It has been an interesting four years for early learning in Washington state, as it's moved toward the front of the debate over how and why we should improve the first years of care and education through pioneering work and a lot of new investment.

Since the 2006 Summit on Early Learning and Gov. Christine Gregoire’s decision to not only elevate early learning to a cabinet-level spot but also create a public-private partnership to assist in the work, groups have launched comprehensive efforts in White Center and Yakima to improve early learning, and preserved funding during an historic economic downturn.

Then last month, Thrive by Five Washington, the state Department of Early Learning and the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction signed a joint agreement to develop a birth-to-8 early learning system.

I was struck by the region’s progress while reading through the presentation by the Foundation for Child Development’s Ruby Takanishi from last month’s Starting Strong Conference, where she pointed out that Washington was one of only nine states with a PreK-3rd statewide initiative.

"Washington state has come out of nowhere in the past two years to this leading edge position,” Takanishi wrote to me in an e-mail. “Washington is the lead state in the entire country on PreK-3rd. It is the only state that has gubernatorial leadership (Bette Hyde as director of Early Learning); state department of education leadership (the superintendent of public instruction and Mary Seaton); major city/Seattle leadership from the Mayor, superintendent, community programs and The New School Foundation; and strong nonprofits (Thrive by Five Washington, Foundation for Early Learning) committed to working together. The investments of the world’s largest foundation in education reform – the Gates Foundation – working with school districts as laboratories – is valuable as other foundations look to Gates for leadership. I know of no other state with this alignment of the stakeholders.”

Takanishi, though, suggests we and the nation have a long way to go. Among her suggestions at the conference:

• Begin public responsibility for full-school-day education at age three:
  • Voluntary, full-day PreK for three-year-olds
  • Voluntary, full-day PreK for four-year-olds
  • Mandatory, full-school-day Kindergarten
• Alignment of common standards, curriculum and assessment from PreK-16

Check out her entire PowerPoint.

Federal Alert: Tomorrow, the U.S. House of Representatives is slated to vote on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which contains The Early Learning Challenge Fund – $8 billion over eight years for early learning. The debate could get interesting.