[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 154 (Friday, September 19, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   INTRODUCTION OF THE UNIVERSAL PREKINDERGARTEN AND EARLY CHILDHOOD 
                         EDUCATION ACT OF 2025

                                  _____
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 19, 2025

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Universal 
Prekindergarten and Early Childhood Education Act of 2025, which would 
establish and expand prekindergarten programs in public and public 
charter schools for three- and four-year-olds.
  This bill seeks a breakthrough in public education by providing 
funding for states to add prekindergarten for children at three and 
four years of age, like the kindergarten programs for five-year-olds 
now routinely available in public schools. This bill would take 
advantage of the safe facilities required in public schools.
  This bill would provide federal funds to states to establish or 
expand universal, voluntary prekindergarten in public and public 
charter schools for three- and four-year-olds, regardless of income. 
The classes, which would be full-day and run throughout the entire 
school year, would be taught by teachers who have equivalent or similar 
qualifications to those teaching other grades in the school. The funds 
would supplement, not supplant, other federal funds for early childhood 
education.
  The success of Head Start and other prekindergarten programs, 
combined with the scientific evidence on the importance of brain 
development in early childhood, virtually mandates the expansion of 
early childhood education to all children. Early learning programs have 
been available only to the affluent, who can afford them, and to some 
low-income families in programs such as Head Start, which would be 
unaffected by this bill. This bill is a practical way to create 
universal, public prekindergarten. The goal of this bill is to provide 
the benefits of early childhood education to those who have been left 
out of this essential education.
  We cannot afford to allow the most critical years of child 
development to pass unenriched. This bill responds both to the great 
needs of parents who seek early childhood education and neuroscience, 
which shows that a child's brain development begins much earlier than 
had been previously understood.
  Considering the staggering cost of day care, the inaccessibility of 
early childhood education and the opportunity that early education 
offers to improve a child's chances of success, schooling for three- 
and four-year-olds is overdue. The absence of viable options for 
working families demands our immediate attention.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

                          ____________________