The US Presidential hopefuls on early childhood

So I thought with less than 3 weeks out from the US Presidential election it might be worth having a look at who's saying what on early childhood education in the States. Obama has certainly been talking it up and it was his mention of it again in yesterday's Presidential debate that made me jump on the Web to see what the two hopefuls are saying. I AM a supporter of Barack so it shouldn't surprise anyone that I prefer his policy ideas better but I will try to be objective and provide appropriate links so you can assess them yourselves...

Firstly McCain and Palin. McCain seems to be focusing all of his early childhood policy energy on expanding the Head Start program, specifically establishing Centres of Excellence. A centre will be deemed 'excellent' if they have a demonstrated record of preparing children for school. The school readiness theme permeates throughout the rest of the commitment, including how to measure quality and how teachers need to be accountable.

"Standards for quality should be centered on the child and outcome-based. Every federally supported program (including Head Start) must include meaningful, measurable standards designed to determine that students are ready for school by measuring their school readiness skills".

'School readiness' is one of those catch phrases that many in the early childhood field generally loath. Of course children who have the opportunity to experience early childhood programs are usually more equipped to handle formal school entry, however just focusing on readiness narrows funding arguments down to simplistic mechanisms that don't truly recognise the broader possibilities of early childhood education and can additionally have some scary consequences for pedagogy and the way in which early childhood education is perceived in the community.

McCain says nothing about child care. Quite possibly he could say something about it somewhere else in his policy spiels but if he can't figure out that care and education are a combined policy area by now, well he's got much bigger problems than I care to explore.

Obama-Biden. Obama has been talking about early childhood for a few years now. Like any politician he uses the economic evidence to argue for its necessity as a key policy area and also talks about children going to school 'ready to learn' although it doesn't dominate his rhetoric like it does McCain's.

In this speech made late last year he talks of how he was instrumental in establishing an Early Learning Council in his state of Illinois, focused on quality early learning for children birth to five years. Specifically the state of Illinois is committed to universal, voluntary, high quality early year education for 3 year old at risk children and ALL four year olds. He now plans to implement this on a national level if elected President through Early Childhood Challenge grants to states to work on their own 0-5 year old plans but he has also committed to setting up a Presidential Early Years Council. He also indicates a commitment to universal preschool, along with pumping funds into Head Start and Head Start spin off programs. Additionally he is also committed to improving the quality of care in child care centres. Obama has also made promises around financial imperatives in child care aimed at making it easy for low income families to access.

It could be said that Obama clearly sees the economic and the social justice possibilities in investing in early childhood. His references to Heckman infers human capital theory might drive his interest, as it does Kevin Rudd. Obama's promises seem to cover a larger range of areas than McCain's, although he doesn't necessarily make any statements about what he believes 'quality' should look like.

McCain's promises are here, with Obama's here. Don't miss the PDF document at the bottom of Obama's that provides more detail on the plan.

The election is November 4 and one of the most important in American history. While we can't vote as non-American citizens, check out this fun link and have a say!