[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 30, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S5701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DODD (for himself, Mr. Durbin, and Mr. Kerry):
  S. 3557. A bill to provide for Kindergarten Plus programs; to the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation to 
jump-start the chances for success of low-income children entering 
school. Today, I am introducing the Sandy Feldman Kindergarten Plus Act 
of 2010.
  The Kindergarten Plus Act will provide children below 185 percent of 
the poverty line with additional time in school during the summers 
before and after the traditional kindergarten school year to ensure 
more children enter school ready to succeed.
  Too many low-income children enter school unprepared because they 
have not had the same resources as their more affluent peers. As 
exhibited by the nation's achievement gap which is already well-
established prior to kindergarten, it becomes difficult for them to 
ever catch-up.
  We must do a better job of preparing less fortunate children for 
school. To do this, we should expose them to classroom practices, 
introduce them to critical educational concepts, and familiarize them 
with school activities such as story time or circle time. Ultimately, 
we need to provide them with a solid foundation that allows them to 
enter school with the skills necessary to become strong students.
  Only 39 percent of low-income children, compared to about 85 percent 
of high-income children, can recognize letters of the alphabet upon 
arrival in kindergarten. Moreover, low-income children often have a 
more limited vocabulary. By the time they are in first grade, children 
in low-income families have on average 5,000 words in their vocabulary. 
In contrast, children from more affluent families enter school with 
vocabularies of about 20,000 words. These startling discrepancies 
should tell us that more needs to be done to help all children enter 
school with an equal opportunity for success. This legislation strives 
to provide these opportunities and to lessen the achievement gap by 
giving low-income children more support and exposure to quality 
education.
  This legislation was named after Sandy Feldman who was a tireless 
advocate for children and public education. Her commitment to social 
justice and her focus on early childhood education led her to develop 
the concept for this legislation, and it was Sandy who spent countless 
hours developing the details to ensure this would be a high-quality 
initiative.
  This bill is supported by the American Federation of Teachers. I urge 
my colleagues to join this effort and cosponsor this legislation. I 
encourage them to help give low-income children a jump-start on school 
success. .
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