· At an early childhood event in Rochester, New Hampshire today, Hillary Clinton called for universal preschool for all of America’s children.
o She announced that we should build on the bipartisan work taking place in states and communities across America to expand access to preschool by initiating new federal support for their efforts.
o Her proposal would work to ensure that every 4-year old in America has access to high-quality preschool in the next 10 years. It would do so by providing new federal funding for states that expand access to quality preschool for all four-year olds.
o This effort would build upon President Obama’s Preschool for All proposal.
· Hillary Clinton believes that expanding access to high-quality preschool for children would help strengthen families and communities, while giving children a hand up towards higher achievement in their education and better prospects for lifelong economic opportunity.
o Clinton has said during the campaign that early development is critical for children. New research shows how much early learning in the first five years of life can impact life-long success.
o Despite research showing its benefits, only about half of the roughly 8.1 million 3- and 4-year olds in the U.S. are enrolled in pre-K, with only one in four enrolled in publicly funded pre-K.
o According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, we also know that "the vast majority of children served in state funded pre-k are in programs where funding per child may be inadequate to provide a quality education."
o Nationwide, state funding for pre-K programs increased by $479 million from fiscal year 2013-14 to fiscal year 2014-15 – an 8.3-percent increase in state investment – while federal funding increases have not followed suit. Of the 44 states that funded pre-K programs in FY 2014-2015, 25 had Republican governors and 19 had Democratic governors, showing bipartisan agreement for the need to invest in preschool.”
· In calling for universal preschool, Hillary Clinton is continuing a cause she has fought for throughout her career.
o In 2007, when she was Senator, she called for a national pre-K initiative to provide funding to states to establish high-quality pre-K programs, including providing pre-K at no cost to children from low-income and/or limited English-speaking homes.
o As First Lady of Arkansas, she introduced the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program which provided resources for parents to better educate their children at home before they begin kindergarten. HIPPY now operates in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
· In addition Monday, Clinton committed to rolling out a comprehensive child care agenda in this campaign to make sure all children from birth to three have access to quality child care.
o With child care costs soaring by nearly 25 percent during the last decade and with our knowledge increasing of the importance of brain development in the earliest years, Hillary Clinton committed to rolling out a comprehensive child care agenda during the campaign.
o As a first step in her child care agenda, Clinton on Monday called for doubling our investment in Early Head Start and the Early Head Start-Child Care partnerships.
o As First Lady, Hillary Clinton helped to start Early Head Start. Today, the Early Head Start-Child Care partnership grant program brings Early Head Start’s evidence-based curriculum into the child care setting to provide comprehensive, full-day, high quality services to low-income families.
o She said that Republicans aren’t just missing the boat on early childhood education – they’re trying to sink it. The Republican budget cuts puts one of the most effective investments for our youngest children – Early Head Start – at risk of serving fewer children. Hillary Clinton will point that in their budget, Republicans took care of those at the top and went after the kids.
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