There's a growing consensus at the national, state, and local levels that the educational improvements Americans crave should start at the beginning. The more we learn about cognitive development, the more it's clear that all children have to pass a series of "high-stakes tests" very early in life that will heavily influence their ability to learn, to interact successfully with teachers and peers, and to master skills. Recent studies show that preschool intellectual enrichment has a big payoff in higher school performance and reduced needs for special or remedial education.

With 62 percent of mothers of preschool children now in the workforce -- up from 37 percent in 1975 -- families already struggle to find and pay for quality preschool child care. It makes more sense to meet these two critical challenges together by expanding opportunities for pre-kindergarten education and cognitive development, wherever they occur.

Aside from the federal Head Start program (which is a hybrid of educational and social services for preschool kids and their families), there are 42 states with their own preschool programs for children under age 5. State spending on preschool services has increased from less than $25 million in 1969 to nearly $2 billion in 1998. Services range from small add-ons to Head Start, to Georgia's lottery-funded, universal voluntary pre-K education system for four-year-olds.

Our view is that almost any new investment in pre-K preparation for learning and educationally enhanced child care is a positive development, but we suggest four principles for doing the right thing, the right way:

1. Pre-K needs to start at birth. Some people think of pre-K services as a simple matter of extending public education back a year, but critical stages in cognitive development start much earlier than age 4, as do child care needs for working families.



2. We should promote choice and diversity in pre-K preparation. There is no one "service delivery mechanism" for pre-K. Some children will stay at home or with relatives; others will be in institutional child care; and still others in existing programs like Head Start. The best strategies for pre-K preparation will respect this pluralism; avoid biases in favor of one setting over another; and seek community-based strategies that make sense for the most children in a given population with maximum flexibility for parents.



3. Standards matter. The twin goals of pre-K initiatives should be expansion of services and an across-the-board enhancement of their educational and cognitive development content. Service providers -- whether they are parents, day-care center personnel, teachers, or social workers -- should be given clear standards for what they are expected to accomplish in exchange for new public funding and real training for their new tasks.



4. Target the needy first and most. Low-income families are most likely to have no one at home to supervise preschool children; least likely to have the resources to pay for quality child care; and most at risk for a variety of health and social problems that can make early learning difficult.

If we truly believe the American creed that we are created equal and deserve equal opportunity, there is no greater test of this than our willingness to ensure that children do not fall behind before they are enrolled in public schools.

The state pre-K program that best reflects these four principles is North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt's "Smart Start" initiative. Begun as a pilot program in 1993, Hunt is now on the brink of expanding Smart Start to every county in his state. It is an initiative offering grants to community-based partnerships involving local governments, child care providers, businesses, Head Start programs, teachers, and schools, with communities deciding the best local strategy for pre-K preparation. It assists children from age 0-5, not just 4-5. It relentlessly promotes educational and cognitive-development "value-added" in every arena from early childhood health care, to family social services, to child care, to pre-K schooling. And it targets resources to children and families most in need.

Thanks to Gov. Hunt's relentless championship of Smart Start, it is not only a well- established statewide system of services enjoying broad support, but is also gaining impressive national attention. It has received innovation awards from the Council of State Governments, the Ford Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. It is significantly increasing the supply of quality child care services in a state with the highest percentage of working mothers in the nation. And it is beginning to show measurable results in educational performance for children entering the formal K-12 school system.

The state- and community-based ferment on pre-K preparation is now being reflected in national politics and in the 2000 presidential campaign. Former Senator Bill Bradley has proposed a national partnership grant program explicitly based on Smart Start, along with a big expansion in Head Start funding and child care subsidies. Vice President Gore, who is already on record as favoring universal access to pre-K services, is expected to release a formal proposal any day now. And even Texas Gov. George Bush, who has not proposed any new resources for this or any other federal education initiative, has endorsed a "makeover" of Head Start to focus it more closely on educational preparation and cognitive development.

Pre-K is one public investment whose payoff is so tangible, so sweeping, and so relevant to the needs of America's families that it should become a top priority in this era when growth and fiscal discipline have made it possible to think anew of ways to make equal opportunity real. Let's Start Smart.