The Centennial Institute's Distinguished Policy Lecture: Early Childhood Care & Education
Should America expand paid maternity leave? How do you balance the needs of parents, children, and small business owners? Should the state of Colorado provide free preschool and kindergarten? Are there free-market-based policies that can serve parents, children, and business owners? What are other options to support early childhood education? What’s working for parents and children and what’s broken now?
Every day, millions of working parents struggle with keeping careers on track while raising children, and finding balance between child rearing and building a career is exceptionally hard. The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, in particular, set the foundation upon which all future development and learning takes place. Employers and our wider society benefit when children get the right start and thrive, and society and employers win when working parents are productive. Although both beneficiaries can do far more to ensure working parents are equipped to nurture their children and advance their careers, state and federal policies have not been responsive or supportive of this fundamental social issue. If work is truly the path toward economic security and upward mobility, public and workplace policies that allow parents to succeed in the workforce, and do right by their children, are vital to the future success of our country.
The focus of the Early Childhood Care & Education Policy Distinguished Lecture will be to illuminate market-based policies that strike a healthy balance between family wellbeing and a prosperous economy. The featured speakers will include national policy experts, Katherine Stevens, who leads the early-childhood program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Nadine Maenza, the founding Executive Director of Patriot Voices, where she leads the organization’s special emphasis on public policies that help working families. The panelists will also include State Senator-Elect Brittany Pettersen and State Representative Alec Garnett, who will provide perspective on early childhood education policies in our state. Gloria Higgins, the President of Executives Partnering to Invest in Children (EPIC) will serve as the panel moderator, and will shed light on the employer’s perspective.
See Also
Video ~ February 16, 2022
Op-Ed ~ January 12, 2017
Congressional Testimony ~ July 13, 2017