ATLANTA — The Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS) hosted a summit of more than 200 business leaders and policy makers. They came to Atlanta to discuss how early childhood education impacts workforce development. GEEARS wants to ensure that all Georgia students by 2020 will enter kindergarten prepared to succeed and on a path to read to learn by third grade.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says less than 30 percent of 4 year olds in this country have access to high quality pre-kindergarten education. He stresses that hurts their chances to get a good education and a good job. “The average child coming from a disadvantaged community starts kindergarten a year to 14 months behind. And then we wonder why we have achievement gaps. We wonder why we have dropout rates. We have to get out of the catch-up business.” he says.
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