Issue Position: Early Education

Issue Position

As a past member of a local Smart Start board, I know many children from low-income and minority families arrive at the kindergarten door completely unprepared. They have language and social skill deficits from which they will never recover. It does not and should not be this way. We know early education works. It closes achievement gaps and boosts the chances of graduation and life chances for struggling children.

Pre-kindergarten in this state has been a stunning success: an education reform that is producing lasting gains and saving the state many times the initial investment in four year-olds. I fully support the expansion of pre-k to all those children who, through no fault of their own, deserve and have the right to that education.

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