Student Loan Measure Passes House Committee

You may question what the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 has to do with early care and education, seeing as it would seem to impact college-age students and their families. But there is an early care component to it. If it passes, lawmakers want to make sure those students entering college also had the best opportunity to start off on the right foot in pre-K. It ensures that the next generation of students enter kindergarten with the skills they need to succeed in school. It increases the number of low income children entering kindergarten prepared to succeed by reforming state standards and practices for birth-to-five early learning programs. The legislation would create an Early Learning Challenge Fund, which would award competitive grants to states that implement comprehensive standards-based reform of the state’s early learning system that will transform early education standards and practices, build an effective early childhood workforce, and improve the school readiness outcomes of young children. And the measure jumped its first hurdle by clearing a House committee on Tuesday.