    [Senate Hearing 111-1133]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                           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/

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              COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                           TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman

    CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut           MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
    BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland              JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
    JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico                  LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
    PATTY MURRAY, Washington                   RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
    JACK REED, Rhode Island                    JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
    BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont               JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
    SHERROD BROWN, Ohio                        ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
    ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania         LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
    KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina               TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
    JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                       PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
    AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
    MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado

                          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)

                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.
        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 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
    high-quality 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 testament 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 high-quality 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.
        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 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:]
                    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-the-art 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
    continuum 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 full-time, 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 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-the-art 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, 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. 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 pre-kindergarten 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.
        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.
        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 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.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \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.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        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.
                      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.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            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 Child-Parent 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.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    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.
        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, State-funded 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 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 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, Pre-K, 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 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 pre-school 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 pre-school 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 long-term. 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 pre-schools 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 outcomes 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 pre-
    kindergarten 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 2\1/2\ 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: 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-year-olds, 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, 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 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-year-olds 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 pre-K; 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,
    gap-closing 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.
        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.
        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 re-align
    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 ``high-
    priority'' 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 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 long-term
    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 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 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
    long-term 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.
        [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.
         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 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.

         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.

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        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, self-social 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 centers 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.

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        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 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 Ready\2\ Initiative, to wrap a network of engaged parents,
    community leaders, and community resources around each participating
    school.

         Over 60 people are participating in the Ready\2\
    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 school-based 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 Pre-K-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.
           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

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                                   Appendix B

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                                   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
    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 non-educational experts
    for staff training and quality assurance. Leadership uses data and
    research on effective practices for decisionmaking.

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        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.
        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 pre-school 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 accomplish 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
    appropriately 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 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?
        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.
        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.
        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.
        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----
        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?
        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 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.
        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
    high-quality 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
    inner-city 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.
        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 is doing well? I just have to tell everybody, if
    you put 24 4-year-olds 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 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 dollars 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 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.
        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. 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.
        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 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 Bernie 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
    penny-wise, 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 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 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.
        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.
        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. 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 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 school-based.
        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-year-olds 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.
        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.
        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 kindergarten, 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 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.]

                              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. 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.]