CHICAGO – The First Five Years Fund today praised administration officials for committing $500 million to improve education outcomes for America’s youngest and most vulnerable children. This competitive grant program to states will play an essential role in improving our children’s educational futures and in strengthening the nation’s economy.

“If we want to significantly improve child outcomes, we need to start with some basics, and we need to start before kindergarten,” said First Five Years Fund Executive Director Cornelia Grumman. “Infants, toddlers and preschoolers thrive when they receive quality teaching, appropriate assessments and high standards. This early learning initiative is an unprecedented opportunity to make dramatic progress toward those goals by motivating all states to improve their early learning systems. This initiative is about delivering higher quality services in the most cost-efficient way possible, drawing on a raft of scientific and economic research.”

The unprecedented $500 million investment represents a significant portion of the $700 million in FY11’s Race to the Top budget allocation and will be administered jointly by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Funds will be directed to help states improve outcomes for at-risk infants, toddlers, and preschoolers by building statewide early learning systems and changing the way programs and services are coordinated, designed, and implemented.

“The First Five Years Fund is grateful for the commitment to early learning demonstrated today by President Obama, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,” Grumman said. “This investment is a hard-earned down payment in an ongoing campaign to provide the nation’s most vulnerable children with what they need to be successful and, ultimately, to create greater economic prosperity for all of us.”

Starting today, the public may provide input, including data and relevant research, by visiting http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/05/rtt-early-learning-challenge/.

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First Five Years Fund
First Five Years Fund helps America achieve better results in education, health and economic productivity by advocating for greater public investment—particularly at the federal level—in quality early childhood education for children most at risk.