[Pages S3665-S3676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ACT--Continued

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is an amendment that I have
introduced with 27 cosponsors, and we invite other Members to join us.
It is an amendment to deal with early learning opportunities of our
children.
Research shows that children's brains are wired--literally wired--
between the ages of birth and 6 years of age. The number of synopses
that the brain forms, that is, the connections in the brain, depends
upon the level of brain stimulation. The capacity to learn and interact
successfully in society is determined even before children begin
school. Long-term studies looking at data over 30 years show that
children who participate in early learning programs are less likely to
require special education, less likely to suffer from mental illness
and behavior disorders, less likely to become pregnant before they are
married, more likely to graduate from high school and college, less
likely to be arrested and incarcerated, have lower recidivism rates if
they are incarcerated, less likely to be violent and engaged in child
or spousal abuse, and they earn higher salaries when they become
adults. Both the General Accounting Office and the Rand Corporation
made studies which showed that for each dollar invested in early
learning programs, taxpayers saved between $4 and $7 in later years.
This amendment provides for block grants to States. States will work
with local governments, nonprofit corporations, and even faith-based
institutions to determine what is needed most at their own local level.
Local entities can use the funds to expand Even Start, the program for
children from birth to 3 years of age; expand Head Start to more
children, expand it to full day or year-round coverage; offer nursery
and preschool programs; train parents and child care professionals in
child development, and provide parent training and support programs for
stay-at-home moms and dads.
The amendment provides set-asides for Indian tribes and Native groups
and provides for a small State minimum of 0.4 percent. This amendment
has been endorsed now by the Christian Schools International, by
Parents United, United Way, some 1,400 local organizations, Fight
Crime-Invest In Kids, 700 police chiefs, and the National Association
for the Education of Young Children, Children's Defense Fund, Child
Care Resource Center, National Black Child Development Institute, and
the National Education Association.
As a father of six children, I come to this amendment late in my
life. I only wish I had had the opportunity to have had this type of
information available to me and my wife when we, as a very young, newly
married couple, decided to have our family very quickly. We had five
children in less than 5 years, and there is a lot we had to learn along
the way.
This is a bill to try to make America think about what we want to be.
We have invested heavily in science, and through the decade of the
brain that was stimulated by our late departed friend, David Mahoney,
and the group of scientists he put together with Dr. Jim Watson, who
worked with him, we now know a lot more about the brain than we did a
decade ago. Basically, we learned of the fantastic capability of young
people to absorb knowledge and to be stimulated to develop the
abilities to absorb even more knowledge as they grow older. I think
this is one of the most important things I have been involved in during
my life.
I believe it is a time for change, a time for us to recognize that
young children--little babies--can be stimulated in a way that will
assure their capability will be improved to learn and to be good
citizens and, in particular, to be able to lead the kind of lives their
parents dreamed they would lead. I thank every Member who has
cosponsored this amendment, and I hope for its early adoption.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, first of all, I express my appreciation
for the excellent statement that the Senator from Alaska has just given
and thank him for his leadership on this issue. I also thank the
chairman, Senator Jeffords, for his hard work on this issue as well.
Both of them have helped us understand how parents and other caregivers
can have a very positive impact on children and infants at very early
ages. I thank colleagues on our side, including my colleague from
Massachusetts, Senator John Kerry, who has been particularly interested
in this issue and has spent a great deal of time on it, and also the
Senator from Connecticut, Senator Chris Dodd, who has

[[Page S3666]]

led our efforts on issues involving children for many, many years.
Finally, I want to thank Stephanie Robinson of my staff, who is sitting
here on my left, for her insight and diligence as we have worked
through the details of this early learning proposal.
I think the Senator from Alaska has really outlined a compelling case
for this issue. If we go back a little while and think of the first
studies--the Perry Preschool Program, which Senator Stevens mentioned--
almost 30 years ago, where the results have been followed over a period
of years and have documented how early interventions for children
resulted in more positive academic and lifestyle outcomes for many
children.
I think that the Perry Preschool study caught the attention of a lot
of educators. Then we had the meeting in 1990 when the Governors were
together--the Charlottesville meeting. Many of the issues we have been
talking about these past few days recall the discussion surrounding
early learning that the Governors initiated back in 1990. And there the
Republican and Democratic Governors together announced that our first
priority should be to have children ready to learn when they enter
school. They understood what was happening in the States, and that
early learning was a matter of enormous positive consequence for all
educational and social service efforts. Even before brain research
provided a clear medical basis, Governors sensed that ``the earlier the
better'' in terms of early interventions.
Then we had the studies done by the Carnegie Commission in 1993,
which focused on impacts of these early interventions. Later, when we
had the Year of the Brain in 1996, I believe, we found further
information as described by the Senator from Alaska, about the
importance of proper stimulation to the formation of brain synapses in
young children. Important work continued throughout the 1990's by Dr.
Brazelton and Dr. Zigler, who are really the godparents of this concept
of early intervention.
The bottom line is that quality early learning experiences help
children develop self-confidence, curiosity, social skills, and motor
skills. These are the building blocks that children use to expand their
interest in learning when they get to school. They may also develop a
sense of humor. They certainly learn consideration of others. These are
basic benefits of early learning, and they last a lifetime. They are
absolutely essential in terms of learning and academic achievement, but
also essential in terms of interpersonal skills, their own personal
happiness, and their own productivity and contributions as members of a
society.

As we debate education policy, we must continue to find common ground
that enables us to act effectively. One of the most important
opportunities is in early learning. Last month's Senate Budget
Resolution included a bipartisan amendment that reserved $8.5 billion
to improve early learning services throughout the Nation. The Senate is
clearly moving toward a commitment to ensure that each of the 23
million American children under age six is able to enter school ready
to learn.
Senator Stevens and I worked together to build a strong bipartisan
coalition for this reserve fund in the Senate resolution, and now is
the time to continue these efforts. As we consider the investments that
are needed in education, we cannot ignore early childhood learning.
Education occurs over a continuum that begins at birth and extends
throughout life. The need to do more to make greater educational
opportunities available in a child's very early years is clear. Study
after study proves that positive learning experiences very early in
life significantly enhance a child's later ability to learn, to
interact successfully with teachers and peers, and to master needed
skills. It is long past time to put this research into practice.
Just last week Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a 700-member bipartisan
coalition of police chiefs, sheriffs, and crime victims, released yet
another convincing report. It finds that children who receive quality
early learning are half as likely to commit crimes and be arrested
later in life.
Early learning programs are good for children, good for parents and
good for society as a whole. Unfortunately, far too many parents lack
access to quality early learning activities for their children while
they work. Although two thirds of mothers work outside the home, only
58% of 3- and 4-year-olds living above the poverty level, and 41% of
those living below the poverty level, are enrolled in center-based
early learning programs.
A dramatic recent survey found that more parents are satisfied with
Head Start than any other federal program. But only two in five
eligible children are enrolled in Head Start - and only one in 100
eligible infants and toddlers are enrolled in Early Head Start. As a
result, literally millions of young children never have the chance to
reach their full potential. What a waste! We must do better. We can do
better.
The Committee for Economic Development reports that we can save over
five dollars in the future for every dollar we invest in early learning
today, the investment significantly reduces the number of families on
welfare, the number of children in special education, and the number of
children in our juvenile justice system. Investment in early learning
is not only morally right - it is economically right.
We must steadily expand access to Head Start and Early Head Start. We
must make parenting assistance available to all who want it. We must
support model state efforts that have already proved successful, such
as Community Partnerships for Children in Massachusetts and Smart Start
in North Carolina, which rely on local councils to identify the early
learning needs in each community and allocate new resources to meet
them. We must give higher priority to early childhood literacy. In ways
such as these, we must take bolder action to strengthen early learning
opportunities in communities across the Nation.

The Rand Corporation reports: ``After critically reviewing the
literature and discounting claims that are not rigorously demonstrated,
we conclude that these [early learning] programs can provide
significant benefits.'' Governors, state legislatures, local
governments, and educators have all called for increased federal
investments in early learning as the most effective way to promote
healthy and constructive behavior by future adults. As we strengthen
education policy, we cannot lose sight of the evidence that education
begins at birth--and is not a process that occurs only in a school
building during a school day.
We must examine children's experience during the five or six years
before they walk through their first schoolhouse door. Our goal is to
enable all children to enter school ready to learn, and maximize the
impact of our investments in education.
It is especially important that low-income parents who accept the
responsibility of work under welfare reform to have access to quality
early learning opportunities for their children. The central idea of
welfare reform is that families caught in a cycle of dependence can be
shown that work pays. Today I am proud to stand with so many Senators
who agree that children's development must not be sacrificed as we help
families move from welfare to work.
A decade ago the Nation's Governors agreed that helping children
enter school ready to learn should be America's number one priority. We
have made some progress since then, but we are still falling far short
of our goal.
In Massachusetts, the Community Partnerships for Children Program
currently provides quality full-day early learning for 15,300 young
children from low-income families. Yet today in Massachusetts over
14,000 additional eligible children are waiting for the early learning
services they need--and some have been on the waiting list for 18
months. A 1999 report by the Congressional General Accounting Office on
early learning services for low-income families was unequivocal--
``infant toddler care [is] still difficult to obtain.''
Even as the need to provide these opportunities increases, it is
clear that many current facilities are unsafe. The average early
learning provider is paid under seven dollars an hour--less than the
average parking attendant or pet sitter. These low wages result in high
turnover, poorer quality of care, and little trust and bonding with the
children.
Here in the Senate, we have worked together for several months on a
proposal to enable local communities to

[[Page S3667]]

fill the gaps that impair current early learning efforts. Our amendment
provides $3.25 billion for early learning programs over the next three
years. Local councils will direct the funds to the most urgent needs in
each community. The needs may include parenting support and education--
improving quality through professional development and retention
initiatives--expanding the times and the days children can obtain these
services--enhancing childhood literacy--and greater early learning
opportunities for children with special needs. These funding priorities
are well-designed to strengthen early learning programs in all
communities across the country, and give each community the opportunity
to invest the funds in ways that will best address its most urgent
needs.

I urge the Senate to approve it as a long overdue recognition of this
important aspect of education reform.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that several letters of
support for this amendment be printed in the Record immediately after
my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered. (See Exhibit
1.)
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, when the Senator brings this to the
attention of the Senate, it is a matter of enormous importance and
significance. I pay tribute to him and to our chairman, Senator
Jeffords, who has been a strong supporter. I know there are others on
that side, but they have been real giants in this area of concern and
have been enormously constructive and helpful in moving us towards a
legislative initiative in this area.
I am very grateful to my colleagues, Senator Kerry and Senator Dodd,
for the extraordinary work they have done.
I am very hopeful that at an early time we can have favorable
consideration.

Exhibit 1

Commonwealth of Massachusetts,

Department of Education,

Malden, MA, May 5, 2000.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
Russell Senate Building, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Kennedy: I want to express my strong support
for the Early Learning Opportunities Act as an amendment to
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. High quality
early care and education programs are vital to children's
development as well as to the national goal for all children
to enter school ready to learn. It is also essential that the
methods used to increase support for families and young
children be flexible and responsive to the diverse needs and
resources of communities and families across the country.
The program outlined in this proposal is quite consistent
with our state preschool program, Community Partnerships for
Children. For example, Massachusetts has many local councils
working collaboratively to design comprehensive early care
and education programs that ensure that funds are used in
ways that are consistent with local needs. Our programs also
conduct many family support and family literacy activities
such as those described in your plan. Through our experience
with Community Partnerships, we know that these elements as
well as transportation and professional development are
essential to helping early childhood programs achieve their
potential to support young children and families.
With the in mind, I would like to express one concern. As
is, the program is created within Health and Human Services
and is ``entirely independent of ESEA.'' Historically, child
care has been administered through human services agencies
and it is likely that the program would be passed on through
the states' social services infrastructure. At the same time,
many of the program's purposes are based on the potential of
early childhood programs as educational for children and
parents. Based on many years of watching how our local
collaborations evolve, it is clear that state and local
linkages among Head Start, private child care and public
preschools and elementary schools are becoming increasingly
important, but are not easy. I believe the separation from
ESEA at the national and state levels would not encourage
these linkages. Although the program should support the
growth and improvement of private child care and Head Start
programs, a close connection with ESEA at the national and
state levels would model the educational intention of the
program and would build on existing Title I preschool
programs programs at the local level.
To reiterate--the plan that has been proposed is very
promising and I strongly support this amendment.
Secerely,
David H. Driscoll,
Commissioner of Education.
____

May 4, 2000.
Dear Senator: I am writing to urge you to support the Early
Learning Opportunities Act, sponsored by Senators Kennedy,
Stevens, Jeffords and Dodd, as an amendment to the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act. This Early Learning Amendment
would help states to create and enhance the programs and
services that infants and toddlers, and their parents,
urgently need to ensure that young children will enter school
ready to learn.
As you know, research clearly shows that the first few
years of a child's life set the stage for a lifetime of
learning. Time and again we see that healthy children who
have formed secured and loving attachments to adults grow up
to be hard working, productive members of society. But
children cannot develop in a healthy manner without access to
early learning programs, quality child care and health care,
and special services for children and families at risk.
Furthermore, a recent report issued by Fight Crime: Invest in
Kids concludes that federal, state, and local governments
could greatly reduce crime and violence by assuring families
access to quality, educational child care program.
Equally important is parent education. All parents, but
especially those in at-risk populations, need to know not
only how to effectively bond with their young children, but
how to access programs and services that help them to raise a
healthy child.
The Early Learning Amendment is an important step toward
improving the lives of America's youngest citizens. Not only
does it provide and vital funding for early childhood
programs and services, it gives states and localities the
flexibility to creatively meet the needs of their
populations.
Again, I urge you to support America's youngest children
and their families by voting for the Early Learning
Amendment.
Sincerely,
Rob Reiner.
____

Parents United for Child Care,

Boston, MA, May 8, 2000.
Dear Senator: On behalf of the membership of Parents United
for Child Care (PUCC), I am writing to urge you to support
the Early Learning Opportunities Act sponsored by Senators
Stevens, Kennedy, Jeffords and Dodd. This amendment would
take important steps to ensuring the availability of high
quality early care and education experiences for millions of
American families.
PUCC is a grassroots membership organization of low- and
moderate-income parents committed to increasing the supply of
quality, affordable child care in Massachusetts. A small
group of Boston parents founded PUCC in 1987 with the mission
of creating and mobilizing a vocal constituency of parents to
impact child care policy in their communities and on the
state level. Since its founding PUCC has been working in
neighborhoods through Massachusetts to provide a parent voice
on public policy issues related to children families. A local
and national model of successful parent empowerment and
leadership, PUCC employs cutting edge organizing and
leadership development strategies to provide parents with the
necessary tools to take the lead in advocating for their own
child care needs.
As you know, recent research about the impact of the first
three years of life on children's brain development testifies
to the importance of a high-quality early care and education
experience, especially for children who are growing up in
poverty. In addition, policy makers--at the state and
national level--are increasingly acknowledging the importance
of child care an essential tool for building the economic
stability of working families. Finally, the implementation of
Education Reform across the country has focused a spotlight
on the importance of quality early learning opportunities in
preparing children for school. Unfortunately, too many
parents do not have access to the type of high quality early
care services that will allow them to go to work and help
their children to learn, play and thrive.
By supporting the Early Learning Amendment, you can make
children and families a priority and help parents, providers
and educators promote healthy physical and emotional
development for our children. Please do not hesitate contact
me for further information about Parents United for Child
Care. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this
request.
Sincerely yours,
Elaine Fersh,
Director.
____

National Women's Law Center,

Washington, DC, May 8, 2000.
Hon. Edward Kennedy,
U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Kennedy: We are writing to express our support
for your Early Learning Amendment to be offered to the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Research on early brain development and school readiness
demonstrates that the experiences children have and the
attachments they form in the earliest years of life have a
decisive, long-lasting impact on their later development and
learning. Yet, despite the importance of early childhood
learning, scarce resources limit the early childhood learning
opportunities of many children. Your Early Learning
Opportunities Amendment would provide grants to states and
communities to help ensure that significantly more children
across the country have positive early learning experiences.
The added resources that your amendment offers will allow
communities to improve and expand quality early childhood
programs, and

[[Page S3668]]

assist parents and early childhood providers meet the diverse
developmental needs of young children.
We appreciate your efforts to increase the availability and
quality of early childhood learning for children, and look
forward to working with you on this critical issue.
Sincerely yours,
Nancy Duff Campbell,
Co-President.
Judith C. Appelbaum,
Vice President and Director of
Employment Opportunities.
____

National Black Child

Development Institute, Inc.,

Washington, DC, May 4, 2000.
Dear Senator: I am writing to urge your support for the
Stevens-Kennedy-Jeffords-Dodd Early Learning Amendment to
ESEA.
Early care and education have been a leading tenet of the
National Black Child Development Institute since its
inception thirty years ago. Then, as now, we hold that there
is no more effective way to prepare children to succeed in
school and break the cycle of poverty than quality,
accessible early care and education. Recent studies have
shown that quality early education also reduces the
likelihood that a child will later be involved in the
juvenile justice system.
Despite its proven track record, Head Start is unable to
serve all the eligible children. Less than 1 in 10 children
eligible for the Child Development Block Grant are currently
served. While Head Start has a comprehensive program with
education and parental involvement, the programs funded under
CCDBG could be greatly enhanced with community-based
collaborations around parent training and developmentally
appropriate learning programs.
The Early Learning Amendment provides support for
communities to improve the quality of child care programs; to
provide parent education and training independent of a child
care setting; to provide training and professional
development for providers of early care and education.
These are important goals that will improve the quality of
life for our children and their communities for generations.
When we strength a child, we shape the future of our nation.
I urge your support for the Early Learning Amendment to
ESEA.
Sincerely,
Andrea Young,
Director of Public Policy.
____

Child Care Resource Center, Inc.,

Cambridge, MA, May 4, 2000.
Dear Senators: The Child Care Resource Center (CCRC) in
Cambridge, MA, is one of 13 child care resource and referral
agencies across the state of Massachusetts. Agencies like
CCRC strive to strengthen the field of child care in four
ways: 1) we work with child care providers to increase the
quality of child care, 2) we work with parents to provide
consumer education, information and referrals to local child
care programs, 3) we work with low-income families to ensure
that they have access to quality affordable care and 4) work
with communities to utilize child care demand and supply data
for community planning purposes.
Working for a child care resource and referral agency
provides a unique perspective on the child care system as a
whole because we have the opportunity to work and interact
with all aspects of this system, including the
administration, the child care industry and families of all
incomes who are struggling to make ends meet and find a safe
nurturing environment for their child. From this
vantagepoint, we see first hand what is and is not working
with our system and where there are gaps in the services that
are offered.
Based on this knowledge and experience, I am writing today
in support of the Stevens-Kennedy-Jeffords-Dodd ``Early
Learning Opportunities'' amendment to ESEA. Recent research
has highlighted the importance of providing adequate
stimulation to children between the ages of 0 and 5 in order
to ensure the optimal physical and emotional development of a
young child's brain. This development can not be recaptured
during later years. Brain synopses that are not developed are
lost forever.
The Early Learning amendment is an important step towards
ensuring the availability of high-quality educational child
development programs to both child care providers and to
parents, two equally important components of the lives of our
children. As a country, we need to make a stronger investment
into supporting the healthy development of our youngest
resources. Children do not begin the learning process at the
age of five when they enter kindergarten. We must lay the
groundwork earlier to ensure that children not only develop
appropriately, but more importantly, thrive.
If you need any information or other materials to help you
in this important debate, please do not hesitate to contact
me at (617) 547-1063 ext 217 or CCRC's Public Policy Manager
Jennifer Murphy at (617) 547-1063 ext 234.
Sincerely,
Marta T. Rosa,
Executive Director.
____

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids,

Washington, DC, May 3, 2000.
Dear Senator: As an organization led by over 700 police
chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, leaders of police
organizations, and crime survivors, we write in strong
support of the Stevens-Kennedy-Jeffords-Dodd ``Early Learning
Opportunities'' amendment to ESEA.
The evidence is clear that well-designed early learning
programs for kids can dramatically reduce crime and violence,
and keep kids from becoming criminals. But these programs
remain so under-funded they reach only a fraction of the
youngsters who need them. For example:
A High/Scope Foundation study at the Perry Preschool in
Michigan randomly chose half of a group of at-risk toddlers
to receive a quality Head Start-style preschool program,
supplemented by weekly in-home coaching for parents. Twenty-
two years later, the toddlers left out of the program were
five times more likely to have grown up to be chronic
lawbreakers, with five or more arrests.
A new study of 1,000 at-risk children who attended the
Chicago Child Parent Centers found that the children of a
similar background who were left out of the program were
almost twice as likely to have two or more juvenile arrests.
Yet inadequate funding for these high quality child
development programs like these leaves millions of at-risk
children without critical early childhood services. Making
sure all children have access to educational childcare is one
of the four points of our School and Youth Violence
Prevention Plan, the key components of which have been
endorsed not only by each of Fight Crime's 700 law
enforcement leaders and victims of violence but also by the
National Sheriffs Association; the Major Cities [Police]
Chiefs Organizations; the Police Executive Research Forum;
the National District Attorneys Association--and dozens of
state law enforcement associations.
The Early Learning amendment is an important step towards
ensuring the availability of high-quality educational child
development programs. Those on the front lines of the battle
against crime know these investments are among our most
powerful weapons against crime.
For more information on the studies mentioned above, please
see our new report America's Child Care Crisis: A Crime
Prevention Tradegy co-authored by Dr. Berry Brazelton, Edward
Zigler, Lawrence Sherman, William Bratton, Jerry Sanders and
other child development and crime prevention experts. The
report is available on our website, <a href='http://
www.fightcrime.org.
'>http://
www.fightcrime.org.
</a> Sincerely,
Sanford Newman,
President.
____

United Way of America,

Alexandria, VA, May 3, 2000.
Hon. Edward M. Kennedy,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Kennedy: On behalf of 1,400 United Ways across
the country, United Way of America (UWA) urges you to support
the Early Learning Amendment to the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) sponsored by Senators Stevens, Kennedy,
Jeffords, and Dodd. The amendment allots $6.25 billion over
five years to create a new program within the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) that will improve
opportunities for early learning and school readiness among
young children from birth through age six.
For the past ten years, United Ways have been committed to
early care and education through Success By 6<sup>'</sup>, an
initiative that convenes local leadership (corporate,
government and nonprofit) to leverage resources, raise
awareness and impact policy on behalf of our youngest
citizens. In over 300 communities, Success By 6<sup>'</sup>
helps ensure a safe and nurturing environment for our
children. Early childhood development is critical to an
effective future workforce. Recent brain research has
confirmed that investing early has lifetime benefits and
positive implications for a child's success. The early
learning amendment will allow local communities to take to
scale existing early childhood initiatives and stimulate the
creation of new ones.
An investment in early learning and development is a
critical investment in our future. United Way of America
hopes that the Senate will make a renewed commitment to
America's children by supporting this amendment. If you need
more information, please contract Ilsa Flanagan, Senior
Director of Public Policy, at (703) 683-7817.
With appreciation,
Betty Beene.
____

May 2, 2000.
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: We urge you to support the following
amendments to S. 2, the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act reauthorization that is currently being debated by the
full Senate, to help ensure that young children have the
strong start they need and older children the positive and
safe after-school experiences and the comprehensive supports
they need to succeed in school.
Stevens/Jeffords/Kennedy/Dodd Early Learning Opportunities
Amendment. This amendment would provide grants to states and
communities to improve and expand high-quality early learning
programs serving children ages zero to five years old. This
amendment would offer local communities much needed funds to
help both parents and early childhood providers meet the
varying needs of young children. Research is clear that
children, particularly disadvantaged

[[Page S3669]]

children, who have the opportunity to participate in high
quality early childhood programs are more likely to succeed
in school and in life.
Dodd Early Childhood Education Professional Development
Amendment. This amendment would provide resources to local
partnerships to provide professional development for early
childhood educators with a focus on early literacy and
violence prevention. Given the low salaries of child care
providers across the country, providers must have access to
resources from their communities in order to grow
professionally and provide high quality care in their
programs. It is exceedingly important to offer new
opportunities to strengthen their ability to work with
children. Gaining early literacy skills is essential to
children's ability to start school ready to read. High
quality early childhood programs have also demonstrated that
they can be effective in reducing the violent behavior that
can lead to delinquency.
Reed Child Opportunity Zone Family Centers Amendment. This
amendment would provide resources to help schools coordinate
with other local health and human services at or near the
school site to support children's ability to come to school
each day ready to learn. This will ensure that children have
the health and other supports they need to be able to thrive
and take full advantage of their education.
Dodd 21st Century Community Learning Centers Amendment.
This amendment would strengthen the collaboration among
schools and community-based organizations and bolster their
ability to provide enriching and educational after-school and
other community education programs.
These amendment would help provide critical support to both
younger and older children and their families, helping to
ensure that their school experience is a success. We urge you
to support them.
Sincerely yours,
------ ------.
____

Geresh and Sarah Lemberg

Children's Center, Inc.,

Waltham, MA.
From: Howard Baker, Executive Director.
To: Stephanie Robinson and Rachel Price, Staff of Senator
Kennedy.
Subject: Amendments to Early Learning Part of ESEA.
Comments: Thank you for sending me a copy of your proposed
amendments ESEA. I support your addressing special
educational needs (Part V,B,5), increased hours of care (Part
V,B,6), and increases in compensation and recruitment
incentives (Part V,B,7). I am glad to see the wording
``grants supplemental not supplant existing early learning
resources'' (Part VII, G). As for the Funding total of $6.25
billion over 5 years, more is better.
Also, I spoke with Kimberly Barnes O'Connor, she said:
``Bringing up rates and wages in the ESEA is the wrong place.
These are issues for the Child Care and Development Block
Grant.'' Is this your position as well?
Thanks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts
for his kind comments. I want to echo what he has said. Senator
Jeffords has been a great leader in this area. As a matter of fact, he
sort of encouraged me to get involved. I am happy to have been able to
get involved. I told him it should have been the Jeffords-Stevens
amendment. In his typical Vermont reticence--he is a Yankee as far as I
am concerned--he said, no, that I should put in the amendment and be
the sponsor. I am proud to do that. But the real voice of reason in
this amendment has been Senator Jeffords.
I am pleased to yield to him, and I thank him for his cooperation.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I have an engagement pending, so I will
proceed now. I would love to be able to stay and listen to my friends.
I certainly thank the Senator from Alaska for his very fine words. He
has been an inspiration to all of us in bringing this forward. Without
his help and support, I am not so sure that we would be here today. I
appreciate his efforts in making sure that our amendment be heard in a
timely manner.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, the lady who
is responsible for the cooperation is sitting to my right, our deputy
chief of staff. She started on the mommy track about a year ago and
taught me all I know. So thank you very much.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Senator very much. Mr. President, I am very
happy to join a strong bi-partisan group of my colleagues in
introducing the ``Early Learning Opportunities Act'' amendment. The
twenty-eight co-sponsors of the amendment are: Senators Stevens,
Kennedy, Jeffords, Dodd, Domenici, Bond, Kerry, Voinovich, Lautenberg,
Murray, Cochran, Bingaman, Smith of Oregon, Durbin, Chafee, Baucus,
Murkowski, Robb, Rockefeller, Roberts, Wellstone, Feinstein, Mikulski,
Snowe, Boxer, Kerrey, Specter, and Warner.
In 1989, President Bush met with Governors from across the nation and
identified a set of educational goals for our nation's children. The
first national educational goal was that ``By the year 2000, all
children in America will start school ready to learn,'' We have
unfortunately failed to meet that critical goal.
Early childhood learning plays a key role in a child's future
achievement and is the cornerstone of education reform. I am absolutely
convinced that we must invest in early childhood learning programs if
we are to have every child enter school ready to learn and succeed.
We know that from birth, the human brain is making the connections
that are vital to future learning. We know that what we do as parents,
care providers, educators, and as a society can either help or hurt a
child's ability to gain the skills necessary for success in school---
and in life.
Many of America's children enter school without the necessary
abilities and maturity. Without successful remediation efforts, these
children continue to lag behind for their entire academic career. We
spend billions of dollars on efforts to help these children catch up.
As we demand that students and schools meet higher academic standards,
these efforts become much harder. An investment in early learning today
will save money tomorrow. Research has demonstrated that for each
dollar invested in quality early learning programs, the Federal
Government can save over five dollars--spend one, save five.
These savings result from future reductions in the number of children
and families who participate in Federal Government programs like Title
I special education and welfare.
This amendment is designed to help parents and care givers integrate
early childhood learning into the daily lives of their children.
Parents are the most important teachers of their children. If parents
are actively engaged in their child's early learning, their children
will see greater cognitive and non-cognitive benefits.
Parents want their children to grow up happy and healthy. But few are
fully prepared for the demands of parenthood. Many parents have
difficulty finding the information and support they need to help their
children grow to their full potential. Making that information and
support available and accessible to parents is a key component of this
amendment.
For many families, it is not possible for a parent to remain home to
care for their children. Their employment is not a choice, but an
essential part of their family's economic survival.
And for most of these families, child care is not an option, but a
requirement, as parents struggle to meet the competing demands of work
and family.
Just as it is essential that we provide parents with the tools they
need to help their children grow and develop, we also must help the
people who care for our nation's children while parents are at work.
Today, more than 13 million young children--including half of all
infants--spend at least part of their day being cared for by someone
other than their parents.
In Vermont alone, there are about 22,000 children, under the age of
six, in state-regulated child care.
This amendment will provide communities with the resources necessary
to improve the quality of child care. Funds can be used for
professional development, staff retention and recruitment incentives,
and improved compensation. By improving local collaboration and
coordination, child care providers--- as well as parents--- will be
able to access more services, activities and programs for children in
their care.
Our ``Early Learning Opportunities'' amendment will serve as a
catalyst to engage all sectors of the community in increasing programs,
services, and activities that promote the healthy development of our
youngest citizens. The amendment ensures that funds will be locally
controlled.

[[Page S3670]]

Funds are channeled through the states to local councils. The
councils are charged with assessing the early learning needs of the
community, and distributing the funds to a broad variety of local
resources to meet those needs.
Local councils must work with schools in the community to identify
the abilities which need to be mastered before children enter school.
Funds must be used for programs, activities and services which
represent developmentally appropriate steps towards acquiring those
abilities.
This amendment will expand community resources, improve program
collaboration, and engage our citizens in creating solutions. It will
will help parents and care givers who are looking for better ways to
include positive learning experiences into the daily lives of our
youngest children.
When children enter school ready to learn, all of the advantages of
their school experiences are opened to them---their opportunities are
unlimited.
I urge all my colleagues to vote for the ``Early Learning
Opportunities Act'' amendment.
I urge you to give our nation's children every opportunity to succeed
in school and in life.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I rise today to lend my support to a critical
component of our efforts to reform the public education system and
ensure that all children can learn to high standards: a collaborative
approach to increasing the availability of high-quality early learning
initiatives for young children. The amendment before us today
recognizes the importance that the early years of a child's life play
in his or her future learning and development. This amendment
acknowledges what we know to be to true: children who begin school
lacking the ability to recognize letters, numbers, and shapes quickly
fall behind their peers. Students who reach the first grade without
having had the opportunity to develop cognitive or language
comprehension skills begin school at a disadvantage. Children who have
not had the chance to develop social and emotional skills do not begin
school ready to learn. Mr. President, we have the opportunity here
today in this bipartisan amendment to see to it that all of our young
children have access to high-quality early learning initiatives and
that all of our children begin school ready to learn.
The beauty of the approach that I am advocating for here today, is
that it builds upon existing early learning and child care programs in
each and every community in this country. Mr. President, this early
learning amendment would provide support to families by minimizing
government bureaucracy and maximizing local initiatives. This amendment
would support the creation of local councils that will provide funding
to communities to expand the thousands of successful early care and
education efforts that already exist. It will establish an early
learning infrastructure at the local level. This infrastructure will
establish the necessary linkages between private, public, and non-
profit organizations that seek to provide a healthy, safe, and
supportive start in learning and in life for children of pre-school
age. Mr. President, this amendment provides the Senate with a
critically important bipartisan opportunity to support early learning
collaboratives at the state level, in towns, in cities, and in
communities throughout this country.
I can attest to the success and importance of this collaborative
approach, because I have seen it work. I was so convinced by what I saw
in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Mr. President, that I introduced
legislation in the 105th and the 106th Congresses that is very similar
to the amendment before us today. Let me tell you about the Early
Childhood Initiative (ECI) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania--an
innovative program which helps low-income children from birth to age
five become successful, productive adults by enrolling them in high
quality, neighborhood-based early care and education programs, ranging
from Head Start, center-based child care, home-based child care, and
school readiness programs. ECI draws on everything that's right about
Allegheny County--the strength of its communities--neighborhood
decision-making, parent involvement, and quality measurement. Parents
and community groups decide if they want to participate and they come
together and develop a proposal tailored for the community. Regular
review programs ensure quality programming and cost-effectiveness.
We're talking about local control getting results locally: 19,000 pre-
school aged children from low-income families, 10,000 of which were not
enrolled in any childcare or education program. Evaluations have shown
that enrolled children are achieving at rates equivalent to their
middle income peers. And as we know, without this leveling of the
playing field, low-income children are at a greater risk of
encountering the juvenile justice system.
In the United States, child care, early learning, and school-age care
result from partnerships among the public sector--federal state, and
local governments; the private sector--businesses and charitable
organizations; and parents. Both the public and the private sectors
help children get a strong start in life by supporting and providing
child care, by enhancing early learning opportunities, and by supplying
school-age care. Attention to early childhood development by so many
organizations and levels of government is important and appropriate.
But oftentimes, early care and education is a hodgepodge of public and
private programs, child-care centers, family day-care homes, and
preschools and ironically the widespread concern for the provision and
quality of such programs has led to what some experts in this field
have called a non-system.

I'd like to tell you about one of the most ground-breaking studies in
the effectiveness of early learning programs, called the Abecedarian
Project, that is taking place at the University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill. This highly-regarded study has found that low-income
children who received comprehensive, quality early educational
intervention had higher scores on cognitive, reading, math tests than a
comparison group of children who did not receive the intervention.
These effects persisted through age 21. The study also found that young
people who had participated in the early education program were more
likely to attend a four-year college and to delay parenthood. And the
positive impact of the early learning program was not just limited to
the children, Mr. President. Mothers whose children participated in the
program achieved higher educational and employment status as well, with
particularly strong results for teen mothers.
Community collaboration allows a vast array of people to assess what
support children and families need, what resources are available in
their own community, and what new resources are necessary.
Collaboration is a way to meet the needs of parents who work full time.
For example, children who attend a state-financed half-day preschool
program in a child-care center are able to remain in the center after
the formal preschool program has ended until a parent finishes working
when linkages between disparate programs are made. This sort of
continuity can eliminate transportation problems that often plague
working families and stressful transitions for parents and children.
Child care and early learning are necessities for millions of
American families. Children of all income levels are cared for by
someone other than their parents. Each day, an estimated 13 million
children under age six--including children with mothers who work
outside the home and those with mothers who do not--spend some or all
of their day being cared for by someone other than their parents. Many
of these children enter non-parental care by 11 weeks of age, and often
stay in some form of child care until they enter school.
I commend my esteemed colleagues, Senator Stevens, Senator Jeffords,
Senator Bond, Senator Dodd, and the senior Senator from Massachusetts,
Senator Kennedy, who, as you all know, is a true leader in this area,
for working so diligently on this amendment. And I'm pleased to have
the opportunity to be here on the floor to discuss this bipartisan
legislation. Indeed, supporting states and local early learning
collaboratives is not a partisan

[[Page S3671]]

issue. In fact. Mr. President, the legislation that I introduced in the
105th and 106th Congresses, the Early Childhood Development Act, would
support a collaborative approach and sustain an early learning
infrastructure. My legislation has been supported by Senators on both
sides of the aisle. I commend my colleagues--Senator Bond, Senator
Gordon Smith, Senator Snowe, Senator Collins, and the late Senator
Chafee, for supporting this important, non-partisan educational
priority and approach to improving early learning opportunities for all
children. And I particularly commend the bipartisan group of leaders on
this amendment.
Early childhood programs are cost effective and can result in
significant savings in both the short- and the long-term. For example,
the High/Scope Foundation's Perry Preschool Study examined the long-
term impact of a good early childhood program for low-income children.
Researches found that after 27 years, each $1.00 invested in the
program saved over $7.00 by increasing the likelihood that children
would be literate, employed, and enrolled in postsecondary education,
and making them less likely to be school dropouts, dependent on
welfare, or arrested for criminal activity or delinquency. A study of
the short-term impact of a pre-kindergarten program in Colorado found
that it resulted in cost savings of $4.7 million over just three years
in reduced special education costs.
Child care and early learning are particularly important for low-
income children and children with other risk factors. Good early care
and education programs help children enter school ready to succeed in a
number of ways, and have a particularly strong impact on low-income
children who are at greater risk for school failure. Mr. President,
reading difficulties in young children can be prevented if children
arrive in the first grade with strong language and cognitive skills and
the motivation to learn to read, which are needed to benefit from
classroom instruction.
Law enforcement has attested to the importance of early learning
programs. A poll of police chiefs from across the country found that
nearly none out of ten (86 percent) said that ``expanding after-school
and child care programs like Head Start will greatly reduce youth crime
and violence.'' Nine out of ten also agreed that a failure to invest in
such programs to help children and youth now would result in greater
expenses later in crime, welfare, and other costs. Police chiefs ranked
providing ``more after-school programs and educational child care'' as
the most effective strategy for reducing youth violence four times as
often as ``prosecuting more juveniles as adults'' and five times as
often as ``hiring more police officers to investigate juvenile crime.''

I urge my colleagues to think about what is at stake here. Poverty
seriously impairs young children's language development, math skills,
IQ scores, and their later school completion. Poor young children also
are at heightened risk of infant mortality, anemia, and stunted growth.
Of the millions children under the age of three in the U.S. today, 25
percent live in poverty. Three out of five mothers with children under
three work, but one study found that 40 percent of the facilities at
child care centers serving infants provided care of such poor quality
as to actually jeopardize children's health, safety, or development.
Literally the future of millions of young people is at stake here.
Literally that's what we're talking about. But is it reflected in the
investments we make here in the Senate? I would, respectfully, say no--
not nearly enough, Mr. President. But today, during this debate on the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we have a genuine opportunity
to make a meaningful difference and contribution to the lives of poor
children in this country.
I'd also like to discuss the results of a study conducted by the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This study
has been following a group of children to compare the development of
children in high quality child care with that of children in lower
quality child care. Researchers have thus far tracked the children's
progress from age three through the second grade. At the end of this
most recent study period, children in high quality child care
demonstrated greater mathematics ability, greater thinking and
attention skills, and fewer behavioral problems. These differences held
true for children from a range of family backgrounds, with particularly
significant effects for children at risk.
Let me explain why this legislation is so fundamentally important and
why it is clear we are not doing enough to ensure that our youngest
children are exposed to meaningful learning opportunities:
A study in Massachusetts found that the supply of child care in
communities with large numbers of welfare recipients was much lower
than in higher-income communities. The 10 percent of zip code areas
with the greatest share of welfare recipients had just 8.3 preschools
operating per 1,000 children ages 3 to 5. This was one-third lower than
in high-income communities.
Four out of five children already know what it means to be in the
full-time care of someone other than one of their parents.
A study by the U.S. Department of Education found that public schools
in low income communities were far less likely to offer pre-
kindergarten programs (16 percent) than were schools in more affluent
areas (33 percent).
Kindergarten teachers estimate that one in three children enters the
classroom unprepared to meet the challenges of school.
Only 42 percent of low-income children between the ages of 3 and 5
are in pre-kindergarten programs compared with 65 percent of higher
income children.
Our country has struggled, and this body has struggled, with ways to
improve the lives of young, poor children in this country. The debate
we are engaged in today centers around how to more effectively educate
disadvantaged children, how to hold schools, administrators, and
teachers accountable for providing a high-quality education, and
ensuring that all children are given the opportunities to learn. Mr.
President, early learning is a critical element of the fundamentally
important goal of ensuring all children learn to high standards. We
must go where the children are--in child care centers, in family-based
care--and guarantee support of meaningful early learning services.
The intent of a collaborative approach to early education and child
care is to create a system that supports children's development and is
also responsive to the needs of working parents. We need to take action
in order to make a difference in the lives of our children before
they're put at risk, and this bipartisan approach is certainly a step
in the right direction, I believe a step the Senate must take. We need
to accept the truth, Mr. President, that we can do a lot more to help
our kids grow up healthy with promising futures in an early childhood
development center, in a classroom, and in a doctor's office than we
can in a courtroom or in a jail cell.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, for his
extraordinary leadership in this arena, as well as in the entire area
of education.
I think my colleagues will agree that there is no more forceful,
eloquent, or committed voice on the subject of children and of
education in the country. I am grateful for his leadership on their
particular issue.
I also join in thanking the Senator from Alaska for his passionate
and very firsthand commitment to this subject. He comes to this from a
place of real understanding. And I hope his colleagues on his side of
the aisle will recognize that this is not partisan. This is something
that has the capacity to bring both sides together to the advantage of
the children of America.
I also thank my colleague, Senator Bond, who joined me several years
ago in what was then a ground-breaking effort in the Senate to try to
recognize the capacity of collaboratives in the local communities to be
able to pick up much of this burden. For a long time, we spent an awful
lot of energy in the Senate reinventing the wheel. I think what we did
was try to say how we solve the problem without necessarily creating a
new Federal bureaucracy and without creating additional administrative
overhead. How do we play to the strengths of our mayors, of our local
charitable organizations, which do such an extraordinary job, and

[[Page S3672]]

which in so many cases are simply overburdened by the demand?

I think there is not one Member who is not aware of a Boys Club,
Girls Club, YMCA, YWCA, Big Brother-Big Sister, or any number of faith-
based entities, whether the Jewish community centers, the Catholic
charities, the Baptist Outreach--there are dozens upon dozens of
efforts--that successfully intervene in the lives of at-risk or
troubled young people and who succeed in turning those lives around.
This should not be categorized as a government program with all of
the pejoratives that go with the concept of government program. This
is, in effect, the leveraging of those efforts at the local level that
already work. The best guarantee that comes out of this amendment is
that it appeals to the capacity of the local communities to choose
which entities work and which entities don't. There is none of the
rhetoric that somehow attacks so easily the notions that seek to do
good and changes lives of people for the better, none of that rhetoric
that suggests that Washington is dictating this or there is a new
bureaucracy, or this is the long reach of the government at the Federal
level trying to tell the local level what to do. None of that applies
here.
This is a grant to local collaboratives with the Governors' input and
the input of those local charitable entities. They know best what is
working; they know best where that money can have the greatest return
on the investment. They will, therefore, decide what to do.
Let me address for a quick moment the common sense of this. Senator
Stevens talked about the science and brain development. Indeed, we have
learned a great deal about brain development. In fact, we are learning
even more each day.
Just this year, new evidence about brain development has been made
public which suggests that not only is the early childhood period so
critical for a particular kind of discipline, but we are now capable of
learning about the brain's functioning at different stages of
development through to the point of adulthood. A child in their early
teens, for instance, may be particularly susceptible to language input
and at a later stage of life to more analytical skills; at the earlier
stage of life much more subject to the early socialization skills and
the early recognition, cognitive skills such as recognizing shapes,
forms, numbers.
The problem in America is--every single one of us knows this--certain
communities don't have the tax base, don't have the income, and we will
find parents have a greater struggle to provide for a safe, nonchaotic
atmosphere within which their children can be brought up. Find a place
where children get the proper kind of early input and it makes a
difference in their capacity to go to school ready to learn. In an
affluent community, almost by 2 to 1 we find many more children are in
safe, competent, early childhood environments where they are well
prepared to go to school.
The consequences of not preparing a child to go to school at the
earliest stage ought to be obvious to everybody, but they are not. I
have heard from countless first grade schoolteachers who tell me in a
class of 25 to 30 kids, they might have 5 to 10 kids who do not have
the early cognitive skills their peers have, so the teacher is then
reduced in their capacity to be able to provide the accelerated effort
to the rest of the class because they are spending so much time trying
to help people catch up. Moreover, it takes longer for the children to
catch up.

There are a host of other disadvantages that come with the lack of
that early childhood education that often play out later in life,
sometimes in very dramatic ways, when they get in trouble with the law,
when they become violent, and when we spend countless billions of
dollars, literally billions of dollars, trying to remediate things that
could have been avoided altogether in the first place.
That is what this is all about. This is common sense. There are two
former Governors who will speak on this. I know what the Senator from
Ohio did because I followed what he did when he was a Governor. We used
some of what he did, as well as some of what was done by Governor Hunt
in North Carolina, as models for possibilities. There are Governors all
across this country who currently support wonderful, homegrown, locally
initiated, locally based efforts that save lives and change lives on an
ongoing basis.
We need to augment the capacity of all of those entities to reach all
of the children of America. If we did that, we could provide a tax cut
in the end to the American people. For the dollar invested at the
earliest stage, there is a back-end savings of anywhere from $6 to $7
per child, and sometimes much greater percentages in terms of the costs
of the social structure that we put in place to either mitigate, and
sometimes simply to isolate, people from society as a consequence of
those early deprivations.
This is not ``goo-goo'' social work. This is not do-goodism. It
doesn't fit into any kind of ideological label. This is something that
has worked all across the country.
I close by pointing to one very successful initiative that I visited
several years ago which became part of the basis of the collaboration
in which Senator Bond and I engaged.
In Allegheny County, PA, there is a thing called the Early Childhood
Initiative. This program helps low-income children from birth to age 5
to become successful, productive adults by enrolling them in high-
quality, neighborhood-based early care and education programs ranging
from Head Start to center-based child care, to home-based child care,
to school readiness programs. It draws on all of the corporate
community. The corporate community matches funds. The corporations
become involved with the charitable entities. The public sector becomes
involved. They join together to guarantee there are regular review
programs ensuring quality programming and cost effectiveness.
We are now talking about 19,000 preschool age children from low-
income families, 10,000 of which were not enrolled in any children's
care or education program prior to the childhood education initiative
being put in place.
May I add, this has been done to date with a small amalgamation of
Federal money, principally with corporate and local match and State
money.
This can be done. For a minimal amount of Federal dollars, you can
leverage an extraordinary outpouring of local match, of corporate
private sector involvement, all of which builds communities, all of
which in the end would make this country stronger and significantly
augment the capacity of our teachers, who are increasingly
overburdened, to be able to teach our children adequately.
I really hope this will be one amendment that does not fall victim to
partisanship or to predisposition. I think we ought to be able to come
to common agreement and common ground on this. I really commend it to
my colleagues on that basis.
I thank my colleagues for their forbearance.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators
Stevens, Kennedy and Jeffords and others in support of this amendment.
As we enter the new millenium, we have before us a unique opportunity
to enact legislation that will give every child the chance for the
right start in life.
Recent research on the brain has clearly demonstrated that the years
from birth to school enrollment are a hotbed of neurological activity--
an unparalleled opportunity for children to acquire the foundation for
learning.
While this seems to be common sense--and something that parents have
always know intuitively--in fact, it is only recently that parents'
intuition has been backed by evidence.
Until only 15 years ago, scientists still assumed that at birth a
baby's potential for learning was pretty firmly in place. We now know
that to be untrue.
Now we know that just in the first few months of life, the
connections between neurons, or synapses, in a child's brain will
increase 20-fold, to more than 1,000 trillion--more than all the stars
in the Milky Way.
In those months and years, the brain's circuitry is wired. With
attention and stimulation from parents and other caregivers, we begin
to see the permanent pathways for learning and caring forming in a
child's brain.
The downside to the plasticity of the brain is that it can be as
easily shaped

[[Page S3673]]

by negative experiences as positive experiences. Fear and neglect are
just as readily wired into the brain as caring and learning.
Scientists have also found that the brain's flexibility in those
early years is not absolute. Some skills can only be acquired during
defined windows of opportunity. Abilities, like sight and speech, that
are not wired into place within a certain critical period may be
unattainable--a ``use it or lose it'' phenomenon.
We see this phenomenon played out in the classroom. Kindergarten
teachers across the country tell us that as many as one in three
children begins the first day of school unprepared to learn. Because
they have never been read to, basic literacy skills have not taken
hold. Because they were never screened for health problems, they have
undiagnosed hearing or vision impairments.
If we accept the science of brain development, it's clear that is
where our investments should be.
The data is in and the facts are undisputable:
The experiences a child has in the years from birth to age 6 set the
stage for that child's later academic success.
Investing in early learning saves us money in the long run.
It is very simple--if children enter kindergarten and first grade
unprepared, they may never catch up. As a society, we pay dearly for
that lack of readiness. We pay in the lost potential of that child. We
pay in terms of higher special education costs. And we pay in terms of
increased juvenile justice costs.
There is no more fitting place for this amendment to be considered
than here as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--a very
appropriate place to formally recognize the fact that learning starts
at birth.
This amendment has two main objectives: To provide parents and others
who care for children with the skills and resources to support
children's development and to engage communities in providing early
learning opportunities for all children.
Because parents are children's first and best teachers, this
legislation would support their efforts to create healthy and
stimulating environments for their children.
But, knowing that more than 60 percent of children younger than age
six--regardless of whether their mothers work--are in some form of non-
parental care, this legislation would also support the efforts of child
care centers and home-based child care providers to offer positive
early learning experiences.
Importantly, the delivery system for all of these investments is the
community. Under this legislation, local councils of parents, teachers
and child care providers will assess the community's needs and
determine how to allocate resources.
In addition to using funds to support parents and other caregivers,
funds could be used:

To increase access to existing programs by expanding the
days or times that children are served or by making services
available to children in low-income families.
To enhance early childhood literacy.
To link early learning providers to one another and to
health services.
To improve quality of existing early learning programs
through recruitment, retention, and professional development
incentives, and
To increase early learning opportunities for children with
special needs.

If this model sounds familiar to you, it should. The strategy of
investing in early learning has been embraced in some form by over 42
governors.
In the laboratory of the states, governors, business leaders,
parents, and kindergarten teachers have decided that they are convinced
enough by the science and the facts to forge ahead.
In Connecticut, we are entering our third year of a wildly popular
school readiness initiative. As a result of this initiative, 41 cities
and towns are now providing high quality preschool experiences to over
6,000 children.
The results of this initiative in terms of improvements in school
readiness and reductions in special education costs have been so
significant that the Governor and legislature have almost doubled
funding in three years to $72 million.
Interestingly, perhaps the strongest backer of this initiative has
been the business community. The people who like to crunch numbers, to
see things in terms of costs and benefits looked at the facts and
decided that early learning was a wise investment. That says a lot.
States are doing their part. Many businesses are doing their part.
The federal government must do its part.
As we enter the 21st century, let's get our priorities straight.
We cannot and should not let this opportunity to make a real
difference in the lives of children and families across America pass us
by.
Our children are priceless--we shouldn't ``nickel and dime'' them
when it comes to providing the best possible start in life.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kerry for the work he and I
have done over the years on early childhood education. This amendment
by Senators Stevens and Jeffords and others builds on that because we
know that early in a child's development is the best time to begin the
process of assuring that child is well educated, well prepared--the
very earliest stages in life. This amendment recognizes if we do
everything possible for our Nation's children in their overall
education, we should begin at the earliest years.
While most of the debate on this bill will be about elementary and
secondary education--the years of what we might call formal schooling--
the education and mental development of a child begins long before that
child enters kindergarten. In fact, the education and development of a
child begins practically at birth and continues at an extremely rapid
pace through the first several years of life.
This amendment recognizes this basic fact--that a child's education
and mental development begins very early in life. Through this
amendment, we are seeking to support families with the youngest
children to find the early childhood education care programs that can
help those families and parents provide the supportive, stimulating
environment we all know their children need.
This amendment recognizes that if we want to do everything possible
for our nation's children and their overall education, we need to focus
on the earliest years as well as the years of formal schooling. We can
do this--and this amendment proposes to do this--by supporting and
expanding the successful early childhood programs and initiatives that
are working right now on the local level. These programs help parents
to stimulate and educate their young children in an effort to make sure
every child enters kindergarten fully ready to learn.
I am pleased to say that this amendment is based on the basic ideas
and principles I set forth in legislation that was first introduced
several years ago with my good friend from Massachusetts, Senator
Kerry.
Research shows that the first years of life are an absolutely crucial
developmental period for each child with a significant bearing on
future prospects. During this time, infant brain development occurs
very rapidly, and the sensations and experiences of this time go a long
way toward shaping that baby's mind in a way that has long-lasting
effects on all aspects of the child's life.
And parents and family are really the key to this development. Early,
positive interaction with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncle, and
other adults plays a critical role.
Really we shouldn't be surprised that parents have known
instinctively for generations some of these basic truths that science
is just now figuring out. Most parents just know that babies need to be
hugged, caressed, and spoken to.
Of course, the types of interaction that can most enhance a child's
development change as the baby's body and mind grow. The best types of
positive interaction--which are so instinctual to us for the youngest
babies--may not be quite so obvious for two- and three-year-olds.
Raising a child is perhaps the most important thing any of us will do,
but it is also one of the most complicated.
And parents today also face a variety of stresses and problems that
were unheard of a generation ago. In many families, both parents work.
Whether

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by choice or by necessity, many parents may not be able to read
mountains of books and articles about parenting and child development
to keep perfectly up-to-date on what types of experiences are most
appropriate for their child at his or her particular stage of
development. They also must try to find good child care and good
environments where their children can be stimulated and educated while
they work. Simply put, most parents can probably use a little help to
figure out how best to help a child's mind and imagination to grow as
much as possible.
Many communities across the country have developed successful early
childhood development programs to meet these needs. Most of the
programs work with parents to help them understand their child's
development and to discuss ways to help further develop the little
baby's potential. Others simply provide basic child care and an
exciting learning environment for children of parents who both have to
work.
In a report released in 1998, the prestigious RAND Corporation
reviewed early childhood programs like these and found that they
provide children, particularly high-risk children, with both short- and
long-run benefits. These benefits include enhanced development of both
the mind and the child's ability to interact with others. They include
improvement in educational outcomes. And they include a long-term
increase in self-sufficiency through finding jobs and staying off
government programs and staying out of the criminal justice system.
Of course, it's no mystery to people from my home state of Missouri
that this type of program can be successful. Missouri is the ``Show
Me'' state, an we have been shown first-hand the benefit of a top-
notice early childhood program. In Missouri, we are both proud and
lucky to be the home of Parents as Teachers. This tremendous
organization is an early childhood parent education program designed to
empower the parents to give their young child the best possible start
in life. It provides education for the parent on a volunteer basis.
Over 150,000 Missouri families are participating in it, with 200,000
children benefiting from it. It combines visits by the parent/educator
in the home to see the progress of the child. It provides ideas and
information to the parent to stimulate that child's learning curiosity.
It brings parents and children together in group sessions to discuss
common problems.

This program has been shown, by independent tests, to improve
significantly the learning capacity of children when they reach formal
schooling years. In addition, it hooks the parents into their child's
education for the future years. I personally, from my visits to over
100 of these sites around my State, can tell you it is clear to the
teachers, to the administrators, to the school board members, children
who have been in Parents as Teachers have an excellent start and they
are above and ahead of the other children who have not been so lucky.
This program is available through every school district in our State.
I have talked to mothers coming off welfare who say it is the most
important thing for their children. I have talked to farm families who
are struggling to make a living off the farm, who say it is the best
thing that can happen to their children. I have talked to economically
successful suburban families; mom and dad both have good jobs, not
enough time, but Parents as Teachers gives them the direction and the
tools so they can be the best first teachers of their children.
That is why it is called Parents as Teachers.
With additional resources, programs such as Parents as Teachers could
be expanded and enhanced to improve the opportunities for many more
infants and young children. And we have found that all children can
benefit from these programs. Economically successful, two-income
families can benefit from early childhood programs just as much as a
single-parent family with a mother seeking work opportunities.
This amendment will support families by building on local initiatives
like Parents as Teachers that have already been proven successful in
working with families as they raise their infants and toddlers. The
bill will help improve and expand these successful programs, of which
there are numerous other examples, such as programs sponsored by the
United Way, Boys and Girls Clubs, as well as state initiatives such as
``Success by Six'' in Massachusetts and Vermont and the ``Early
Childhood Initiative'' in Pennsylvania.
The amendment will provide Federal funds to states to begin or expand
local initiatives to provide early childhood education, parent
education, and family support. Best of all, we propose to do this with
no Federal mandates, and few Federal guidelines.
Many of our society's problems, such as the high school dropout rate,
drug and tobacco use, and juvenile crime can be traced in part to
inadequate child care and early childhood development opportunities.
Increasingly, research is showing us that a child's social and
intellectual development as well as a child's likelihood to become
involved in these types of difficulties is deeply rooted in the early
interaction and nurturing a child receives in his or her early years.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that the likelihood of a
child growing up in a healthy, nurturing environment is the primary
responsibility of his or her parents and family. Government cannot and
should not become a substitute for parents and families, but we can
help them become stronger by equipping them with the resources to meet
the everyday challenges of parenting.
I believe this amendment can accomplish this and dramatically improve
the life and education of millions of the youngest Americans.
I invite any of my colleagues, or anyone else who wants to know more
about this program, to let me know because we have seen this program
copied in other States, in other countries. It really can make a
difference for children. I believe the support this amendment will
provide for early childhood education is one of the best things we can
do to assure the highest quality educational achievement for all of our
children.
The screening for young children that goes along with it helps avoid
problems and more than pays for the cost of the education programs. I
believe this amendment, if we adopt it, can be a tremendous boost for
children of all walks of life throughout our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I have been very impressed with the
words of my colleagues, the two Senators from Massachusetts, the
Senator from Alaska, the Senator from Vermont, and now the Senator from
Missouri.
One of the things I decided on doing when I came to the Senate was to
bring my passion for early childhood development to the Senate and to
encourage my colleagues to give a much higher priority to children age
prenatal to 3 than we have been giving in this country. Early childhood
development, especially covering children age prenatal to 3, is
fundamental if this Nation is to achieve the first of our eight
national education goals, and that is, ``all children in America will
start school ready to learn.''
There are great programs for children, such as Head Start, which
Congress has supported for 35 years. I am proud that when I was
Governor of Ohio, we increased spending for Head Start by 1,000
percent. So in our State today, every eligible child whose parent wants
them in a Head Start Program has a slot for that child. Even though
Head Start has made a tremendous impact on our children, we must
recognize that the program is designed for 3- and 4-year-olds. The
period in a child's life in which we have not invested enough in this
country, and the period on which we need to start concentrating, is the
period in a child's life from prenatal to age 3. It is the time in a
child's life that has the most impact on their overall development.
Thanks to decades of research on brain chemistry, and through the
utilization of sophisticated new technology, neuroscientists are now
telling us that within the first 3 months in the womb, children start
to develop the 100 billion neurons they will need as adults. By the
time they reach the age of 3, children have all the necessary
connections--what we call synapses--between brain cells that cause the
brain to function properly.

[[Page S3675]]

What I am saying is almost frightening. If we do not create an
appropriate environment for our children prenatal to age 3, they
physically do not develop these synapses in their brains, and they are
incapable of using what God has given them in the most efficient way
possible.
In terms of priorities, the experiences that fill a child's first
days, months, and years have a critical and decisive impact on the
development of the brain and on the nature and extent of their adult
capacities--in other words, who they are going to become. The window of
opportunity can be impacted by things that are within our control.
We found, for example, children who lack proper nutrition, health
care, and nurturing during their first years tend also to lack adequate
social, motor, and language skills needed to perform well in school.
That is why all young children, parents, and care givers of those
children should have access to information and support services
appropriate for promoting healthy early childhood development in the
first years of life, including child care, early intervention services,
parenting education, health care, and other child development services.
This new revelation requires that States streamline and coordinate
healthy early childhood development systems. It also necessitates that
the Federal Government reorder its education priorities to reflect the
importance of a child's learning and growing experiences from prenatal
to age 3.
This amendment responds to the obvious shortcomings of the Federal
Government's partnership with State governments and encourages States
to coordinate and galvanize all public and private assets on the State
and local level.
The amendment authorizes the expenditure of some $3.2 billion over
the next 3 years to make grants available to our States, and
subsequently to the counties, in order to provide or improve early
learning services for young children.
I want to underscore, this is not a new entitlement. I want to
emphasize, what we are trying to do is prioritize money we are already
spending for education and put more of it into early development
programs where it is going to make the biggest difference for our
children.

In order to receive this money, it does one other thing I think is
very important. In too many communities in the United States, local
social service, public, and private agencies do not cooperate and
combine their resources. They do not collaborate enough to deliver
services to children in their community. This amendment will require
that:

A State shall designate a lead State agency . . . to
administer and monitor the grant and ensure State-level
coordination of early learning programs.

For their part, localities must also follow guidelines to be eligible
to receive funds. Again, from the bill, ``a locality shall establish or
designate a local council, which shall be composed of--representatives
of local agencies directly affected by early learning programs;
parents; other individuals concerned with early learning issues in the
locality, such as individuals providing child care resource and
referral services, early learning opportunities, child care, education
and health services; and other key community leaders.'' This could also
include faith-based community organizations.
We are saying that unless a State gets its act together and gets its
agencies that deal with families and children into a lead state agency
in order to coordinate activities, and unless local communities come
together in collaboratives, the money will not flow to those
collaboratives.
In a way, it is an inducement for local private-public agencies to
get together to talk about how they can look at the early period in a
child's life and make a difference and galvanize all the resources in
the community.
It will help eliminate some of the turf problems throughout this
country where agencies do their own thing without working with other
agencies.
It will encourage agencies to understand they have a symbiotic
relationship with each other, and by working together, they can make a
difference on behalf of the children in their respective communities.
In Ohio, we established the Ohio Family and Children First Initiative
which was driven by locally based providers and not bureaucrats. The
initiative developed a plan to meet the health, education, and social
service needs of disadvantaged children and families and develop an
action plan to meet those needs by eliminating barriers, coordinating
programs, and targeting dollars.
We started out in Ohio with only 9 programs in 13 of our 88 counties.
We put out an RFP and said those counties that get their act together
can participate in the program. It was such a success that today all 88
counties that have these collaboratives that are making a difference in
the lives of our children.
In my own county, we have a wonderful example of what can happen when
agencies work together. The Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Initiative
has undertaken a 3-year $40 million pilot program to promote and
improve effective parenting, healthy children, and quality child care
in order to assure the well-being of all children in the county from
birth through age 5.
Under this collaborative partnership, which began last July, $30
million comes from a combination of local, State, and Federal sources,
and $8.5 million has thus far been committed by 18 local foundations.
In other words, this is a program where we are combining local, State,
and Federal resources and private resources to make an impact on these
youngsters.
One of the more innovative aspects of this initiative is that it
guarantees a visit by a registered nurse, if requested, to every first-
time and teen mother in the county. These nurses help identify health
and social service needs of both moms and babies, and link families
with services that underscore and highlight the importance of a child's
first 3 years.
I will never forget when I was Governor, for my 1998 State of the
State Address, I invited people who were benefiting from some of the
programs we instituted. One of the individuals I invited was a woman
from one of our rural counties.
I asked her before the State of the State Address: What did this
program do for you? This may sound elementary, but she said: I had my
baby, I came home, I put the baby in the crib, and I watched
television. When the nurse came out, she said that I should hold my
baby, I should sing to my baby, I should read to my baby. She taught me
how to use Ziploc bags to make picture books so that I could look at
those pictures with my baby. I was told the more I stimulated and spent
time with that baby, the more that baby would develop the brain power
that God had given her.
Another program we put in place was Help Me Grow, which gives new
mothers in Ohio a wellness guide, an informational video, and access to
a telephone helpline so that, right from the beginning, new mothers can
get the information they need and know where they can turn for help.
Again, it is a private sector initiative that came about as a result
of the Family and Children First Initiative. In other words, a woman
has a baby at the hospital. She gets a 30-minute video which tells her
how to be a better mother. A nurse spends time with her. It is a ``how
to do it'' initiative.

This may be hard to believe, but women all over this country are
having babies and need help in what to do when that child is born. This
program is going to help make that possible.
The amendment from the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from
Vermont will expand the collaborative effort nationwide. This amendment
conditions the Federal dollars that localities receive through the lead
State agency on the ability of communities to come together and
establish collaborative efforts. That means, as I said, putting aside
the ``turf battles'' and galvanizing the resources.
I want to emphasize how important this is. These Federal dollars will
be what I refer to as ``the yeast that raises the dough.'' In other
words, these funds will act as seed money generating additional local
and State resources, and better use of Federal resources, as well as
private sector and foundation funds, all to help our children. I know
this program is going to work because of the way it has worked in the
State of Ohio. Early childhood has been a passion of mine since my

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four children were enrolled in a storefront Montessori school when they
were just out of diapers.
On the Federal level, the Governors understand how important this
program is. In 1998, some 42 Governors chose to highlight early
childhood development as a major portion of their State agendas. With
this amendment, we will make the Federal Government become a more
effective partner with State governments. It will kick start the local
and State agencies to better coordinate and collaborate so we can
maximize all the resources that are available in the community.
More important, this will give us the opportunity to take the God-
given qualities of our most important resource in this country--our
children--and provide them the environment they need to fully develop
during their most crucial period in life.
Finally--and again I underscore for my colleagues--this is not a new
entitlement. It is my hope that my colleagues on the Labor-HHS
Appropriations Subcommittee will reprioritize some of the funds we
currently spend on education and other health and social services
toward early childhood development.
To track what happens with these Federal funds, the amendment
requires that States report back on what they have been able to
accomplish, ensuring there is accountability for these resources.
This amendment is about our children's future. It is about our
country's future. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment on a
bipartisan basis. Of all of the things we can do for children in this
country, the most important thing we can do is impact on them during
this most important period in their life, and what we do during this
period in a child's life, in my opinion, is going to be the best
investment we can make in our children. All the research shows that for
every dollar we invest during a child's earliest years, we save $4 and
$5 later on in their lives.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, yesterday Senator Kennedy asked me about
the source of one of the statistics I quote during the debate on S. 2.
I am pleased to provide the Senator from Massachusetts with the source
for my statistics.
During the 105th Congress, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigation of the Committee on Education and the Workforce prepared
an excellent report, entitled, ``Education at a Crossroads: What Works
and What's Wasted in Education Today.'' I am pleased to share an
excerpt from it with my colleagues. This report concludes that:

One of the main problems with delivering federal education
aid to states and communities through such a vast array of
programs is the added cost of paperwork and personnel
necessary to apply for an keep track of the operations of
each of these programs. Many of the costs are hidden in the
burdens placed on teachers and administrators in time and
money to complete federal forms for this multitude of
overlapping federal programs.
In 1996, Governor Voinovich of Ohio noted that local
schools in his state had to submit as many as 170 federal
reports totaling more than 700 pages during a single year.
This report also noted that more than 50 percent of the
paperwork required by a local school in Ohio is a result of
federal programs--this despite the fact that the federal
government accounts for only 6 percent of Ohio's educational
spending.
The Subcommittee has attempted to quantify the number of
pages required by recipients of federal funds in order to
qualify for assistance. Without fully accounting for all the
attachments and supplemental submissions required with each
application, the Subcommittee counted more than 20,000 pages
of applications.
So how much time is spent completing this paperwork? In the
recently released strategic plan of the Department of
Education, the administration highlights the success of the
Department in reducing paperwork burdens by an estimated 10
percent--which according to their own estimates accounts for
5.4 million man hours in FY 97. If this statistic is
accurate, it would mean that the Department of Education is
still requiring nearly 50 million hours worth of paperwork
each year--or the equivalent of 25,000 employees working
full-time. [page 15]

Mr. President, this paper chase, as I suggested yesterday, has our
nation's teachers and administrators spinning their wheels on the
requirements of a federal education bureaucracy instead of
concentrating on teaching and meeting the needs of students. Our
educational system has been taken over by a federally driven emphasis
on form rather than substance.
While I commend Secretary Riley's 10 percent reduction effort, we
need to go much further in order to put our education emphasis where it
needs to be--in classrooms, not on process requirements. I am committed
to helping reduce the amount of paperwork teachers and administrators
must fill out. S. 2 goes a long way to easing this burden.

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