The message is "get involved" from local Women's Leadership Council and United Way representatives. The mission is to carry your advocacy message for preschool to elected officials during the annual Day on the Hill scheduled Feb. 16 in Nashville.

The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.

RALLY Jacksonville! works to ensure that "every child enters kindergarten ready to read, ready to learn and ready to succeed." We have demonstrated significant and continuous progress in improving the quality of education that is delivered in the early-learning sector.

[New Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Thornton]: I also believe in focusing on early childhood education and aggressively going after improving early childhood education programs. If you want to reform high school, you need to reform early childhood.

Looking to the needs of the next generation is a vital part of our moral and civic responsibility. Early education programs not only help foster good health and educational development, they also strengthen families.

Gov. Pat Quinn came to Alton on Friday to talk about high-speed rail, but a group of demonstrators had the issue of education funding on their minds. Several parents and children attended the news conference at Alton's Amtrak Station, carrying signs asking for the state to make its payments for early childhood education, which is at risk for elimination in the Alton School District.

"Businesses locate where the smart people are," said Chris Holman, the Michigan Economic Development Corp's small business advocate, at a news conference last week Monday on the benefits of early childhood education.

Advocacy can be a powerful tool for parents of preschoolers who want to influence and educate future lawmakers as well as the general public about the importance of investing in early childhood.

For the first time, Chicago public schools will formally measure just how ready little learners are for kindergarten, by piloting a new readiness measurement, according to a story in Catalyst.

Keep up with pre-k news around the nation!
Join Pre-K Now's email list | Subscribe to Pre-K Now's RSS feed

To ensure you receive your Pre-K Now emails, please add info@preknow.org to your address book now.

This message was sent to . Visit your subscription management page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop receiving Pre-K Newsclips, click to unsubscribe. To stop ALL email from Pre-K Now, click to remove yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove or unsubscribe" in the subject line).

Pre-K Now
901 E Street, NW
10th Floor
Washington, DC 20004
www.preknow.org

Pre-K Now, a campaign of the Pew Center on the States, collaborates with advocates and policymakers to lead a movement toward high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds.

Quote of the Day

"Students are better prepared academically and socially for kindergarten if they do have pre-k education."

Theresa Powell, pre-k coordinator in Clarksville, Tenn.

On the Inside Pre-K blog

"We Need to Invest in the Skills and Education of our People"
All in all, Obama's lead-in sentence connected education to the economy.
read more >>

Pre-K Now on Twitter

Get quick updates throughout the day and join the online conversation about pre-k.
Click here to follow us>>