Sen. Clinton pushes for pre-K education

Wednesday, 23 May 2007

Page 1 of 2 Hillary Clinton By Dan McCue Striving to provide enhanced peace of mind for working parents and to help grow a future work force to fill high-skill jobs that now go unfilled, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has proposed the creation of a universal pre-kindergarten education program for every 4-year-old in the nation. Clinton, who discussed her proposal with the SCBIZ Daily during a conference call from Washington, D.C., said statistics show that across the country many children are already behind the learning curve when they enter kindergarten, rarely manage to catch up and often drop out. And not just out of school, but also out of being productive members of the nation's work force. "Business organizations across the country look at the same statistics we do, and have made universal pre-K one of their top agenda items," Clinton said. "They understand that having such a program will provide working parents with the opportunity to have their children in a meaningful program while at work, rather than just warehousing them.” This, she said, would provide immediate peace of mind and sense of satisfaction for those parents, making them better able to focus on their jobs and be more productive. At the same time, Clinton said, a universal pre-K program would help better grow and prepare the work force of the future to compete in a highly competitive global marketplace. "This is a competitive race, and one that's taking place in a technologically advanced world," Clinton said. "Everyone points to the jobs that have gone overseas, but the reality is that there are jobs in America that go wanting because we don't have workers with the skills to perform them. "There's a miss-match there. Personally, I think universal pre-kindergarten is the smartest way to begin to address this in the short term, and, in the long term, will provide better employees." Clinton described her universal pre-kindergarten proposal as an extension of her belief that every child, no matter what their family's means, deserves the opportunity to succeed. “That's something I've fought for for over 35 years,” she said. << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>