Early Childhood
Development and Learning
...on July 18, 1971, key federal legislation underlying
and controlling any subsequent education legislation was adopted. This master control system, "The
Interagency Day Care Standards," hinged upon the federal government's own
definition of day care: "Day care
is defined as the care of a child on a regular basis by someone other than the
child's parents for any part of the 24-hour day." (8) It states that "Any agency, public or
private, which receives federal funds directly or indirectly through a grant or
contract...or by way of a voucher plan" must meet all requirements that
are set down for public schools.
Acceptance of Federal funds is an agreement to abide by the
requirements.
— Ginny
Baker; Educational Choice: An
Innovative Report
We must remove the children from the crude influence of
their families. We must take them over
and, to speak frankly, nationalize them.
From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy
influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real
Communists.
— Congress
of Communist Party educators, 1918
Give me the children, I will give
you a nation.
— Adolf Hitler, 1939
Almost every parent wants to really make a difference in
the first few years of their child's lives.
Some of them are suffering from their own social problems and some of
them suffering from a lack of knowledge.
As a parent, I can assure you that in raising each of my three children,
I felt that there was a lot of information I would like to have had and would
still like to have, and would love to have had the opportunity to have people
come into my house and say, "now here is a program you might be made aware
of" or "here is something that might be of assistance" or
"here is something that we offer as a way of suggesting, you know, to help
the earliest development of your child."
— Governor
Bob Miller; National Governors' Association conference; 1997
If you do not get that appropriate combination of early
life touch and gazed into your eyes at the right time, the part of your brain
that will allow you to be empathetic, to be a good citizen, undevelops.
— Dr
Bruce Perry; National Governors' Association conference; 1997
You ask me about substance abuse, and I'll tell you, we
can relate that right back to early life experiences and brain
development. You can ask me about
adolescent violence and I will say, "hey, we can
link that right back to early life experience and brain development." You can ask me about the lost, an economic
issue, the loss of taxpayers in the inner city, and I'll say you can link that
right back to early life experience and the deterioration of communities and
the lack of appropriate caregivers to step in when the mom has to go to work. You can link this to violence,
you can link this to creativity.
— Dr
Bruce Perry; National Governors' Association conference; 1997
Well, one of the things we are going to talk about is the
fact that if a child gets the right kind of nurturing and the right kind of
connection is made with an adult . . . whether it be .
. . it does not necessarily have to be the mother or the father.
— Rob
Reiner; National Governors' Association conference;
1997
I don't care how smart you are or how many books you have
read, you are at a loss and everybody can be helped by somebody who can help
guide them in nutrition, discipline issues, sleeping issues, all of these
things.
— Rob
Reiner; National Governors' Association conference;
1997
... I think ultimately it has got to come from the
people. The people have to see the
wisdom of it and once they see the wisdom of it they will ask for it rather
than saying I want this foisted on me. I
want this. They are going to ask for
it. And then we as policy makers, you as
policy makers, can say okay this is . . . these are the programs we can lay out
for you and that you can avail yourself of in the first three years. And I think there will be eventually a
critical mass. It is just a matter of
time.
— Rob
Reiner; National Governors' Association conference;
1997
.. the only way this is going to work is if there is a
partnership between the federal government, state government, local
communities, and the business world and the foundation world.
— Rob
Reiner; National Governors' Association conference;
1997
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