More on Early Education in the Transition

We recently took a look at the early education experts staffing the Obama-Biden transition’s agency review team for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that administers Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and other major federal early childhood investments. HHS controls the bulk of the early education dollars the federal government currently spends, but the Department of Education also plays an important role in early education. The Department operates a number of programs, including Title I, Even Start, Early Reading First, IDEA Preschool and Early Intervention (Part C) programs, and the newly reauthorized HEA Title II, that provide support for quality early education programs. And the Department’s early education role is likely to grow under the next administration and Congress. Congress is considering legislation to create a federal role in supporting state pre-k programs, which would beef up the Department’s early education portfolio. President-elect Obama laid out an ambitious early education agenda during the campaign. And the scheduled NCLB reauthorization will provide an important opportunity to better integrate pre-k and other early learning programs into federal efforts to close the achievement gap for disadvantaged youngsters. In other words, the people who staff the Obama Department of Education will be important to early education, too.

Although we don’t know who the Secretary of Education will be yet, we’re pleased to report that several key members of both the Department of Education agency review team, as well as the transition’s education policy team, have strong records on early education. On the agency review team for the Department of Education, Ann O’Leary runs the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic, and Family Security, which focuses on issues related to health security, economic security, and work-family balance. O’Leary previously worked in Senator Hillary Clinton’s Senate Office and advised her campaign on education, child and family policy issues. Also on the review team, Eugene Garcia is the vice president for university-school partnerships at the University of Arizona. He also serves as chair of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics, which produced the important Para Nuestros Niños report on expanding access to quality early education for Hispanic youngsters. Expect both Garcia and O’Leary to help shape the new administration’s approach to early education issues.

On the education policy team, expect David Kirp, a Berkeley professor and author, most recently, of The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, to be an important voice. Garcia, O’Leary, and Kirp’s roles in the transition team–in addition to the excellent HHS team members we discussed previously–should encourage early education advocates. The fact that they’re on the Education Department and Education Policy teams also suggest that the Obama administration won’t treat early education as just an HHS issue, but also as part of their broader education policy agenda.

One key challenge that the new administration will face as they seek to improve or expand federal early education investments is aligning and coordinating the various existing early education programs operated by different departments–including HHS, Education, and a number of other agencies that operate smaller programs that fund or affect early education programs at the state and local level. The Presidential Early Learning Council that Obama talked about during the campaign could be an important tool for doing this—but only if it has the authority and stature to really get different programs and agencies to work together. That’s a tall order. Another challenge will be building an appropriate structure within the Department of Education to support states’ work on early education and coordinate federal early education programs that are currently scattered across different offices within the Education Department. We’ll be keeping a close eye on these issues in the weeks and months ahead as the Obama administration puts together its early education team and agenda.