President Obama's latest budget proposal includes $19.5 billion dollars from Congress for early education and care programs. “These funds would expand Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for children in poverty, as well as open up more money for states to continue building their own preschool and childcare programs,” says Maya Sugarman, a host of KPCC's show Take Two, who talked with Deborah Stipek, the Judy Koch Professor of Education and former dean at Stanford Graduate School of Education, to learn more about the status of early childhood education.
Listen to the interview on the website of KPCC: Take 2
Deborah Stipek is one of the nation's foremost experts on early childhood education. She speaks and writes frequently about the needs of young children and new ways to help them learn. In this article from Slate she explains the changing demands on preschool teachers. She has had articles about the benefits of universal early childhood education in such publications as Parenting magazine and San Jose Mercury News. In November she was named faculty director of Stanford's Haas Center for Public Service.