Sara Mead of the New America Foundation is taking her turn. She started by holding up Checker's book and commenting (correctly) how similar its cover looks to that of her favorite children's book, The Little Engine that Could. (Still, trust me, don't show Checker's book cover to a small child. It will make them cry.) See for yourself.
Sara agrees that we need to beef up programs targeted at the poor, but that we also need to go universal. That's because as long as we only have small, targeted programs, k-12 educators won't view them as important and highly relevant to their work.
She's also increasingly optimistic that policymakers are developing metrics around pre-k programs and are starting to hold them accountable for results.
