In light of this morning's release of Fordham's open letter, this article from Tuesday's NY Times seemed all the more appropriate. It's about early childhood education, which President-elect Obama brought up many times during the campaign (more times, say, than NCLB), and which was a highlight of his Duncan announcement speech in Chicago. In fact, during that speech (during which, of course, NCLB was, again, not mentioned), Obama repledged $10 billion to early childhood programs. This part was particularly telling:??
And the $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers.
???People are absolutely ecstatic,??? said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. ???Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.?????
Let's just hope this isn't the first leak of Obama's education platform. As the Notorious B.I.G. wisely once said, (when it comes to education policies and the federal government) "It's like the more money we come across, the more problems we see."
