Hirono Lobbies Race To The Top To Help Toddlers
Hawaii Congresswoman Mazie Hirono is lobbying the U.S. Department of Education to use some federal Race to the Top dollars for early childhood education.
Hawaii last year won $75 million in the Race to the Top, a series of federal grant competitions aimed at motivating states to undertake significant education reforms. There is about $700 million in the pot for the next round of grants, and Hawaii could well be a contender again.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie has said that early childhood education is high on his list of priorities, but substantial budget cuts to the Hawaii’s Department of Education may endanger programs that help prepare toddlers for school. And at least before legislators this year that would have instituted kindergarten for children throughout the state faded into a mere proposal to test students before they enter first grade, before it finally died last month.
Hirono has already collected 43 signatures from fellow members in the House of Representatives asking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to use a portion of the $700 million for early childhood education incentives.
Read the full story at , a blog for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
