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Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that New York City would offer free, full-day preschool to all 3-year-olds within four years, saying that he was building on the success of the city’s prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds and that it was time to go further.

Hillary Clinton is going to propose “revenue enhancements,” which is a term that means tax hikes. Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon said on Twitter that the campaign will propose “revenue enhancements” to raise money for various government programs including universal preschool.

(CNSNews.com) - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says government funded universal preschool is a “social movement” and compared it to civil rights and gay marriage during a speech in Los Angeles last month. “At the end of the day for me this is really a social movement,” Duncan said when discussing federally subsidized preschool at the LA Universal Preschool (LAUP) forum on Oct. 21. “If you look at social movements, we all celebrate what happened in the 1960’s. The civil rights movement was extraordinarily powerful, life transforming, earth shattering. But the question I have is, why didn’t the civil rights...

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said he wanted to “make high-quality preschool available to every child in America” and “make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.” So Heritage experts took a look at the President’s plan to see if it would actually help America’s needy children get ahead in the “race of life.” Another government-controlled, top-down, one-size-fits-all program—what could go wrong? Look at the government’s record. As Heritage’s Lindsey Burke, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education, and research associate Rachel Sheffield point out in their new paper, “Washington already has...

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Proponents of President Obama’s universal prekindergarten proposal make a strong case for the potential benefits of such a plan. Studies of about 100 low-income kids enrolled in two pricey and intensive preschool projects in the 1960s and 1970s found the children, while not experiencing any permanen IQ improvement, developed life skills that meant they were more likely as adults to hold a job, own a home, and stay out of jail than counterparts in a control group. More recently studies of broader, statewide pre-K programs, particularly in Oklahoma provide some further evidence of effectiveness, though the results are certainly not...

This Morris County community [Rockaway Borough] of 6,000 residents and two schools has been among a growing number of suburban districts in New Jersey expanding into public preschool, seeing the benefits of starting early to teach children learning and social skills. Now, more programs may be on the horizon, under an ambitious — some say overly ambitious — plan approved by Gov. Jon S. Corzine and the State Legislature in last year’s new school funding formula. Modeled after court-required preschools in the state’s urban districts, the far-reaching law calls on virtually every district to start providing all-day programs for their...

[T]he $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers. “People are absolutely ecstatic,” said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.” ... Now that new initiatives seem likely, experts are debating how best to improve America’s early childhood system, which they call fantastically fragmented, unconscionably underfinanced and bureaucratically bewildering. Some...

Jim Lehrer asked a question about how the respective candidates would alter their agenda as President in the light of the huge financial obligation of the bailout. Obama waffled about various things but then said "I'd still like to expand early education". "Expand early eduction" ?? What does he actually mean by that, and why did single it out of all the items on his agenda? Tonight he sent a little signal to his master that he was still the obedient servant. Here's a clue. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge that he chaired in the mid 90's was a scheme to...

Barack Obama says he believes in universal preschool and if he's elected president he'll pump "billions of dollars into early childhood education." Universal preschool is now second only to universal health care on the liberal policy wish list.... ..."Advocates and supporters of universal preschool often use existing research for purely political purposes," says James Heckman, a University of Chicago Noble laureate in economics whose work Mr. Obama and preschool activists routinely cite. "But the solid evidence for the effectiveness of early interventions is limited to those conducted on disadvantaged populations."... ...If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children....

Psychologists have long believed that growing up in an institution like an orphanage stunts children’s mental development but have never had direct evidence to back it up. Now they do, from an extraordinary years-long experiment in Romania that compared the effects of foster care with those of institutional child-rearing. The study, being published on Friday in the journal Science, found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I.Q.’s by age 4, on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage. The difference was large — eight points — and the study found that the earlier children...

Gov. Deval Patrick envisions free education for every Massachusetts resident from age 3 through community college. To help him make that vision a reality, Patrick on Monday appointed an 18-member panel to draw up blueprints for the 10-year plan. "We need to change fundamentally the way we think about and most of all deliver public education in this commonwealth," the Democratic governor said. "Everything is on the table." The leadership team will work under former Boston Public Schools superintendent Thomas Payzant, EMC Corp. chairman and CEO Joseph Tucci and Wheelock College President Jackie Jenkins-Scott. That trio has until March to...

Does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remember what happened in the 2006 elections? She represents the people’s republic of San Francisco, but she must recall that the rest of California overwhelmingly rejected ex-actor/director Rob Reiner’s government-run universal preschool initiative last June. Yet, at her recent children’s summit, Pelosi ushered in a parade of notables advocating for more government preschool. In her remarks at the summit, Pelosi pushed for more government spending on early childhood initiatives, saying: “We know that these investments in our children today pay off many-fold in later years.” To back up this claim, keynote speaker James Heckman, a...

BOSTON --Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed a bill Friday that would have moved Massachusetts closer to universal pre-kindergarten, saying the program could end up costing taxpayers as much as $1 billion a year. The bill would have created a statewide pre-kindergarten program defined as "voluntary, universally accessible early education and care programs and services for preschool-aged children." Romney said the state should instead wait to see the results of a smaller $4.6 million pre-kindergarten test program before embarking on the more ambitious statewide initiative. "Before we create an expensive new burden on Massachusetts taxpayers, one that could lead to future tax...

Universal preschool sounds like a political winner but families lose out. Policymakers talk about "fiscal responsibility," but few put that principle into action. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney deserves applause for doing just that by vetoing a universal preschool bill last week. It's easy to see why many politicians view universal preschool as a political winner. Voters picture smiling four-year-olds heading off to begin a life-time of learning. Presumably, the extra year of school will give these children a leg up. While proponents boast that preschool has a dramatic affect on student outcomes, there is scant evidence to support this claim....

ROLLING MEADOWS, IL - Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation Tuesday that makes every 3- and 4-year-old in Illinois eligible for state-subsidized preschool. The catch: There's money for only about 10,000 of the neediest children, at least for now. Blagojevich activated the $45 million first phase of his "Preschool for All" program surrounded by childhood-development advocates and lawmakers who helped move the measure through the General Assembly. The measure's proponents say broadening access to preschool will pay dividends in the future. "It's those precious years between 3 and 5 when kids learn the most," Blagojevich said during a news conference at...

With a state budget finally settled, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine started to lay the groundwork Wednesday for what will be his next major legislative battle: expanding pre school education. Kaine told the Start Strong Council that he wants the group of legislators, business leaders, educators and early childhood advocates to come up with proposals for Virginia's universal pre school model by mid-October so he can include some of the ideas in the mid term budget. Most of the more costly proposals will be included in the 2008 biennium budget, though, Kaine said. "We have to do it," Kaine said. "I...

Universal preschool advocates vow to continue effortsBy Dana Hull Mercury News Advocates of universal preschool vowed today to continue their fight despite the crushing defeat of Proposition 82 in Tuesday's election. According to the final tally of ballots cast, 60.9 percent of voters statewide opposed Prop. 82 while just 39.1 percent supported it. The initiative, which needed a simple majority to pass, narrowly prevailed in just three of California's 58 counties: Alameda, Imperial, and San Francisco. In conservative Orange County, 73 percent of voters came out against it. ``It was a tough environment for initiatives,'' said Prop. 82 spokesman Nathan...

Welcome to the live thread for the California Primary Election. Polls are open until 8pm tonight. If you are a registered voter, it is your duty to vote and defend your rights and civil liberties, protect your pocketbook, and vote the bums out where applicable. Feel free to discuss issues key to your local area that others may be interested in. Post your polling place experiences if you like. And post numbers as they come in later tonight.

Preschool measure tumbles in poll By Dana Hull Mercury News Support for Proposition 82, California's Preschool for All Act, has plummeted, according to a Field Poll released Friday, and political analysts say the measure appears extremely vulnerable in the final days of the fiercely fought campaign. Forty-six percent of likely voters plan to vote against the initiative, while 41 percent favor it, found the poll, which was taken May 23-31. That's a significant plunge from polls conducted in February and April, when supporters held double-digit leads over opponents. With momentum building behind a ``No'' campaign fueled by concerns about the...