President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address,
announced a plan for early education for all Americans. Leading
economists agree that high-quality early learning programs can
help level the playing field for children from lower-income
families on vocabulary, social and emotional development while
helping students to stay on track and stay engaged in the early
elementary grades, he said. The president called on Congress to
expand access to high-quality preschool to every child in
America. He is proposing a new federal-state partnership to
provide all low- and moderate-income 4-year-old children with
high-quality preschool. Competitive grants would be available
for communities that expand Early Head Start and child care
providers for infants and toddlers. The president has committed
$1.5 billion to expand home visitation of nurses, social workers
and other professionals to connect families to services. The
question is how to pay for this ambitious plan. Even if
competitive grants are awarded to some