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Early Education in Focus We're pleased to introduce the first issue of our new early education newsletter, Early Education in Focus. If you would like to continue receiving the periodic newsletter, please sign-up here. What's the Plan? President Obama included a plan for widely available high quality pre-K in his budget request, adding his ideas on expanding access and improving quality of pre-K to the existing proposals already in Congress. Our analysiscompares the pre-K portion of the President’s plan to Senator Casey and Representative Maloney’s Prepare All Kids Act (S.502/H.R.1368), Senator Hirono and Representative McCarthy’s Pre-K Act (S.519/H.R.1041), and Senator Murray’s Ready to Learn Act (S.322). This analysis reveals that there is more than one way to improve how our nation delivers pre-K, and shows the desire both in Congress and in the Administration to invest more in early learning.  Did You Know? For every $1 invested in high quality pre-K, there is a $7 return?  Share this fact on Twitter A Comparison of Pre-K Plans Search resources April 17, 2013 By Kevin Lindsey Download this Resource Pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) has received national attention since President Obama spoke about it in his State of the Union address, released a plan for a federal-state partnership to make high quality publicly funded pre-K available to all 4-year-olds, and made this new initiative a centerpiece of the Administration’s budget proposal released on April 10th. Members of Congress in both chambers have long understood the importance of making high quality pre-K available for every child. As in past years, these members have introduced legislation in the 113th Congress that would increase the availability and improve the quality of publicly funded pre-K. This fact sheet compares these bills with the President’s plan. 'State of Preschool Yearbook' On Tuesday, April 30th, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) released their annual State of Preschool Yearbook on the Hill. This annual report profiles state-funded pre-K initiatives, and this year reveals that overall funding this year decreased dramatically, the third year in row funding has fallen, resulting in stagnant enrollment growth and failure to improve quality. The Hill release included a panel discussion of pre-K with Steve Barnett, Director of NIEER; Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to President Obama for Education in the White House Domestic Policy Council; and Ron Haskins, a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution; moderated by Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus.; highlighting critical differences on children’s health, child nutrition, and other critical and timely issues for kids. President's FY2014 Budget Request On April 10, 2013, President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2014 budget request. Our fact sheet looks at early education in his budget proposal, highlighting a major new initiative that would provide a continuum of prenatal to age 5 care and education to ensure healthy development for young children. Early Education in the Cleveland Plain Dealer The Cleveland Plain Dealer published our letter to the editor on the importance of building a federal-state partnership to make pre-K affordable to every child and give our kids a better chance to compete in tomorrow's economy. Read the entire letter here. The Time Has Come for Preschool This post from the First Focus blog highlights the growing support for pre-K around the country from politicians, business leaders, and researchers. With research showing the positive effects of pre-K, new understanding of brain development in the early years, and the high return on investment from pre-K, politicians from the President to state leaders are signifying their support of larger investments in early learning. Expanding access and quality to early childhood learning experiences is clearly an idea whose time has come.