As they flew back to Washington earlier this month after celebrating their joint education bill, the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush and Senator Edward M. Kennedy held an extended conversation about the need to boost early childhood education, and that conversation may soon lead to legislation, according to reporter Anne Kornblut of The Boston Globe. Last week, First Lady Laura Bush appeared as a star witness on early childhood education at a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Kennedy chairs. Though many Democrats may not be thrilled about giving Bush another chance to claim bipartisanship, the President is expected to announce the details of a new proposal for early learning in the coming weeks. Improving early childhood education is expected to have payoffs for both regular education and special education; a report released by the National Research Council earlier this month urges the government to increase its emphasis on early childhood education as a way of reducing the number of minorities in special education, among other things. The report, "Minority Students In Special and Gifted Education," recommends that states adopt a screening and intervention strategy for children at risk of developing reading problems and that the federal government support this. The mixed quality of preschool experienced by children today was brought home by a study published by the Massachusetts Department of Education last week which found that 65 percent of preschools and day-care centers in the Bay State fail to provide effective programs to develop language and thinking skills in their students. For more, see "Bush, Kennedy work on preschool plan," by Anne Kornblut, The Boston Globe, January 22, 2002 (article must be purchased); "Minority Students In Special and Gifted Education," Committee on Minority Representation in Special Education, M. Suzanne Donovan and Christopher T. Cross, Editors, National Research Council; and "Study: Many preschool programs fail," by Ed Hayward, Boston Herald, January 19, 2002 (article must be purchased).
