    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [April 17, 1997]
    [Pages 445-448]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Opening of the White House Conference on Early Childhood
    Development and Learning
    April 17, 1997

        Thank you very much, and welcome to the White House. I was relieved
    to hear Hillary say that the brain is the last organ to fully develop.
    It may yet not be too late for me to learn how to walk down steps.
    [Laughter] Or maybe I was thinking it was because I was always hugged
    when I fell down as a child, I did this subconsciously on purpose.
    [Laughter]
        Let me begin by thanking the members of the Cabinet who are here. I
    see Secretary Riley and Secretary Glickman. I thank Governor Romer and
    Governor Chiles for being here. I think Governor Miller is coming. There
    are many others who are here. Congresswoman DeLauro is either here or
    coming. Thank you, Governor Miller. I see I was looking to the left
    there. [Laughter] He's from Nevada--he just went up five points in the
    polls when I said that. [Laughter]
        Let me say, first of all, the first time I met Hillary, she was not
    only a law student, she was working with the Yale Child Study Center,
    and she began my education in these issues. And for that, I am
    profoundly grateful. And I thank her for bringing the scientists, the
    doctors, the sociologists, the others whose work is the basis for our
    discussion today here. And I, too, want to thank the thousands of others
    who are joining us by satellite.
        This unique conference is a part of our constant effort to give our
    children the opportunity to make the most of their God-given potential
    and to help their parents lead the way and to remind everyone in America
    that this must always be part of the public's business because we all
    have a common interest in our children's future.
        We have begun the job here over the last 4 years by making education
    our top domestic priority, by passing the family leave act and now
    trying to expand it and enact a form of flextime which will give parents
    more options in how they take their overtime, in pay or in time with
    their children, by the work we have done to expand the Family and
    Medical Leave Act, and by the work we've tried to do to give parents
    more tools with the V-chip and the television rating system and the work
    we are still carrying on to try to stop the advertising and marketing
    and distribution of tobacco to our children and other work we've done in
    juvenile justice and trying to keep our kids away from the dangers of
    alcohol and drugs.
        All these are designed to help our parents succeed in doing their
    most important job. Now, it seems to me maybe the most important thing
    we can actually do is to share with every parent in America the
    absolutely stunning things we are learning from new scientific research
    about how very young children learn and develop. In that regard, I'd
    like to thank Rob Reiner and others who are committed to distributing
    this information, and I'd like to thank the media here in our Nation's
    Capital and throughout the country for the genuine interest that they
    have shown in this conference.
        I think there is an instinctive understanding here that this is a
    very, very big issue that embraces all of us as Americans and that if we
    learn our lessons well and if we're patient in carrying them out, as
    Hillary said, knowing that there is no perfect way to raise a child, we
    are likely to have a very positive and profound impact on future
    generations in this country. So I want to thank, again, all of you for
    that.
        Let me say there are some public programs that bear directly on
    early childhood development: the Head Start program, which we've
    expanded by 43 percent over the last 4 years; the WIC program, which
    we've expanded by nearly 2 million participants. I have to say that I
    was a little disappointed--or a lot disappointed--to see a congressional
    committee yesterday vote to underfund the WIC program. I hope that if
    nothing else happens out of this conference, the results of the
    conference will reach the members of that congressional committee and we
    can reverse that before the budget finally comes to my desk.
        I would also like to remind all of you that this conference is
    literally just a start. We have to look at the practical implications of
    this research for parents, for caregivers, for policymakers, but we also
    know that we're looking at years and years of work in order to make the
    findings of this conference real and positive

    [[Page 446]]

    in the lives of all of our children. But this is a very exciting and
    enormous undertaking.
        This research has opened a new frontier. Great exploration is, of
    course, not new to this country. We have gone across the land, we have
    gone across the globe, we have gone into the skies, and now we are going
    deep into ourselves and into our children. In some ways, this may be the
    most exciting and important exploration of all.
        I'm proud of the role that federally funded research has played in
    these findings, in discovering that the earliest years of life are
    critical for developing intellectual, emotional, and social potential.
    We all know that every child needs proper nutrition and access to health
    care, a safe home, and an environment, and we know every child needs
    teaching and touching, reading and playing, singing and talking.
        It is true that Chelsea is about to go off to college, but Hillary
    and I have been blessed by having two young nephews now--one is about 2,
    and one is about 3--and we're learning things all over again that, I
    must say, corroborate what the scientists are telling us.
        We are going to continue to work on this, and I know that you will
    help us, too. Let me just mention two or three things that we want to
    work on that we think are important. We've got to do a lot more to
    improve the quality, the availability, and the affordability of child
    care. Many experts consider our military's child care system to be the
    best in our country. I'm very proud of that, and not surprised.
        The man responsible for administering the Navy's child care system,
    Rear Admiral Larry Marsh, is here with us today. He leads a system that
    has high standards, including a high percentage of accredited centers; a
    strong enforcement system with unannounced inspections; parents have a
    toll-free number to call and report whatever concerns they may have;
    training is mandatory; and wages and benefits are good, so, staff tends
    to stay on.
        I am proud that the military places such importance on helping the
    families of the men and women who serve our country in uniform. But it's
    really rather elementary to know that they're going to do a lot better
    on the ships, in the skies, in faraway lands if they're not worried
    about how their children are faring while they're at work serving
    America.
        To extend that kind of quality beyond the military, I am issuing
    today an executive memorandum asking the Department of Defense to share
    its success. I want the military to partner with civilian child care
    centers to help them improve quality, to help them become accredited, to
    provide training to civilian child care providers, to share information
    on how to operate successfully, and to work with State and local
    governments to give on-the-job training and child care to people moving
    from welfare to work.
        I think this is especially important. Let me say, in the welfare
    reform bill, we put another $4 billion in for child care. In addition to
    that, because the States are getting money for welfare reform based on
    the peak caseload in welfare in 1994 and we've reduced the welfare rolls
    by 2.8 million since then, most States, for a period of time until an
    extra session comes along, will have some extra funds that they can put
    into more child care. This gives States the opportunity they have never
    had before to train more child care workers, to use funds to help even
    more people move from welfare to work, and perhaps even to provide more
    discounts to low-income workers to make child care affordable for them.
        This welfare reform effort, if focused on child care, can train lots
    of people on welfare to be accredited child care workers and expand the
    availability of welfare in most of the States of the country. It's not
    true for every State, because some of them have had smaller drops in the
    caseload and three have had no drops. But by and large, the welfare
    reform bill, because of the way it's structured, gives all of you who
    care about child care about a year or two to make strenuous efforts,
    State by State, to create a more comprehensive quality system of child
    care than we have ever had before. And I certainly hope that what we can
    do here, plus the support of the military--we'll see dramatic advances
    in that regard.
        I'd like to thank the people here who have done that work. And I'd
    like to say that we are going to hold a second conference, this one
    devoted exclusively to the child care issue, here at the White House in
    Washington this fall. And I hope all of you who care about that will
    come back.
        The second thing we want to do is to extend health care coverage to
    uncovered children. The budget I have submitted will extend coverage to
    as many as 5 million children by the year 2000 with the children's
    health initiative in the

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    budget proposal, to strengthen Medicaid for poor children and children
    with disabilities, to provide coverage for working families through
    innovative State programs, to continue health care coverage for children
    of workers who are between jobs. There is an enormous amount of interest
    in this issue in both parties, I'm happy to say, in the Congress in this
    session. And I am quite confident that if we'll all work together, we
    can get an impressive expansion in health care coverage for children in
    this congressional session.
        I'm pleased that Dr. Jordan Cohen, the president and CEO of the
    Association of American Medical Colleges, is with us today to lend his
    association's strong support to these efforts. With the support of
    leaders in medicine, again I say, I am convinced we'll have a bipartisan
    consensus that will extend coverage to millions more uninsured children.
        The third thing we want to do is this: Because we know the great
    importance of early education, we're going to expand Early Head Start
    enrollment by at least one-third next year. Early Head Start was created
    in 1994. It's been a great success in bringing the nutritional,
    educational, and other services of Head Start to children aged 3 and
    younger and to pregnant women. It has been a real success, and we need
    to expand it.
        Today we are requesting new applications for Early Head Start
    programs to accomplish the expansion. And to help parents to teach the
    very young, we developed a toolkit called, ``Ready, Set, Read,'' part of
    our America Reads challenge, designed to make sure that every child can
    read independently by the third grade. This kit gives tips on activities
    for young children. It's going out to early childhood programs all
    across the country along with a hotline number for anyone else who wants
    the kit.
        The fourth thing we're going to do is to protect the safety of our
    children more. In particular, we have to help young children more who
    are exposed to abuse and violence.
        Let me tell you, as you might imagine, I get letters all the time
    from very young children. And my staff provides a significant number of
    them for me to read. The Secretary of Education not very long ago gave
    me a set of letters from children who were quite young--a couple of
    years ago gave me a set of letters from children who were in the third
    grade. But sometimes I get them from kindergarten children and first
    grade children, talking about what they want America to look like. And
    it is appalling the number of letters I get from 5- and 6-year-olds who
    simply want me to make their lives safe, who don't want to worry about
    being shot, who don't want any more violence in their homes, who want
    their schools and the streets they walk on to be free of terror.
        So today the Department of Justice is establishing a new initiative
    called Safe Start, based on efforts in New Haven, Connecticut, which you
    will hear about this afternoon. The program will train police officers,
    prosecutors, probation, and parole officers in child development so that
    they'll actually be equipped to handle situations involving young
    children. And I believe if we can put this initiative into effect all
    across America, it will make our children safer. And I'm glad we're
    announcing it today during Victims of Crime Week.
        We all know that it's going to take a partnership across America to
    help our children reach their full potential. But the toughest job will
    always belong to our parents, first teachers, main nurturers. Being a
    parent is a joy and a challenge. But it's not a job you can walk away
    from, take a vacation from, or even apply for family leave from.
    [Laughter] The world moves too fast, and today, parents have more
    worries than ever. Work does compete with family demands, and finding a
    balance is more difficult than before. That's why this must always be
    part of the public's business.
        Let me come now to the bottom line. The more we focus on early
    years, the more important they become. We know that these investments of
    time and money will yield us the highest return in healthier children,
    stronger families, and better communities.
        Now, let me say, finally, I know that none of us who are in
    politics, none of us who are just parents, will ever know as much as the
    experts we're about to hear from today. But what they're going to tell
    us is the most encouraging thing of all, which is, they have found out
    that we can all do the job. No matter how young, a child does understand
    a gentle touch or a smile or a loving voice. Babies understand more than
    we have understood about them. Now we can begin to close the gap and to
    make sure that all children in this country do have that chance to live
    up to the fullest of their God-given potential.

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        Again, I thank you all for being here. I thank our experts. I thank
    the First Lady. And I'd like to ask Dr. David Hamburg to come up and sit
    there and take over the program.
        David.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:45 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado; Gov.
    Lawton Chiles of Florida; Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada; Rob Reiner,
    founder, I Am Your Child campaign; Rear Adm. Larry R. Marsh, Assistant
    Chief of Naval Personnel for Personnel Readiness and Community Support;
    and David A. Hamburg, president, Carnegie Corporation of New York.