In Washington and statehouses across the country, preschool is moving to the head of the class...Thirty-eight states now help localities finance pre-K. They plan to spend $4.2 billion in the year ending Sept. 30, 2007, up 75% from two years ago, according to Pre-K Now...

None of the schools offered pre-kindergarten last year..."We are encouraging parents to take advantage of this free opportunity to have your children prepared early for school by enrolling them in pre-kindergarten," said Tanzi West, a spokeswoman for Prince George’s County Public Schools.

We should reduce class sizes in early grades. This is a big-ticket item; a class reduction targeted at predominantly African-American and low-income schools could cost $250 million in Illinois. But research shows lower class sizes with qualified teachers at the helm can result in increased high school graduation rates, fewer discipline problems, greater college attendance and higher earnings later in life.

For many children in Buncombe County, the first day of kindergarten is also their first experience in a classroom. For children who have never been through a pre-kindergarten program, that first day can be even scarier. Although there are noticeable benefits that come with early childhood education, educators say there are several things parents can do to ease their children’s fears and make sure they are not behind their peers...

Registering her son for pre-kindergarten recently, Rocio Barrientos had to fill out a form and face an identity question. Was her 4-year-old Hispanic?...She ended up checking several boxes on the school form, and wishing that no one had bothered to ask.

"Success by Six" is a child development effort promoting getting youngsters off early to a right start. The program combines professional expertise with the common concern of parents to target the well-being of kids...That fact should be welcome news to parents and public alike.

Today and Friday, teachers...can shop at the Atlanta Community Food Bank's Kids in Need store for $100 of free school supplies. Metro area teachers qualify to receive free supplies if their student body has 80 percent or more students enrolled in the federal free and reduced lunch program or if their school's combined SAT scores are under 900...That includes pre-kindergarten programs.

The Readiness Project’s strategic implementation plan will focus on key elements of the vision that the Governor outlined in June. The broad implementation of many of the initiatives will not only serve to bolster Massachusetts’ global competitiveness, it will also strengthen the social fabric of the Commonwealth by reducing costs associated with the lack of a comprehensive education.

Advocates for universal preschool base their claims for a "business case" on three long-term longitudinal studies. But each of those studies involved only highly at-risk students who were massively economically disadvantaged and at risk for retarded intellectual functioning...To extrapolate those students and those services to the general population...is disingenuous at best.

The City of Pasco has a new place where parents and their children can go to access all sorts of information on education and health...The center offers free online access to a bilingual website containing resources and other information. There's also a kiosk inside, as well as counselors to help parents and their kids with early childhood education. U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell helped secure funding for the Parent Information Resource Center.

...[O]ne topic that generates a lot of interest, is Governor Tim Kaine’s proposal for pre-kindergarten education. The GOP majority in Richmond, for the most part, isn’t supportive of this initiative. However, there are Republicans who support it.

Young urban adults who participated in a special program as preschoolers are more likely to stay in school, and stay out of jail, a new study shows. "The results are striking," James Forman Jr. of Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC, writes in an editorial accompanying the study, which is published in this month's issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. "They are consistent with other research on the long-term impact of quality early childhood education, and they deserve wide attention."

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