No Child Left Behind and Early Ed: Prospects for 2008

Public debate on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind has focused little attention on the preschool and early elementary years. Yet evidence shows that the foundations of children’s future academic success or failure are largely in place by the end of third grade, and as much as half of the achievement gap between white and African American students exists before children enter first grade.

The panelists at this New America event discussed how the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind could be used to support state and local efforts to improve preschool quality and access, as well as early elementary learning, and the prospects for early education reforms, and No Child Left Behind reauthorization generally, when Congress takes these issues up again in 2008. In addition, the panelists discussed some of the ideas in an issue brief released at the event, 10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization. Moderated by David Hoff of Education Week, the panel also consisted of Nina Rees from Knowledge Universe Education, Kathy Patterson from Pre-K Now, Amy Wilkins from the Education Trust and Sara Mead, a Senior Research Fellow in the Education Policy Program of the New America Foundation and the author of the 10 New Ideas issue brief.

A video or audio recording of this event can be found here. For a copy of the issue brief, please click here.

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