A Next Social Contract for the Primary Years of Education
Policy Paper
Feb. 12, 2010
We, as a nation, are doing a very good job of squandering human potential and making life harder for all Americans as a result. This has to stop. If our government, at the local, state and federal levels, does not start investing in education systems that reach children before kindergarten, and if it does not get serious about providing children with high-quality instruction in the earliest years of their schooling, it is wasting taxpayer dollars, ignoring decades of research and disregarding the extraordinary potential of millions of children who otherwise have very little chance of succeeding in school. This paper lays out the case for a fundamental rethinking of public policy related to children's primary years, starting at age three and reaching up through the third grade.
Read the full paper here.