Federal spending on early childhood education and care exceeds $25 billion annually. President Obama and other proponents of taxpayer-funded universal preschool want to add $10 billion as an incentive for the states to expand their early childhood education and care programs--with the goal of giving all children access to state-subsidized…

House Democrats recently unveiled draft legislation for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Widely touted as an economic stimulus package, the $825 billion draft legislation included as much as $142 billion for education. This includes the creation of a $79 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to assist state governments in…

The U.S. Senate will soon render its advice and consent to the nomination of Chicago Public Schools Chief Arne Duncan to be secretary of education. The word "education" is not mentioned in the Constitution, and the federal government has historically played a limited role in funding and regulating public education across the country. The federal…

More than a decade after offering students universal preschool, neither Georgia nor Oklahoma has shown impressive progress in student academic achievement, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As Congress considers whether the federal government should encourage states to offer universal preschool, the author advocates…

The authors of this memo to President-elect Barack Obama state that many in Congress are now proposing that the federal government intervene to address a range of problems in education by creating new programs and federal subsidies, including public school infrastructure and construction, funding for runaway college tuition costs, and the costs of…

As the 39-year-old federal Head Start program once again comes before Congress for reauthorization, several unanswered questions that have dogged the program since its inception should be considered: (1) Does it work? (2) Does it make any difference in the long run? and (3) Will modest changes supported by the Bush Administration gain traction?…

The author reacts to the impending reauthorization of the Head Start program by questioning evidence of its long-term impact and making several recommendations for reform: (1) Strengthen Head Start school readiness standards; (2) Guarantee civil rights protections for faith-based providers; (3) Encourage state innovation and improvement; and (4)…