Kid Congress

What is Strong Start?

 

Senator Tom Harkin and Representatives George Miller and Richard Hanna introduced the Strong Start for America's Children Act, a 10-year federal-state partnership designed to expand and improve early learning birth through age 5.

 

The Act provides new hope for our youngest and most vulnerable learners, expanding access to high quality early childhood development and learning opportunities for low-income children and those with special needs from birth through age 5. 

 

Key Provisions of the Act

• Promotes funding for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program

• Improve sschool readiness

• Funds partnerships between child care and Early Head Start -- helping child care centers and family care organizations to meet Head Start performance standards within 3 years and increasing access to high-quality, full-day care child care for infants and toddlers.

• Provides federal matching grants to states to fund high-quality preschool for all 4-year-olds in families up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

• Promotes access to high-quality, full-day kindergarten.

 

Importance of Early Learning

This Act draws on years of research on what works in early childhood education. Investing in quality early childhood development and learning is an effective poverty prevention strategy - we know that children who experience high quality early childhood experiences are more likely to graduate from high school, hold a job, make more money, and are less likely to commit a crime than their peers who don’t participate. Quality early childhood education delivers a high return on investment - Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman estimates a lifelong economic rate of return of 7 to 10 percent per year per dollar invested in early childhood education.