New America
Education Policy

As They Happened: House and Senate Hearings on Early Education Research and Policy

Blog Post
By 

Conor P. Williams

Feb. 7, 2014
This was an exciting week for early education policy watchers in Washington, D.C. Committees in the House and Senate each held hearings on the state of early education research and policy.
  • In the House, the Education and Workforce Committee's hearing was titled, The Foundation for Success: Discussing Early Childhood Education and Care in America," and you can watch a video here.
  • In the Senate, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee's hearing was titled, "Supporting Children and Families through Investments in High-Quality Early Education," and you can watch a video here.
But why watch the hearings when you can read a livetweeted record of both hearings from my colleagues and I (along with others from D.C.'s education policy community)?

Here's Wednesday's hearing in the House:

The theme from the House Republicans was relatively clear:As evidence, they provided a jumbled graphic (dis)organizer—which you can find here. They also touted testimony from the Government Accountability Office's Kay E. Brown, who noted that different federal programs sometimes offer similar services and pushed for more/better coordination. However...Rep. George Miller (D-CA) defended the approach of spreading federal early education dollars throughout other social programs:Delaware Office of Early Learning Executive Director Harriet Dichter (who spoke at New America last fall) agreed:New America alum Maggie Severns:In addition to streamlining and targeting existing programs, the Brookings Institution's Russ Whitehurst suggested that states could improve parents' early education options by collecting and disseminating better evidence on existing providers:Whitehurst also challenged the research basis for early education investments:The Upjohn Institute's Tim Bartik was having none of it:

The House Democrats agreed with Bartik:

High-quality early education is outstanding for kids, but it's also great for parents:

Dichter agreed:

 

What else? A glimmer of a wisp of a shadow of a hope that Head Start could be reauthorized soon:

And there was bipartisan agreement on one thing: Dichter's snow-plagued commute from Delaware was heroic.

 

Here's Thursday's hearing in the Senate:

 

No question on Thursday's theme:

Senate Republicans offered less skepticism than their House colleagues regarding the early education research base.

But they offered a similar critique of the proliferation of federal early education dollars.Louisiana State Superintendent John White agreed:So did Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD):Though...NYU Professor Hirokazu Yoshikawa (whose recent work was part of an event at New America) offered the research perspective:Danielle Ewen, the Director of the Office of Early Childhood Education for Washington, D.C.'s public schools, offered examples from the District's near-universal pre-K program:Which is a big deal for my family:My favorite moment from both hearings:By the end, the hearing drifted into metaphysics:Both committees promised more early education hearings—presumably within this cosmos—so stay tuned for more in the months to come."