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300 National Business Leaders on the Record for Early Education

President Barack H. Obama

Members of the 113th Congress

As businesspeople, we know that a skilled workforce is the key to economic growth and U.S.
competitiveness.

All of our nation’s priorities

energy, environment, defense, health, education

depend on a well

prepared workforce.
Many of us compete in a
global marketplace. We see other countries investing in their young children
both for the long

term benefits of a stronger workforce and the current benefits that come from
enhancing the productivity of parents.
To compete, we have to do the same.
Overw
helming amounts of research and evidence show the return on investment from giving young
children a good start in life.

We have examined the research and drawn our own conclusions:
quality
early childhood programs have a significant and positive impact on
the skilled workforce, customer
base, economy and nation we need. Behavioral skills highly valued by employers, such as self

discipline,
persistence and cooperation, start in the youngest years and last a lifetime.

We rarely have the luxury of making bus
iness investment decisions with as much evidence as we have
to support the economic value of investing in early care and education.
Hundreds of national, state and local business leaders and organizations have recognized the positive
economic returns gene
rated by high quality early childhood education.
In the last few years, both
Republican and Democratic governors have announced their support for more expansive early
childhood initiatives.

Early care and education is not a partisan issue.
It is an Ame
rican
competitiveness issue that impacts all of us.
We believe public policy in the early childhood area should:

* Prioritize programs with proven benefits for children and society, such as quality early
education for children ages birth to five, home
visiting and health care

* Address children in the entire prenatal to age five spectrum, and their parents

* Focus first on children from low

to moderate

income families and other children at risk for
school failure

* Give parents high quality options, using a
variety of partners and settings, including the private
sector

* Encourage federal and state programs to meet higher quality standards, while also allowing
state flexibility to deliver services in a variety of ways

* Closely track progress on children’s health
, development and other outcomes with rigorous
evaluations that encourage continuous improvement

We ask our federal representatives and our business colleagues around the country to give all children
the chance to fulfill their potential and create the best workforce and economy in the world.

Full List of Signers: http://www.readynation.org/uploads/db_files/Business%20Letter%20to%20Congress%20and%20President24.pdf

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Invest in early childhood development – ‘To Small to Fail’ http://www.matr.net/article-55967.html

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