Research shows that one of the best investments we can make in a child's life is high-quality early education," President Barack Obama told the nation during his
January 27 State of the Union address. It was a repeat message from his previous year's address, when he asked Congress to make high-quality preschool available to every 4-year-old. Congress didn't.
"In the meantime, 30 states have raised pre-K funding on their own," Obama continued. "They know we can't wait."
And neither can Seattle.
While our federal and state governments have done a great job in recent years both in making the case for universal high-quality preschool and in defining what a high-quality program might look like, they've done jack shit to put their money where their mouth is. So under the leadership of Seattle City Council president Tim Burgess, Seattle is preparing to go it alone. And if you want an idea of what Burgess has in mind, you might want to look at Boston, because that's what the council is doing.
