{"id":231,"date":"2013-02-25T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T18:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/?p=231"},"modified":"2013-06-26T19:18:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T19:18:10","slug":"ready-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/2013\/02\/25\/ready-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready to Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Two weeks ago President Obama delivered his State of the Union address to the country.\u00a0 In his speech, he made a point to acknowledge the importance of\u00a0early education and stated that every American child has the right to enroll in a quality preschool program.\u00a0 President Obama gave three specific reasons as to why\u00a0focusing on early education is good for the nation in the\u00a0long run: it will ultimately boost graduation rates, reduce teen pregnancy, and reduce violent crime.\u00a0 During his second term in office, the President explained that he and his staff will look\u00a0to work with\u00a0states to ensure that all children start their education career in a respected\u00a0preschool\u00a0program.<\/p>\n

If you’re aware of the work of Ernest L. Boyer, this may sound familiar. \u00a0During his career as a lifelong advocate for education, Dr. Boyer had a lot to say about the early years and how\u00a0critical\u00a0they are for further development.\u00a0 In a speech entitled “Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation<\/a>,”\u00a0he posed a simple question:\u00a0“Children are our most precious resource.\u00a0 In the end, they’re all we have.\u00a0 And if we as a nation cannot prepare all children for learning and for life, then just what will bring America together?” \u00a0With the polarizing nature of American politics today, President Obama could have posed that same question to that nation two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Dr. Boyer’s speech was derived from a special report of the same name published in 1992 by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.\u00a0 The report outlined seven initiatives for school readiness.\u00a0 The third priority had to do specifically with preschool education.\u00a0 The Carnegie Foundation stated that every disadvantaged child is entitled to a good head start in a high quality preschool program.\u00a0 In his speech, Dr. Boyer again challenged his audience, asking: “How is it that we [the United States] can spend $300 billion every year on national defense?\u00a0 How is it that we can send space\u00a0shuttles into orbit?\u00a0 And never seem to have enough money for our children?”\u00a0 The Carnegie Foundation’s report also wanted to\u00a0recognize the importance of preschool teachers by raising their salaries, hopeful that doing so would also bring them respect.<\/p>\n

President Obama perhaps said it best during his State of the Union address: “These initiatives in manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, housing – all these things will help\u00a0entrepreneurs\u00a0and small business owners expand and create new jobs. \u00a0But none of it will matter unless we also equip our citizens with the skills and training to fill those jobs. \u00a0And that has to start at the earliest possible age.” \u00a0I think Dr. Boyer would agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago President Obama delivered his State of the Union address to the country.\u00a0 In his speech, he made a point to acknowledge the importance of\u00a0early education and stated that every American child has the right to enroll in a quality preschool program.\u00a0 President Obama gave three specific reasons as to why\u00a0focusing on early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1349],"tags":[191,1350,1306,1352,5417,1351],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ready-to-learn","tag-barack-obama","tag-early-education","tag-ernest-l-boyer","tag-preschool","tag-ready-to-learn","tag-state-of-the-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}