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I'm honored today to join with Congressman Miller and Congressman Hanna in introducing
the Strong Start for America's Children Act, a bill that will greatly expand access to
high quality early learning experiences for children from birth to kindergarten entry.
The problem is not that kids are not learning in America, the problem is that adults don't
seem to be learning in America. The evidence is too strong and too vast to disregard. If
we're going to remain a country of prosperity and promise, and a vital middle class, we
must invest in early learning. The studies suggest that more than a quarter of children,
maybe up to a half, due to circumstances well beyond their control are at a significant
disadvantage before they even enter the school house doors. As far as I'm concerned, there
is no such thing as preschool. There's early learning. There's early learning. Because
we know that learning begins at birth, as I said, and preparation for learning begins
even before birth. So our bill will authorize new early learning quality partnerships so
that Early Head Start grantees can partner with center-based and family child care providers
to offer infants and toddlers full-day, full-year, high quality services. The President put out
the call to the Congress to respond to the needs and the rewards of early childhood learning
and to invest in quality all across the states to join in partnership with the governors
across this country to develop increased opportunities for all of our children. We just witnessed
firsthand here in our Congressional early learning program what these children are learning
and the difference between what they are learning and what the children who don't have access
to these kinds of programs are learning. These children were learning their numbers, their
letters, their colors, their shapes, how to socialize, how to get along with other children,
how to share and take turns. The fact is that quality early childhood education works. The
problem is that most children don't have an opportunity to have access to it. And that's
why we're introducing this bipartisan bill, the Strong Start for America's Children Act.
I hope this effort is the beginning of a sustained, bipartisan conversation on how expanding access
to early education will make our economy more competitive and ensure that each child has
the opportunity to reap her or his potential. High quality early learning guarantees a reduction
in spending on entitlements, welfare, and incarceration. It also lowers obesity rates,
helping to reduce healthcare costs. By focusing on early education, we can begin to break
the intergenerational poverty, producing more tax payers and a more competitive America
through a better educated, growing middle class. As an artist ambassador for Save the
Children, I've had the privilege of traveling across the country to visit and advocate for
early childhood programs. I have been to some of the most impoverished, isolated communities
in America where education is, without a doubt, the ticket out of poverty. My job as I see
it is to visit these homes, talk with the moms who are struggling, trying to do right
by their kids, and then come back to you and bear witness to what I've seen. In the homes
that I've visited, there have been no books or toys. None, other than those provided by
Save the Children. There are no scribbles stuck up on the refrigerator as art and here's
the most striking. There's no noise. The homes I have visited have been silent. No babies
babbling, no children laughing or throwing tantrums or talking at all. It doesn't matter
how powerful the brain God puts in your head if it isn't nurtured and taught. We are letting
brains go to waste. The playing field is not level. We have a historic opportunity to right
a tremendous wrong in our society. At 16 million, the number of children living in poverty is
the highest it's been since Sergeant Shriver led the war on poverty 50 years ago. First
of all, the need here is just extraordinary and the number of children who enter kindergarten
who don't know the front of the book from the back of the book, don't know how to hold
a book because they haven't been read to, is staggering. Other children who don't know
their colors, sometimes don't even know their given name, they just know their nickname.
What chance in life do they have? Folks from all these different backgrounds may not agree
on anything else, but the fact that they're coming together in such a powerful way behind
this I think speaks to the importance, speaks to the urgency, and speaks to the opportunity
we have to do something radically different. There is nothing political about creating
stronger families and supporting parents who are working hard to try to do the right thing,
but need a little help, a little support, someone to help lead them there. Outside of
the craziness of Washington, in the real world, there are actually more Republican governors
today than Democratic investing in high quality early childhood education. So in the real
world, no one is talking about the politics. People are figuring out how to support families,
how to help children, how to build strong states. If our leaders here in Washington
can look at what's happening in the real world, we have the chance to absolutely make history.