have elementary education, and we have high schools, too. How do 

you divide it up? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Well, we are talking about the Federal Government’s component, not the whole system. There is State and 

local spending. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am only talking about the Federal Government 

because—— 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. The Federal Government ought to incentivize 

what works. 

The CHAIRMAN. We contribute roughly 9 percent of all the funding for elementary and secondary education. 
71 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Right. So incentivize what works. Early childhood education works. 

The CHAIRMAN. But tell me. We have a dollar. How much should 

we invest in early learning? Nothing? Nothing much—— 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. You really want me to give you a number, 

don’t you? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I really—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. I want to know what your priorities 

are, how do you prioritize? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Half. 

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon? 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. Half. Let me give you a longer answer because I think it is a better answer. It seems to me that right now 

our funding formulas are focused on the kids that are in the 

schools. Suppose we were to get our funding formulas to focus on 

the kids who are in the communities from birth, and we tracked 

the money not to the kid as much as we are tracking it now because I have a feeling what is happening is people are saying we 

have got this much money for this kid, and so we have to give the 

service to this kid. 

But if instead, we said what is the best way to serve this child 

throughout the child’s life? Then you maybe could get freed up 

from that grade-by-grade focus, and I think maybe that is a better 

way to come up with a way of spending ESEA so that it works really well and is not so tied to serving kids. 

You know, it is like there is different interest groups—5th graders, 6th graders, 9th graders, 12th graders. Your question sort of 

assumes that. But they are all the same kids. It is just a year of 

age. So if a child gets funding at 3 and 4 that works better than 

funding at 9 and 10, of course, you should spend the money at 3 

and 4. Why would you wait until 9 and 10? 

The CHAIRMAN. That is a nice discourse; however, I don’t know 

that it really gets to the heart of investing and prioritizing. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. I already said half. 

The CHAIRMAN. Sometimes when we vote around here, I mean, 

we have got to say how much money we invest, being clear about 

how we focus our efforts? This committee and the Appropriations 

Committee, I chair, don’t focus very much on early childhood education. We make some investments, like in Head Start, but I am 

really talking about investing more in the educational component 

of early childhood. 

Head Start, that is under Health and Human Services, not the 

Department of Education. So, from an educational standpoint of 

the dollars we spend, what would be the priority because I assume 

you would say 0 to 1. I am just talking about preschool, elementary, and secondary education. 

Mr. Pianta. 

Mr. PIANTA. Put the dollar in preschool. 

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon? 

Mr. PIANTA. Put the dollar in preschool. I mean, you already 

know that you are going to get the dollar back later on. Put the 

whole thing in. 
72 

The CHAIRMAN. You are with Ms. Zalkind, but that is kind of impossible. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PIANTA. Well, it is—you know? 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, because we have other things we must also 

invest in terms of teacher quality and a lot of other things that we 

are doing in ESEA. 

Ms. ZALKIND. Well, I still would say put the dollar in preschool. 

But I think if you flip the paradigm around and spend a larger majority on early education and then as you go up, in middle school 

and high school, graduate those percentages down, not up as the 

way it is currently configured. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think I got the answer I was seeking and 

that is that the vast majority of you believe that most of the money 

ought to go into early childhood education. Right now, it is not, of 

course. 

Mr. GRISWELL. I think it is a system—— 

The CHAIRMAN. It is, what, 2.8 percent? Now Senator Dodd said 

4 percent. That is the number of kids. Four percent of the kids 

being served by title I preschool, but of the money, it is only 2.8 

percent of the title I? Yes, 2.8 percent of kids. That is right. That 

is what I said are served. 

Did you have something to say? 

Mr. GRISWELL. No, I was just going to make the point we are upside down. We are spending the most money at the most inefficient 

time, and the next most money at the next. It is absolutely upside 

down. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Aside from the money thing, the other thing 

that you have all spoken about and I thought about as I read your 

testimonies yesterday, almost all of you kind of hit on this one way 

or the other, and that was aligning the preschool programs with 

the elementary programs. 

Now we are going to make some changes in the elementary program. We are going to change No Child Left Behind. I think we 

have a consensus among all of us here to change it. So give me a 

little bit deeper answer on how to align the programs and—in other 

words, we have got to make sure that whatever education programs we use, early childhood fits into so that these kids can go 

right into kindergarten prepared to succeed. Is that what you are 

telling me? Yes? 

Ms. ZALKIND. That there are smooth transitions from home to 

childcare, from childcare to school, and that there is a vertical 

alignment that people are working off of curriculums that are developmentally appropriate for each different age and stage of a 

child’s healthy growth and development. 

And these experts know far more than I about how that happens, 

but there is a natural progression of how children learn, and right 

now, it is not synched. 

Mr. SCHWEINHART. We almost have a cultural collision between 

early childhood education and the schools, and what we need to do 

is recognize that that is coming from us adults and not from the 

children’s needs. And so, we need to minimize the most discrepant 

areas of that culture so that kids are—just having childcare and 

Head Start and other early childhood educators meeting with kin-
73 

dergarten, first grade teachers would be a really great thing to do, 

and it doesn’t happen very often. 

Mr. PIANTA. You have got the mechanism of standards. You have 

got the mechanisms of assessments. You have got the mechanisms 

of teacher qualifications. All those are points of contact that I suspect you can point people in the right direction to get themselves 

aligned. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. Right. I believe that is a very important 

aspect of what we are going to do. 

The second thing has to do with qualifications. Now we are dealing a lot with that in elementary and secondary education. But as 

Mr. Pianta said, only one State requires that directors of childcare 

centers hold a Bachelor’s degree. And you pointed out here, that at 

least 50 percent of the lead teachers in Head Start must have a 

B.A. degree by 2013 and then you said only 10 States required 

some vocational program certificate or CDA, and 13 States had no 

requisite educational qualification for childcare teachers. 

Quoting you further, you said capable early education is a complex and challenging task. Teachers need to know a lot about basic 

child development, far more than the typical course, and they need 

to know about how to teach and stimulate vocabulary, conversations, early literacy, knowledge of science, the community, all the 

while handling sensitively the varied needs of these kids. 

So have we done enough to, again, try to promote, provoke, prod 

States to develop better criteria, qualifications? We need to do more 

of that is what you are telling me? 

Mr. PIANTA. Yes. And I think we need to do more in a couple of 

different ways. So I would not—I don’t think it is going to be sensible to send everybody off to get degrees and coursework unless we 

know that is going to help those kids that they are teaching. So I 

think we need to do a much better job of articulating the behaviors, 

what are the behaviors we want to see teachers demonstrating in 

classrooms, and what are the kinds of knowledge base that they 

need to have to do what I just described that you quoted? 

I think we have a lot of evidence in place now to be able to make 

fairly clear statements about those features of qualification. Then 

the issue is how do we create policy that incents participation in 

the kind of professional development that gets teachers to those 

places? Whether that occurs in a university, whether that occurs in 

a local community kind of training, or whether the State does it, 

I think we can be agnostic about that. We just need to incent people to be participating in things that we know are effective. 

I think this is something we know now that we didn’t know 10 

or 15 years ago. 

Ms. ZALKIND. And tying the funding to that is a way to 

incentivize that. So, for instance, our State More at Four program, 

which is our public pre-K program for 4-year-olds, you have to be 

B–K certified by a certain time. You can teach in that classroom, 

but you have to take 6 semester hours a year toward your B–K, 

and I think it is by the end of the third year, you have to be B– 

K certified or else you have got to get a waiver. 

It is hard, but it is also, I think, one of the recognitions that 

childcare—the childcare industry itself is an economy, and there 

are people working and employed in childcare that you don’t want 
74 

to push out. You want to add value and add skills to that knowledge base, but there are things that happen in formal education 

that are necessary to do a good job, especially when you are dealing 

with 4-year-olds, many of whom who have not been in childcare before. So that takes a skill level that you learn at school. 

Mr. GRISWELL. I would like to just agree 100 percent with what 

Bob Pianta just said because—and be clear that I was certainly 

strongly in favor of seeing more teachers with Bachelor’s degrees 

in Head Start. But what I am more concerned with is having teachers in Head Start and other early childhood programs who know 

exactly what they are supposed to do and do it. 

And to the extent that we have dollars that are difficult to decide 

priorities on, we need to focus on making sure they know how to 

be good teachers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, this has been stimulating. I can’t tell you 

how much I appreciate it. 

I really wanted this panel. 

[Laughter.] 

I really am determined to do something in this ESEA on early 

childhood education, and we are talking about that here. I think 

what you have done here today in your testimony and your written 

testimony has added a lot to, again, giving us the wisdom you have 

gained through your work in this area. 

I would just ask each of you if you would—we will keep the 

record open for 10 days if somebody has any questions. But beyond 

that, I just hope that you will also continue to be available to us 

and to our staff for any kind of questions, suggestions, or advice. 

As we move ahead in this, I would certainly appreciate that. 

And if there is anyone else in the audience who has any ideas 

on this, we are open for that. We have a specific e-mail address. 

It is called eseacomments@help.senate.gov. 

So eseacomments@help.senate.gov, and we invite you to submit 

suggestions. 

Well, again, thank you all very much, and the committee will 

stand adjourned. 

[Additional material follows.] 
75 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD (RICK) STEPHENS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION, THE BOEING COMPANY

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, members of the committee, thank you 

for the opportunity to provide this statement to the record in support of the reauthorization of the Early and Secondary Education Act that you are currently considering. 

I know you have already heard from a number of others on this matter, but it 

is important to me both personally and as a representative of Boeing, one of the 

Nation’s largest exporters and employer of many thousands of technologically gifted 

Americans, that our Nation take all necessary steps to maintain the technological 

lead that we have enjoyed for many years. Reauthorizing this legislation is an important step in that direction. 

Before I explain why—at least from our perspective—let me take a moment to 

talk about Boeing’s long-standing commitment to improving education. The Boeing 

Company was founded in 1916 and made its first education-related investment outside the company in 1917—to the University of Washington’s engineering department. 

In the years since, we have expanded our investments into K–12 programs. Back 

in 2000, the company reviewed the results of its K–12 investments and discovered 

that we weren’t seeing the results we wanted. It wasn’t that the kids weren’t intelligent, and it wasn’t that the teachers weren’t trying. Unfortunately, we discovered 

that children were showing up at kindergarten up to 3 years behind their peers who 

had access to quality early learning experiences. 

So in 2001, Boeing launched a number of investments in early learning—primarily from birth to 5 years old. We focused on social, emotional and cognitive readiness, and we reached out both to parents—the child’s first and most important 

teachers—and to formal caregivers like childcare workers, as well as informal caregivers like families, friends and neighbors to provide them with tools and strategies 

to aid children’s educational readiness. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, the lack of readiness is a big deal. You have reviewed the same research we have—all of which indicates that kids who start kindergarten behind their peers tend to stay behind them, and that nearly all schools 

lack the considerable resources required to catch those kids up with their peers. It 

isn’t impossible for them to catch up, but it requires a substantial investment to 

compensate for not capitalizing on the profound learning that occurs early in life. 

Authorities across the country recognize the importance of investing in early 

childhood development. The Federal Reserve Bank in Minnesota, for instance, found 

that early learning is one of the best economic development engines out there—providing up to a 17 percent return on every dollar invested. They note that quality 

early learning experiences result in lower remediation, reduced incarceration, more 

stable employment, lower teen pregnancies, higher educational attainment, higher 

salaries and the higher income tax revenues they bring, and other benefits. 

Nobel Laureate James Heckman also studied the rates of return on investments 

made at various points in the education system. His conclusion was similar to the 

Federal Reserve’s—that the highest investment returns are on funds invested in the 

early years of education. 

There is, of course, a clear and compelling business case for Boeing’s efforts on 

this front. We need to help develop and prepare the future technological workforce 

that will help Boeing, our industry and our Nation remain competitive in our increasingly global economy. To do that, we need students who are excited about and 

engaged in learning, and that attitude has to be formed early. 

It won’t surprise you, Mr. Chairman, to hear that companies like Boeing are having trouble filling all the positions we have that require people with skills and experience in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

We view the deficit as a skills shortage, not a people shortage. Simply put, there 

aren’t enough people graduating with the right skills to meet the needs of our economy. 

While the numbers of U.S. graduates in engineering and the sciences are flat or 

declining, emerging nations like China and India are intentionally funneling many 

of their best and brightest into those areas—by some accounts doubling their output 

of technologically advanced graduates in recent years. 

We in the United States need the same commitment to our children, but it is 

often too late to reach them in junior high or high school, because apathy towards 

education or poor study habits are already deeply ingrained in students by then. 
76 

Students who start in the system behind their peers remain behind and that contributes to their apathy. 

From our perspective, reaching children at the earliest stages helps not only Boeing, but all our Nation’s industries, because getting kids fully engaged in education 

allows them to dream big dreams and achieve them, but it also allows our Nation 

to benefit from the amazing innovations that those dreams fuel. It would be a 

shame to lose, for instance, the one idea that would revolutionize air travel just because we didn’t catch the kid who had that idea early enough to keep her engaged 

in the sciences long enough to pursue it. 

We’re not just asking the Federal Government to assume full responsibility for 

this effort. Companies like Boeing are part of the solution too. Here are some of the 

things we’re doing to support early childhood education as part of our broad approach: 

1. We challenge parents of young children to take an active role in creating an 

environment that nurtures creativity and learning, because we know that parents 

are the key to helping children reach their full potential. And we provide parents 

and caregivers with resources to strengthen their roles as children’s first teachers. 

2. We work to ensure that U.S. colleges and universities produce enough qualified 

teachers. When teachers at any level are neither proficient nor inspiring, too many 

of our young people miss foundational instruction, fall hopelessly behind and lose 

interest in school. The price our Nation pays in that scenario is a steep one. 

3. We believe that improving education isn’t just about fixing schools. It’s not that 

some schools don’t need work—they do—but we must take a broader look at solutions. We must establish a symbiotic relationship between educators, students, business and industry, and the media. 

One way we’re doing that is by bringing together what I call a coalition of coalitions—a diverse group of organizations from the public, private and non-profit sectors, all of whom are either specifically focused on, or have a vested interest in, improving our educational system. The Business and Industry Science, Technology, 

Engineering and Math Education Coalition (BISEC), consisting of nearly 30 business and industry associations representing 20 million employees, has three main 

goals: 

a. Identifying activities that work to improve student outcomes and understanding how to scale those efforts that make a difference. 

b. Aligning and leveraging information and resources so others can learn about 

successful efforts and deploy them more broadly. 

c. Partnering with main stream media to change the predominant negative view 

parents and students have about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

BISEC’s effort is focused specifically on science, technology, engineering and 

mathematics, but the model it represents is an entirely appropriate one for improving early childhood education too. This approach is a natural extension of the aerospace industry’s systems engineering expertise—the ability to view large, complex 

systems as integrated wholes—to bring people together, particularly those who fund 

complimentary efforts, to enhance public/private partnerships and expand the reach 

of the most effective programs. 

Boeing has a long and strong commitment to improving education. It’s one of the 

reasons we feel it is so important for us as a company to weigh in on early childhood 

education matters like this. 

This effort is critical to our Nation’s future, and it requires the best ideas from 

the public and private sectors. It requires us to cooperate with and support each 

other. In short, it requires the best of each of us. Our children and our Nation deserve nothing less than that. 

As you noted in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, ‘‘ESEA reauthorization 

offers an important opportunity to help States and school districts ensure that more 

young children are prepared to succeed in school.’’ We at Boeing strongly agree with 

that statement, and we strongly support your committee’s efforts to reauthorize this 

important legislation. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to express that support. 

[Whereupon, at 4:17 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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