Web Resources: Children's Defense Fund

Throughout this course, I have been familiarizing myself with The Children's Defense Fund. I have so much respect for this organization and encourage anyone and everyone to check it out. There is a section dedicated specifically to early childhood education and care that certainly pertains to my professional development. It contains success stories of children who have beaten the odds and been very successful despite their circumstances. This week, their is a video about a girl named Angie Salazar, a first generation Hispanic woman, who attended Head Start programs as a child and ended up making her way to Harvard. Here is the video:

The Children's Defense Fund uses success stories like this to advocate for programs such as Head Start so that they do not lose their funding.

I found a link to this article: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3405 and found the topic controversial. Over 150,000 children are currently at risk of losing their ability to attend Head Start due to budget cuts. It really makes you realize that Head Start is more than just a program for early childhood education, but more of a foundation for success in life. Children who are denied access to quality education are more at risk and miss out on valuable education. So much more is at stake if we allow these programs to disappear!

This article http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110304/NEWS02/303039853/-1/NEWSSITEMAP shows political support in the early childhood field. "U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., introduced a bill Thursday aimed at helping states invest in early learning so that more low-income children have access to high-quality education." He goes on to say that "Investing in early learning pays off; this legislation will establish a one-time investment to help states raise the bar on program quality." It is always nice to see a politician advocating for any early childhood related cause. This article also showed economist support of the early childhood field through statistics. "According to data released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, proven early-childhood programs, like high-quality prekindergarten, are helping states like Pennsylvania close the educational achievement gap." Sen. Casey closed by saying "[these programs] help produce the qualified workers that the state, and our nation, need for a prosperous future." Hopefully he is able to make a difference in the early childhood field through his advocacy. We could use more politicians like him!

Other insight I have learned from exploring this web site is the shear importance of advocacy. Without advocates for early childhood, the word would not get spread and nothing would get accomplished. We need politicians such as Senator Casey to stand up and advocate for high quality programs for children so that we can ensure a better future for all of them. So speak up and advocate!