What’s Keeping America From Doing What’s Right For Children
This post is republished from the Education Opportunity Network, a new online publication edited by Jeff Bryant.
After the horrendous murder of 20 school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a heartbroken President Obama implored the nation, “This is our first task – caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.”
“Surely we can do better,” he stated.
Just shy of two months later, Obama presented us with an opportunity to “do better” for children when he included in his State of the Union address a call to provide pre-K education to every three and four year old in America.
Just shy of two months later, Obama presented us with an opportunity to “do better” for children when he included in his State of the Union address a call to provide education to every three and four year old in America.
Days later, at an early learning center in Georgia, he followed his address with another call to “give kids a chance” while the White House released more details of the plan.
The details, as reported by the Associated Press, revealed that the plan doesn’t really cover “all” three and four year olds but instead starts with “any 4-year-old whose family income is 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level – a more generous threshold