Obama’s Early Education Opportunity

Big front pages NYT article today looks at the palpable excitement within the early education community about President-elect Barack Obama’s support for early education, and the ambitious agenda he put forward for early childhood investments during the campaign. The article’s a big win for early childhood advocates, but it’s also a bit diappointing from an analytical perspective. Although the NYT‘s Sam Dillon offers some interesting glimpses into the forces that influenced Mr. Obama’s support for early education, there’s nothing here that will be news to EarlyEdWatch readers, and the article touches only tangentially on some of the tougher policy questions that any effort to enact or implement these proposals will have to deal with: How will new investments interact with existing early childhood programs and funding streams, such as Head Start? What kinds of quality controls and state-level accountability can be incorporated into new federal investments to ensure that states are using them in ways that actually improve outcomes for kids? How can states ensure quality in early education services across a network of diverse providers? If we’re talking about a federal role in fostering the development of systems of early care and education at the state and local level, what should those systems look like? How will new investments be integrated into broader school reform goals to ensure that benefits of quality early education are maintained and leveraged as children progress through their schooling? These are important questions that shouldn’t be glossed over in the excitement about the potential of new resources for early education.

After eight years of stagnant or declining federal funding for early childhood, and a tremendous vacuum of federal leadership on this issue, the early childhood community is understandably excited about the higher profile the Obama administration seems poised to give early education issues. And this really does seem to be an opportune time for advancing a much stronger federal role in supporting access to high-quality early education. But the fact that there is a tremendous opportunity to do good for early education now also means there’s a substantial risk that opportunity could be squandered. If we are not careful in the policy choices we make about new early education investments, if we pour money into the existing non-system without first building the infrastructure and capacity needed to ensure that money goes to quality, these new investments could easily be wasted. That’s one reason that Early Ed Watch has argued against rushing to include early education funding in the stimulus package–tempting as that possibility may be.

It’s important to ensure that new federal early education investments are well thought out, that they fund quality and build the state level capacity and infrastructure needed to ensure high-quality programs. It’s equally important that any new federal early education investments be integrated into a broader vision and agenda for education reform–from early childhood through higher education–that addresses our dual national needs to narrow achievement gaps and raise overall student performance and attainment. Until we break down the false divide that now exists between early education and K-12, we’re likely to see energy and resources wasted in both sectors, as they proceed on separate tracks without heeding the lessons to be learned from one another. And we’re unlikely to see the outcomes that both education reformers and early childhood advocates promise their favored policies will deliver.

President-elect Obama and Secretary designee Duncan have an important opportunity to improve early education quality, access, and alignment, and in doing so to improve outcomes for a generation of American children. Let’s hope that the understandable excitement that exists about this opportunity doesn’t end up becoming an obstacle to their ability to do so in a well-designed, thoughtful, and effective fashion.