The Obama administration talks a lot about the importance of early learning, but its commitment hasn’t always been visible in legislative achievements over the last year.

That commitment, however, is clear in the compromise funding plan for the rest of fiscal 2011, according to new details.

The compromise plan contains a $340 million increase for Head Start and Early Head Start over last year’s funding level, bringing its fiscal `11 budget to $7.6 billion, according to a summary from the Senate Appropriations Committee. Head Start supporters beat back a plan by House Republicans to cut roughly $1 billion in spending from the largest federal early learning program.

The increase is enough to preserve services for all children currently enrolled in the programs, First Five Years Fund reports.

This increase is even more dramatic given that the overall plan cuts more than $38 billion in federal spending, Politics K-12 reports. (Check out the Education Week blog’s latest story, “Spending Bill Slashes Tech., Literacy, but Has Bright Spots” for overall highlights of the spending plan.)

There is also money for a new early childhood initiative in the second round of the Education Department’s Race to the Top – the compromise contains $700 million for this competition designed to spur innovation in education policy. This initiative looks a lot like the Obama administration’s Early Learning Challenge Fund, but we’re still trying to confirm that.

If it is the Early Learning Challenge Fund, it would represent a major early education accomplishment for President Barack Obama.

(Thanks to Politics K-12 for initially highlighting this development.)