The early learning world is full of news today and perhaps the biggest development is a move by a key Senate subcommittee to add $300 million for President Barack Obama’s Early Learning Challenge Fund in the coming fiscal year, CLASP reports.

The decision to fund one of Obama’s signature early childhood education initiatives is a big step forward after a proposal to give the fund billions of dollars was dropped in the final days of negotiations over health care reform.

It also builds on comments made by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that added the funding to its annual spending bill.

"We've got to find a way to get it in this budget cycle," Sen. Harkin said during an exchange with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a hearing in April. "We hope we can count on you" to help to find a way to include it, Harkin added.  (Duncan essentially agreed.)  (The excellent Early Ed Watch blog reported these comments.)

It is great Harkin is trying to bring the Early Learning Challenge Fund back, but it’s also important to remember the proposal has a long way to go. Right now the money is in the annual funding bill for labor, health and human services programs, which is moving through the subcommittee, CLASP says. The bill has to get through various markups, the full Senate and then an effort by House and Senate negotiators to hammer out a compromise.

But, it is a start. 

Research: Excellent Kindergarten Worth a lot Later in Life: Supporters of the Early Learning Challenge Fund received a big boost today from David Leonhardt’s story in today’s New York Times, “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.”

The story explores a new study out of Harvard University that found children who spent an academic year in a high-quality kindergarten classroom were more likely to attend college and earn more as adults. 

Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more. – “The Case for the $320,000 Kindergarten Teacher” NYT, 7/28/10.

It is also a huge development in the fade-out argument, which holds benefits of quality early learning may boost test scores in early grades but often fade by third and fourth grade, because it suggests benefits are there, we are simply testing for the wrong things. We should look at what these children achieve as adults.

The economists don’t pretend to know the exact causes. But it’s not hard to come up with plausible guesses. Good early education can impart skills that last a lifetime — patience, discipline, manners, perseverance. The tests that 5-year-olds take may pick up these skills, even if later multiple-choice tests do not. “The Case for the $320,000 Kindergarten Teacher.”

For an informative view of the research and article check out Ellen Galinsky’s story on The Huffington Post, “It's Not Just the Teacher — It's What the Teacher Teaches, Including Life Skills!”

The National Education Association joined the ranks of educators pushing to add early learning to the debate over reforming the No Child Left Behind Act and called for mandatory all-day kindergarten and universal access to pre-kindergarten.

The 3.2-million strong teachers union outlined the economic benefits of quality early learning – children who attended quality preschool earned $2,000 more a month as adults according to one study – and endorsed professional development for child care educators, in a letter and materials sent to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The committee held a hearing today on early childhood in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or No Child Left Behind.

“NEA is concerned about the growing number of children who enter kindergarten already behind their peers socially and academically. Evidence suggests this “school readiness” gap begins before children enter school and places children at risk of failure in school. – Early Childhood Education and School Readiness, NEA Policy Brief. “Yet, even though early childhood education programs promise sure-fire returns, the country is not making this investment.”

The brief also brought up an encouraging finding from quality early learning champion and outgoing director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Art Rolnick.

“…A good preschool can offer a 12 percent annual return, after inflation. That’s better than the stock market, he notes, and any other social program.”

We were busy yesterday covering the opening of the University of Washington’s new MEG Brain Imaging Center, which promises to unlock the mysteries of how babies learn.

But, there were other interesting developments:

• England medical authorities took away the medical license of Andrew Wakefield, a leading voice behind the movement that believes the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism, Associated Press via MSNBC.com.  Wakefield then tells the Today Show “I’m not going away” and will continue his research.
• It was a vaccine-heavy day, as a study covered by Pediatrics this week reported “a comparison of children vaccinated on time with children whose vaccinations were delayed or incomplete found no benefit in delaying immunizations during the first year of life…” Check out the Reuters story on MSNBC.com.
• The Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP has a new Issue Brief on Pre-K to 3 “that outlines the basics of the Pre-K to 3rd Grade concept.”

Washington State News

• Early learning meetings wrap up Thursday – 9/23/09, Walla Walla Union Bulletin
• U.S. Senate OKs Funding for Two Bremerton Projects – 9/21/09, The Kitsap Sun

National News

• Early Childhood Investment and the Private Sector – 9/9/09, BusinessWeek
• Fixing Our Broken Economy – 9/24/09, Telluride Watch (CO)
• Editorial: Doing more than talk about putting kids first – 9/20/09, The Oklahoman (OK)
  
• Fighting for an Early Edge – 9/19/09, The Times-Picayune (LA)
• Don't quit on kids to balance state budget – 9/22/09, The Detroit News (MI)
• Initiative Focuses on Early Learning Programs – 9/19/09, The New York Times
• Atlanta poised to lead early learning – 9/18/09, The Atlanta Journal Constitution (GA)
• State preschool expansion boosts grade – 9/21/09, The Oregonian

Policy

• New Analysis Points to Size of Early Literacy Gap – 9/21/09, The New American Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog

The House of Representatives voted to give early learning efforts a big boost Thursday by approving $8 billion over the next 8 years for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, Pre-K Now reports.

The money is part of the far broader Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which now moves to the Senate. President Barack Obama already supported the idea in his budget proposal earlier this year.

Further reading -

Check out Pre-K Now’s memo on the Early Learning Challenge Fund

Read more at The Early Ed Watch Blog: “House Clears the Way for Early Learning Challenge Fund.”

Congress is back in session and new home visitation funding is back on track after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus included $1.5 billion over five years for the work in his version of health care reform.

The Finance Committee is slated to take up Baucus’s plan – the chairman’s “mark” should serve as a starting point – this Tuesday. While less ambitious than President Barack Obama’s proposal to spend $8.6 billion over ten years on home visitation, Sen. Baucus’s plan is interesting.

Overall, the Senate bill would create a state grant program for early childhood home visitation.

As part of that plan, the bill would require states to rely on proven and research-based programs, but it also would leave room for experimentation. It would allow a grantee to spend 25 percent of their funds on a promising new program, which would be “rigorously evaluated.”

The bill would allocate three percent for research and evaluation, which sounds a little low for an area with a need for a lot of innovation and flexibility.

Groups that won funding “would be required to establish appropriate process and three and five year outcome benchmarks to measure improvement in maternal and child health, childhood injury prevention, school readiness, juvenile delinquency, family economic factors, and coordination with community resources.” – “Chairman’s Mark America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.”

It is too early to say what if any home visitation program and funding will become law this year. But with the Obama administration backing the idea and versions in the

House and Senate health care reform bills, it seems like fresh funding could make it to the president’s desk.

(Thanks to The Early Ed Watch Blog for finding this news.)

Further reading:

• “Chairman’s Mark America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.”
• Early Ed Watch Blog, “Home Visitation Program Appears in Latest Health Care Proposal.”

Congress is getting ready for its August recess, so it’s been a busy week for federal issues. Thanks to our friends at The Early Ed Watch Blog in D.C. for providing the highlights!

As of this posting, the House has yet to vote on the Early Learning Challenge Fund, which would provide $1 billion in funding for Early Learning Challenge Grants over each of the next eight years.

News

• Senate Committee Advances Appropriations Bill Funding Early Childhood Programs – 7.31.09, New America Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog
• Fate of Home Visitation Program Is Tied To Health Reform Bill – 7.29.09, New America Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog
• Ohio Slashes Early Childhood Budget and Eliminates Full-Day Pre-K – 7.23.09, New America Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog

Analysis 

• On the Move: New Research Explores How Mobility Impacts Achievement Among Younger Students – 7.28.09, New America Foundation: The Early Ed Watch Blog

Opinion

• Op-ed: Stimulus money shores up early-learning programs, provides opportunities – 7.26.09, The Seattle Times (Written by Chris Korsmo, executive director of The League of Education Voters, and Paola Maranan, executive director of the Children's Alliance.)

The recession threatens to take a bite out of Washington state’s efforts to bolster early learning, with legislators proposing cuts in a state-run preschool program for poorer families, child care referrals and support for family caregivers.

It is a tight spring in the state capitol as lawmakers struggle to close an almost $9 billion budget deficit.

To help close the gap, the Senate budget plan calls for cutting spending on the Early Childhood Education and Assistance program by 2.1 percent – eliminating 165 preschool spaces for children – while the House version trims payment rates for providers by the same percentage, according to an analysis by Seattle-based Children’s Alliance.

Both versions contain other early education losses, cutting $1.7 million from child care referral and support networks and halting Early Childhood Apprenticeships, according to the interest group.

Washington’s early learning dilemma mirrors debates occurring in state capitols around the country. Even as policymakers pay closer attention to child care issues, they have little or no money to spare thanks to multi-billion-dollar state budget shortfalls driven by plummeting tax revenues.

But, advocates argue that cutting services to poor families during this historic economic contraction sets logic on its head, since more families will fall into poverty as they lose their jobs.

“Tough times (are) not the time to cut services for children,” Jon Gould, deputy director of Children’s Alliance, said in an interview.

Yet, early learning initiatives are faring relatively well in this budget crunch compared to other services and programs, in part because Gov. Christine Gregoire has made the issue a top priority.

There is even good news tucked into one of the tightest budgets in awhile. Both plans contain support for the field test that’s already under way of the state’s system to improve the quality of both home-based and center-based licensed child care. Plus, the House includes money to keep work going on a kindergarten readiness program.

The federal government will take some sting out of any cuts by sending $22 million in Child Care Development Funds to the state as part of the newly-enacted economic stimulus package.

The budget is far from done, however. The size, shape and even types of cuts in early learning programs are not guaranteed. House and Senate legislators now need to reconcile their two versions and pass a final package, with a vote expected in the next few weeks. The last day of the 2009 legislative session is scheduled for April 26.