“Now is the time to have a very strong, successful launch and expansion of early childhood education,” Greg Canfield, Alabama’s Secretary of Commerce, says in “Starting at Zero,” a new video from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation.
The video includes current and former governors, a philanthropist, a businessman, and academics from Stanford University and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, home of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative.
“For every 10 children in the U.S., six have access to some early education before kindergarten,” Harvard’s Nonie Lesaux says in the video. However, “Only two of those six are in a setting that we would consider high-quality.”
Among the video’s other key points:
• education is economic development
• the inter-generational impact of early childhood education helps children and their parents move ahead
• the social and emotional skills that early childhood education fosters are especially important given that people often have less face-to-face contact, and
• new governors are in a unique position to become early education champions
Check out the video and share it on your social media networks.
Eye on Early Education focuses on the twin goals of ensuring that Massachusetts children have access to high-quality early education and become proficient readers by the end of third grade.
Excellent video and strong messaging. It’s wonderful to see the 0-5 years getting such high-level attention. It would’ve been EVEN stronger to mention the importance of engaging and educating parents as partners in early childhood ed. Parenting education makes sure that the obvious gains in quality ECE settings are maintained and reinforced at home.