Early Childhood Education
First Lady Laura Bush, a former school
teacher, told members of the Senate in January that "the development
of early language and pre-reading skills is not only extraordinarily
critical to a child's reading ability and academic success throughout
school, as well as his or her occupational success throughout life.
The absence of this development has the potential to destroy self-esteem,
confidence, and motivation to learn."
On April 2, President Bush announced a new
initiative to improve early childhood education for millions of America’s
youngest children. The President’s initiative aims to:
- Strengthen Head Start to improve the
quality of experiences for young children, including training the
nearly 50,000 Head Start teachers in the latest and best techniques;
- Ensure that pre-school programs are more
closely coordinated with state K-12 education goals; and
- Improve the information available to
parents and caregivers about the best practices in early childhood
development, including an unprecedented $45 million research effort to
identify effective early literacy programs and practices.
