Early childhood education

Every child deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.

“I believe getting off to a good start should be our children's birthright, part of the basic bargain that we have with each other as a nation. Every child should have the tools and the skills to thrive in tomorrow's economy, especially those kids from our most vulnerable and at-risk communities.”

HILLARY, JUNE 15, 2015

Hillary has spent her career working to ensure that every child has the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential, starting at the very beginning. In 2007, when she was senator, Hillary called for a national initiative to provide funding to states to establish high-quality pre-k programs, including providing pre-k at no cost to children from low-income or limited-English-speaking homes. As first lady of Arkansas, she introduced the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program, which provided resources for parents to better educate their children at home before they begin kindergarten. As a leader at the Clinton Foundation, Hillary started a national public awareness campaign called "Too Small to Fail," or "Pequeños y Valiosos" aimed at closing the "word gap." This gap refers to the 30 million fewer words heard by lower-income children by the time they are 4 years old, which leads to disparities in language development and school readiness.

Today, Hillary is fighting to give every child access to a quality education, starting with our youngest learners:

•Investing in early childhood programs. Hillary has called for doubling our investment in Early Head Start and Early Head Start–Child Care programs, which bring evidence-based curriculum into the child care setting to provide comprehensive, full-day, high-quality services to low-income families.

•Expanding preschool access. Hillary has called for us to build on the bipartisan work taking place in states and communities across America that expand access to preschool by initiating new federal support for their efforts. Her proposal would ensure that every four year old in America has access to high-quality preschool in the next 10 years, by providing new federal funding for states that expand access to quality preschool for four year olds.