Frank Pallone: “the other thing the gentleman mentions is the emphasis on early childhood education. I guess in the last couple of weeks…”

“the other thing the gentleman mentions is the emphasis on early childhood education. I guess in the last couple of weeks we have heard a lot about that in the media. I think the President, and Mrs. Clinton in particular, have been going around the country talking about the need for early childhood education. The First Lady was actually at Princeton University in my State, I believe just a couple of days ago. Reading some of this material that has been coming out over the last few weeks, it is just amazing to me. I have two small children, one is 2 and the other is 3 rac{1}{2}\, and I have listened to what some of the educators are saying and I can just see how true it is, that we need to spend more time. A lot of it of course is just the family, that the family spends time reading to their children or spending time with their kids, but also in terms of resources as well, on very early childhood education, because so much happens in those formative years. That is why I think programs like Head Start, which really do not even start that early, but start fairly early, and that has been a very successful program. One of the things that we have been talking about as part of the Democratic agenda is expanding Head Start and early childhood education, because it is so crucial.”