Original Source | Brookings - The Brown Center Chalkboard
By Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Wednesday February 20, 2013

When I began writing reports on preschool a month ago, first with a piece on Head Start and then another on Universal Pre-K, I had an inkling that the Obama administration was considering initiatives in this area. I had no idea that preschool policy would be a centerpiece of the president’s state of the union address. I’ve been popular since. Thank you, Mr. President, for drawing attention to my work, no matter how inadvertently.

Original Source | CNN
By Tom Cohen, Thursday February 14, 2013

(CNN) -- For a second straight day, President Barack Obama touted proposals from his State of the Union address at a campaign-style event outside of Washington, this time visiting a Georgia preschool where youngsters on a winter break showed up to mimic a regular day.

Obama's visit to the College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center, in the city of Decatur just outside Atlanta, followed his call in Tuesday night's speech to Congress for investments in high-quality early childhood education programs. 

The president spent time in a classroom where he hugged some students -- who told him they saw him on television -- and praised the teachers he said were giving their students a boost into the educational system.

Original Source | MSNBC
By Aliyah Frumin, Thursday February 14, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama plays a game with children in a pre-kindergarten classroom at College Heights early childhood learning center in Decatur February 14, 2013. Obama flew to Georgia to push his plan to ensure high-quality preschool, unveiled during his State of the Union address this week. REUTERS/Jason ReedPresident Obama is wasting no time pushing the proposals from his State of the Union.

The commander-in-chief visited a classroom in Decatur, Georgia on Thursday to expand on his plan for universal preschool.

After visiting a pre-k class at College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center, where he played with children, Obama told an audience there that “education has to start at the earliest possible age, and that’s what you have realized here in Decatur.”

Original Source | New York Times
By David Brooks, Thursday February 14, 2013

Today millions of American children grow up in homes where they don’t learn the skills they need to succeed in life. Their vocabularies are tiny. They can’t regulate their emotions. When they get to kindergarten they’ve never been read a book, so they don’t know the difference between the front cover and the back cover.

But, starting a few decades ago, we learned that preschool intervention programs could help. The efforts were small and expensive, but early childhood programs like the Perry and Abecedarian projects made big differences in kids’ lives. The success of these programs set off a lot of rhapsodic writing, including by me, about the importance of early childhood education. If government could step in and provide quality preschool, then we could reduce poverty and increase social mobility.

Original Source | New York Magazine
By Jonathan Chait, Thursday February 14, 2013

The Obama administration today unveiled an ambitious new plan to expand pre-kindergarten education. The proposal would not only guarantee pre-kindergarten education for all children from families up to twice the poverty line, it would also expand nurse visitation and other services to children from birth. Very early education is the most promising frontier of social science — Jonathan Cohn wrote a masterful overview story explaining how new research about the development of minds at a very young age is turning the education of babies and young children into a vital public policy issue.