Launch a Children's First Agenda

Children's First Agenda hits some snags

Updated: Monday, December 21st, 2009 | By Louis Jacobson

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "launch a Children's First Agenda that provides care, learning and support to families with children from birth up to 5 years old."
 
In searches through Whitehouse.gov, Google and Nexis, we found no mention that the administration had launched an agenda with that name. But in his budget request for the Education Department, we did find a mention of two key elements of a presidential "Zero-to-Five" initiative, which seemed closely related.
 
The budget request of $800 million -- "part of a down payment on the President's Zero-to-Five initiative to improve early childhood education," as the administration put it -- included $500 million for a new program of Title I Early Childhood Grants and $300 million for the first phase of the Early Learning Challenge Fund. Both programs would partner with states to boost pre-K learning resources.
 
However, neither the House nor the Senate agreed to fund the program, and when an omnibus appropriations bill that included the Education Department reached the president's desk in December, Obama signed it even though neither program received a dime.
 
We expect the administration to continue pushing for early-childhood funding, but so far, it has neither produced something called a "Children's First Agenda" nor succeeded in securing the $800 million it had sought as a "down payment" on a similar-sounding early-childhood education initiative. So for now, we rate this one Stalled.

Sources:

Education Department, " Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Summary — May 7, 2009 ," accessed Dec. 18, 2009
 
Education Department, " Department of Education Fiscal Year 2010 Congressional Action ," accessed Dec. 18, 2009
 
Internet and Nexis searches that produced no results