In recent years, providsion of early learning experiences to children has found a place on political agendas nationwide. Increasingly, early childhood education is viewed as a point of leverage for addressing low levels of, and gaps in, K-12 achievement. This article discusses what people know about the quality of existing early-childhood programs. It describes how to best measure quality in the early education classroom, what a high-quality early-childhood education classroom looks like, how good the early childhood education currently is, the difficulty of finding well trained early educators, and the challenges of improving early education practices. (Contains 1 figure.)