Feinberg on Education

In today’s Houston Chronicle, Mike Feinberg, one of the founders of the KIPP family of charter schools, offers advice on education policy to President-elect Obama, including this suggestion:

Focus on the early years: Even in this time of economic uncertainty, we need to make critical investments in pre-K and early childhood education.

In his recent book Whatever It Takes, New York Times Magazine editor Paul Tough notes that by age 3, children in low-income communities have been exposed to 20 million fewer words than their more affluent peers. By providing a language-rich learning environment at an early age, schools can offset this gap and give children the tools they need to succeed.