A blog by the BUILD Initiative, From Dissonance to Consensus: The Quest to Decrease Poverty Becomes a Uniting Force , focuses on a significant analysis addressing the nation’s poverty done by an interesting mix of experts–bringing progressives and conservatives together (the Bookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute). It’s refreshing to see this effort to develop a consensus plan on how to address poverty in America, A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream.  The plan is getting attention particularly because it was produced by expert economists, sociologists and psychologists on opposite sides of the aisle — leaders in their fields who identify as conservatives, progressives, centrists and nonpartisans.

One of the recommendations focused on addressing gaps in early learning for children in or near poverty. Key recommendations included:

• Pediatricians help: the report recommended a stronger role for pediatricians working with families that have infants, for instance expanding programs like Reach Out and Read.
• Quality of child care: the report indicated that “the quality of child care is vital to whether poor children keep up with their better-off peers in early learning. If child care quality is low, the early learning gap between low-income children and their upper income peers grows. If child care quality is high, many young children from low-income families can be prevented from falling further behind.”

• High quality preschool: the report recommended that states should expand access to high quality preschool education, with attention to both access and quality. Most states do not have high access AND high quality. Note: Wisconsin was an example of a state with high access but low quality.

I expect that this consensus report from two well-established think tanks will have significant influence on public policy.

Dave Edie, Early Education Policy Analyst