Jennifer Garner2013-05-19T06:42:33-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=jennifer-garnerCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jennifer GarnerGood old fashioned elbow grease.C- Is Just Not Good Enough for Our Kidstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19583022012-10-11T12:38:32-04:002012-12-11T05:12:01-05:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/America's Report Card 2012: Children in the U.S., released by Save the Children and First Focus.
While a C- isn't an F, as a grade assigned to our country for the overall well-being of its children, it's far from good enough. That's why, yesterday morning in Washington, D.C., we gathered with Bruce Lesley (President, First Focus), former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) to release the report and to urge America to do better for our kids.
Commissioned by Sens. Dodd and Casey, America's Report Card provides a snapshot of children's needs, assigning grades in five areas:
Economic security: D, based on the number of children living in poverty, experiencing food insecurity and unstable housing.
Early childhood: C-, based on early learning program availability and enrollment, as well as access to child care.
K-12 education: C-, based on children's math, reading and science levels, school resources, the number of at-risk youth, and educational attainment.
Permanency and stability: D, based on the well-being of children impacted by the child welfare, juvenile justice, and immigration systems.
Health and safety: C+, based on the state of health insurance coverage for children, access to health care and preventive services, public health and safety, and environmental health.
The presidential candidates keep talking about building a more prosperous and more competitive nation -- a much-needed priority, considering the report assigned our country a D on economic security for children -- yet, during the first presidential debate, neither candidate mentioned the poverty epidemic affecting 16 million kids. That's nearly one in four children who know all too well what it means to go without.
Why, then, are children being left out of the conversation during an election season in which the economy is the primary issue?
Children don't have access to the political process the way adults do. They don't appear on cable talk shows, contribute to political action committees, or vote.
We understand the election's emphasis on reducing the deficit, but that is not mutually exclusive from reducing poverty. Research shows that childhood poverty costs our nation $500 billion per year, while a meaningful investment in children's education in the earliest years would add $2 trillion to our gross domestic product within a generation.
Why make this type of investment? Kids living in poverty are 18 months behind developmentally by age four. They're less likely to be reading at grade-level in elementary school. As they get older, they are more likely to drop out of high school and be trapped in the cycle of poverty as adults. As a country, we invest billions in trying to remediate these children but an upfront investment is a much wiser one.
As Lesley put it, "We grade kids all the time. It's time to take responsibility as a nation for the decisions that determine whether kids can succeed. We can't be satisfied with a C-, but raising the grade means getting involved, voting for kids, and holding politicians accountable."
Let's summon the political will to invest in our children. If the candidates are truly serious about building a stronger America, then a meaningful debate about ending childhood poverty must become part of the conversation.
Read the complete report here.]]>What Makes a Good Man? A Conversation With Mark Shrivertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16015822012-06-15T18:32:14-04:002012-08-15T05:12:05-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/In honor of Father's Day, actress Jennifer Garner spoke to Mark Shriver, senior vice president of Save the Children in Washington D.C. and author of the new memoir A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver, about parenting and advocacy -- and how both make our world a better place.
Jennifer: You've called your book A Good Man, and I'm curious why you used that phrase for your father instead of a great man?
Mark: The great man is recognized for his achievements in the newspaper, on TV, at fancy galas. The good man can be great in that arena, too, but even greater at home, on the sidewalk, at the diner, with his grandkids, at the supermarket, at church -- wherever human interaction requires integrity and compassion. Dad was good because he excelled in the smaller, unseen corners of life. He insisted on greatness in every facet of the daily grind. There are a lot of so-called great men who aren't good human beings. Paradoxically, it's harder to be good than it is to be great.
Jennifer: Your dad wrote you letters almost every day -- what did that mean to you growing up?
Mark: He would often write and clip newspaper articles for my attention -- it could be a baseball box score or an editorial -- or a note with a book attached to it. Sometimes his letters discussed the previous night's dinner conversation, or sometimes they were updates on my mother's or sibling's activities. For me, it was a sign of his consistent unconditional love and interest in me. I just knew he cared and was thinking of me every day.
Have you noticed anything that you are doing with your family that is something your parents did or shared with you growing up -- like my dad's note writing?
Jennifer: My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother's voice and smile.
What did you take away from your dad's life about what it means to be a father?
Mark: While writing this book, I thought a lot about my father's quiet acts of kindness and his patience -- and the unconditional love he showed us even when we made mistakes. I have tried to emulate those qualities but it's a daily struggle for me. I wasn't expecting any of these insights, any of these gifts, when I sat down to write about him -- I had no idea what I was doing but I am grateful for the entire experience.
What did you learn from your dad and mom that you found gave you particular way of seeing the world or a feeling of what you should be doing with your life?
Jennifer: My parents started with very little and were the only ones in their families to graduate from college. As parents, they focused on education, but did not stop at academics -- they made sure that we knew music, saw art and theatre and traveled -- even though it meant budgeting like crazy.
So much of your father's (and mother's) life was about service to others who were less fortunate, who lived with challenges; what kind of impact did that have on you?
Mark: He was the most outwardly focused person I have ever met. I don't recall him ever worrying about his legacy -- he was proud of his achievements, from serving on the Chicago School Board, to creating the Peace Corps, to leading the War on Poverty, to helping my mother grow Special Olympics, but he talked about the past only as a way to challenge us all to do more for the poor and the forgotten in the future. He was other-focused, not I-focused, and that is the message he gave in a speech to Yale's graduating class of 1994 -- break your mirrors, don't be so self-absorbed. That's the way he lived his life and that's how he challenged not only my immediate family but all those he encountered as well.
On a more personal level, reading and rereading Dad's words about helping others has inspired me to speak more forcefully about the childhood poverty crisis in this country. In the past, I had been more circumspect when discussing the fact that almost 25 percent of children in America live in poverty. Now, in my work for Save the Children, I tell it like it is: It's a disgrace and our elected officials, who often claim that our kids are our most important priority, are not putting our money where their mouths are. I hope more citizens will hold our elected officials responsible for their role in this crisis.
You do a lot of advocacy work for children in this country, particularly in the area of poverty; do you feel your parents were an influence in that choice? What do your children think of what you do or how do you talk to them about the work?
Jennifer: My parents are still an enormous influence in my life. I am lucky to have had an attentive, curious and loving dad and heart-smart, down to earth, gifted mother. They changed the outlooks of their own lives and have never forgotten the people and organizations that helped them dream bigger than their circumstances should have allowed.
I am proud to be a part of an organization that gives kids growing up poor in America the same boost my parents received. With our birth to five home visits and in school literacy programs, Save the Children is changing the future for thousands of kids and teaching them to dream big.
Our kids came to me with a portion of their earnings from a recent lemonade stand and asked me to send it to Save the Children to help kids who don't have books in their homes. They know that I am never sorry to leave when I have a trip to see our programs and I am proud that they are eager to be a part of it.
Happy father's day to my dad, Bill Garner. I love you.
And to the world's best -- Happy Father's Day, Ben.
]]>Let's Get to None in Fourtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12452492012-02-02T07:45:23-05:002012-04-03T05:12:01-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/This post is part of a series on childhood poverty in the United States in partnership with Save the Children and Julianne Moore. Moore leads the organization's Valentine's Day campaign, through which cards are sold to support the fight against poverty in the U.S. To learn more or to purchase the cards, click here.
My mother, Pat, grew up during the dustbowl depression and to say her family was poor would be an understatement. Still, you wouldn't know it hearing her talk about it. Her family played games, sang songs, recited poetry and my mom had an exceptional teacher who lit her up when it came to learning.
My mom was the only one in her family to graduate from college and she put herself through school working in the cafeteria. She went on to lead a very adventurous and she would say exceptional life.
Growing up in West Virginia, I witnessed a different kind of poverty -- a more difficult kind of poverty. It was a more dyed-in-the-wool, resigned-to-helplessness that permeated the forgotten communities in the mountains.
It was thinking about this gap between my mother's hopeful, forward-looking childhood and the quiet acceptance I saw in kids a town or two away from mine that led me to my work with Save The Children's U.S. Programs.
Children in this country start kindergarten when they are five- or six-years-old. My daughters donʼt really understand this yet, but they've already won.
Here is why: kids growing up in poverty have heard, by the time they turn four, 30 million fewer words than my kids.
They are developmentally 18 months behind their middle class counterparts.
If you think like a two and a half year old when you're four, imagine where you are when you start kindergarten. Itʼs too late; weʼve already lost them.
A few months ago, I visited one of Save the Children's sites in Yucca Valley, California, one of nearly 200 rural and often forgotten communities that we serve across the southwest and southeast, many of which are very much places like the mountains of West Virginia. Yucca, though, is quite different -- it's a sparse, desert community.
The poverty rate for infants and toddlers in Yucca is double the rate in the rest of California.
I visited the home of 11-month-old Matthew, whose young parents earn well below the national poverty threshold of $22,000 per year. They live in a small home, isolated from other families. I read to Matthew alongside one of Save the Children's home visit coordinators.
When Matthew gets older, he will take part in our programs at Yucca Elementary, where our literacy programs help kids in Kindergarten through 6th grade.
As much as anything, I was drawn to this organization because it's effective for the 80,000 kids that we serve.
Eighty-six percent of at-risk toddlers in our early childhood development program scored at or above national average on literacy and language tests.
Twice the number of children participating in our literacy program read at grade level by the end of the year.
Nearly 13,000 children, many of whom are affected by the childhood obesity epidemic, receive a healthy snack and average 30 minutes of additional physical activity each day.
Still, we serve a small number of the nearly one in four kids who lives in poverty in the United States today.
For three years, I have been fighting with the Save the Children team in Washington and in the states for deeper investments in early childhood education, which, like for Matthew, is the key to a lifetime of learning, success and a path out of poverty.
Today, only three out of five kids eligible for preschool are enrolled in a private school or a public program like Head Start.
President Obama last year already committed $500 million for deeper investments in early childhood education.
That was an incredible win but everyone acknowledges it's not quite enough to turn the tide.
My hope is that all of us could find a role -- even a small one -- to play in helping to make change. That could mean writing your Congresspeople, volunteering or just taking a half an hour to talk to the kids in your life about what it means to live in poverty. They need to understand inequality but know that they can play a role in making change.
I'm thrilled that my colleague in this work, Julianne Moore, is leading Save the Children's Valentine's Day campaign, making this holiday about sharing and love for kids across the country, not just across the classroom. What a fabulous way for all of us to help raise funds and awareness.
Our shared goal is this: kids never having to experience different kinds of poverty in this country -- neither the more hopeful kind my mom experienced nor the kind the kids in West Virginia and Yucca face.
Let's make nearly one in four become none in four.]]>Education Nation Changes the Conversationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9823732011-09-26T20:45:23-04:002011-11-26T05:12:02-05:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/spans all of NBC's news programming and also convenes a three-day Summit on education issues.
Education Nation is not only an effort to amplify the conversation about education in America, it's also about changing the conversation.
We were honored to participate in Education Nation Monday -- on The Today Show and on a panel at the Summit -- talking about an issue that is too often left out of the debate: the power of early childhood education.
Simply put, early childhood education is essential to teaching kids how to learn. It's about developing key cognitive, social and emotional skills that determine a child's success in elementary school and beyond. It's about the simple acts of learning things like how to sit still and listen, recognize the alphabet and the importance of sharing with other kids and even adults.
What may surprise some people is that early childhood education comes down to everything Americans are anxious about today. Indeed, now, more than ever, Americans are deeply concerned about the future, not just next year and the year after, but 10, 20 and 30 years down the road.
From breaking the cycle of poverty that is gripping Americans -- particularly kids -- at historic levels to igniting innovation that can drive our global economic leadership, the scientific and economic data on early childhood education is clear cut.
- A meaningful investment in high-quality early childhood education -- such as enrolling the 40 percent of kids under five who don't attend any sort of preschool program -- would add $2 trillion to the gross domestic product within a generation.
- Early childhood education is proven to reduce crime, domestic violence and high school drop-out rates.
- And, in rural America, where the poverty crisis has gripped families and communities for generations, it is one of the keys to breaking that cycle once and for all. The War on Poverty, led by Mark's father Sargent Shriver, included significant investments in early childhood education, reducing poverty rates among kids from 25 percent in the mid-1960s to 15 percent 10 years later. Tragically, today, they've increased back to nearly 25 percent.
Members of Congress and the president are currently engaged in a deep and delicate battle about how to slice up the federal budget. There is no question that investing in early childhood education is a slice of the pie. The difference is that that early childhood education can create an even bigger pie of growth, investment and security for generations to come. ]]>Pre-School for All: The Time Has Cometag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8782642011-06-16T13:55:07-04:002011-08-16T05:12:02-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/
The science on early childhood education is unequivocal. If the United States were to make a deep investment in this overlooked part of the education spectrum, we'd diminish many social ills, including juvenile crime and teenage pregnancy; we'd increase high school graduation rates and family incomes; and, according to the Brookings Institute, we'd add $2 trillion to the gross domestic product within a generation.
Science also says that early education is crucial not because toddlers are necessarily learning to read and write, but because they acquire vital skills that set them up for learning to read and write. The fundamental experience of being taught to sit still, work with other kids and develop strong and positive relationships with adults sets kids on the path for their K-12 education.
Still, our nation's leaders and our national policy are, once again, lagging far behind science.
Only 60 percent of toddlers are enrolled in some kind of pre-school, including Head Start, Early Head Start, a private pre-school or proven programs like the ones Save the Children's U.S. Programs runs across 14 states.
That means two out of five kids in America walk into kindergarten not fully prepared for school. They're already behind. And so is America. This year, America will graduate a small fraction of the number of engineers -- a key to our economic future -- than China and India will.
In Hollywood, it's all about the story: the beginning, the middle and the end.
Here's the early education story so far:
We're not preparing our kids for school.
Our kids are falling behind.
Now America is falling behind.
So it's not a very happy story so far. But there's hope.
Last month, President Obama delivered on $500 million for innovative early learning programs, which both of us, alongside our partners at organizations like the First Five Years Fund and First Focus, have been fighting to secure.
It's a fabulous accomplishment, but it's only a down payment. It's still not enough to ensure that every toddler is prepared for a lifetime of success.
That's why we were thrilled to join Senators Robert Casey and Barbara Mikulski last week to launch a new effort to ensure that every toddler in America gets access to a quality early childhood education.
They introduced legislation that would make universal pre-school a reality by increasing child care funding and providing grants to states so that every toddler in the United States gets at least one year of pre-school.
We know the first question about this initiative may be: Why now? The budget wars are as hot as ever, dollars are scarce and, most of all, the American people are anxious about the future.
Well, it's the future that this effort is all about.
Simply put, these bills are perhaps one of the best ways to make America an even stronger, competitive and more just nation.
To us, that is is one of the most effective and patriotic actions any of us can undertake and the time to make it happen is now. ]]>A Little Love for Ben Bernanketag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8313162011-03-04T10:27:09-05:002011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/
Speaking before a New York City spending watchdog group on Wednesday, Bernanke addressed the daunting budget crises facing dozens of states. While urging balanced budgets and sound fiscal policy, he also made the case for continued investment in early childhood education, commonly known as preschool on the private side and Head Start and Early Head Start on the public side.
Chairman Bernanke is a renowned economist, a Republican, and a champion of low taxes and free enterprise. However, for those of us fighting for a deeper investment in early childhood education, his words weren't surprising. In fact, there is probably no sounder investment in America's future, our fiscal solvency, and our productivity than early childhood education.
- By age 40, adults who had attended preschool are more likely to be high school graduates, are making more money to support their families and drive the economy, and are less likely to engage in criminal activity.
- The Brookings Institute estimates that a deep and truly serious investment in early childhood education would add $2 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product within a generation.
- Ninety percent of our brain growth occurs between birth and five years of age but only 14 percent of our public education investment is directed toward children five and under.
During Washington budget battles, a common rhetorical refrain is that the federal government should balance its budget just like every family does. The fact is that almost every responsible family makes wise investments -- such as home mortgages, high quality preschool and college loans -- even if it means increased debt.
To ensure greatness for America's future, we need more elected officials to heed the words of Ben Bernanke and get behind early childhood education for every American kid as the smartest and most crucial investment in our nation's future. ]]>Waiting for Superbabytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7635482010-10-14T20:00:32-04:002011-05-25T18:00:30-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, listening to Mozart or playing Candyland is probably as elemental to your daily child-rearing routine as feeding them carrots or changing their diapers.
Unfortunately, for millions of American parents struggling with the recession or long-term poverty, these kinds of activities are economically impossible, robbing these children and their families of a brighter future and locking the cycle of poverty into place.
Indeed, stimulating toddlers with reading, music and games doesn't just keep them occupied, it provides them with the foundation for the next two decades of their education.
Ninety percent of our brain growth occurs between birth and five years of age. Thus, the words a toddler hears, the music that makes them tap their feet and the games they play actually acts as food for their brains.
Feed toddlers properly and their brains will be pumped up and ready for their K-12 education. Deprive them, and they're not ready for school, which is proven to lead to increased high school dropout rates, incarceration and unemployment.
Some very smart and visionary leaders, including Mark's father, Sargent Shriver, understood the incredible value of early childhood education and created Head Start in 1965, which was followed up three decades later with Early Head Start.
Still, Early Head Start reaches only five percent of eligible children, and only about half of the eligible population of three-to-five year olds receive Head Start services. Even paired with private preschools, only three out of five preschool-aged kids are enrolled in some sort of childhood education.
This should come as no surprise, as just 14 percent of our public education investment is directed toward children five and under.
As The Huffington Post wisely turns a spotlight on American education, we hope HuffPost readers and education advocates will focus not just on elementary education but on the critical need for innovation and increased investment in early-childhood education.
Simply put, it should be a right for every single toddler to be enrolled in a high-quality, early-education program. In addition, every parent should have the tools they need -- books, music and games -- to keep their children stimulated at home.
There are a number of first steps toward innovation that we can take:
Passage of the Early Learning Challenge Fund, a $10 billion, decade-long proposal to promote innovative models for early-childhood education.
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post this week, Ron Haskins and W. Steven Barnett wrote that the Obama administration's efforts to inject better accountability into Head Start will improve the program and, we hope, increase enrollment of more kids.
Save the Children's U.S. Programs operates an early childhood education program -- Early Steps to School Success -- in almost 100 of the poorest communities in America, including most recently in Jennifer's native West Virginia. Through these programs, we go into homes and work directly with parents and have achieved extraordinary results, bringing at-risk toddlers up to normal levels on benchmark vocabulary tests.
The Brookings Institute estimates that a deep and truly serious investment in early childhood education would add $2 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product within a generation. This would be an incredible return on investment that would, in the future, help solve many of the problems our nation is struggling with today.
Our politicians can have a robust debate about the role of government in helping families living in poverty, but three year olds don't even have bootstraps to pull on. Now is the time to give every American child an equal start in life. ]]>Obama's Back-to-School Speech Was for 18 and Over Tootag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2819582009-09-10T10:34:09-04:002011-05-25T14:00:22-04:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/
This was an inspiring message of empowerment and responsibility. If the President -- and the generations of adults he represents -- can help successfully instill these two values in our children, we can fuel the next generation to greatness.
But adults need to adopt this message too. Indeed, it is our responsibility to make sure all American kids enter school happy and healthy and that schools are the best possible environments for learning.
Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Today, one in six kids grows up living in poverty. In rural America, that number is a shocking one in five. Four year-olds from poor families are 18 months behind other four year-olds developmentally and we can't close that gap even with the highest quality public schools.
Poorer children are in worse health, are read to less by their parents, and their families' unstable finances can lead to traumatic situations like homelessness.
At a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday, we joined House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) to introduce their bill -- the Full-Service Community Schools Act. We were joined by officials of Carlin Springs Elementary School, a full-service community school in Arlington, VA.
Full-service community schools help alleviate the effects of poverty by providing a wide portfolio of services -- beyond just public education -- that they do not get at home. The schools partner with local organizations to provide physical and mental health services, housing and financial support for parents and childhood education services so that the youngest enter the public school system with a solid emotional, social and cognitive foundation for learning.
By transforming schools into centers for wellness and family support, teachers can focus on teaching, full-service coordinators can make sure kids are getting the services they need for a happy and healthy childhood and, what's most important at the end of the day, kids can focus on discovering what they have to offer. Indeed, kids can't do that if they're hungry or if they haven't gotten a good night's sleep because of family financial stress.
Over the past two years, $10 million have been appropriated for 10 full-service community schools across the country. The Full Service Community Schools Act would turn this successful experiment into a reality for many more children by providing $200 million for full-service community schools.
We need innovative solutions and full-service community schools are a brilliant way to reach parents and kids in need. Providing these kinds of services is crucial in low-income, rural areas, where it's more difficult to reach parents and families.
We're urging Congress to act quickly on the Full Service Community Schools Act. This is just the kind of smart, innovative solution Americans want from government and it creates the kind of one-stop center for services that will help make families stronger and help ensure that every kid, from newborns to teens, has a chance to live up to the President's challenge.]]>Three Year Olds Don't Even Have Bootstraps to Pull On!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.1979362009-05-06T13:37:07-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Jennifer Garnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-garner/
Needless to say, there'd be outrage.
Unfortunately, when it comes to another dangerous threat -- a failing education system -- we have a similarly unimaginable but very real public policy nightmare.
Scientists tell us 90 percent of our brain's growth occurs from birth through age six, making that period a crucial determiner for future success in school and in life. But here's the catch: the bulk of our public investment in education doesn't begin until age six!
That means it falls entirely on parents of infants and toddlers to read their children books every day, listen to music together, play learning games and ensure they are engaged at every level of social, emotional and cognitive development.
We're both parents of very young children and have the resources to enrich our children's lives with these kinds of activities. But many poor families in this country don't even have minimal resources for their children's education. That in part is why two of three fourth graders in America aren't reading at grade level.
Earlier this month, Jennifer joined Save the Children's U.S. Program as our newest ambassador and advocate for early childhood education.
Our work began with an April 2nd visit to Save the Children's in-home and reading exchange programs in California's Central Valley, one of the poorest rural areas in the nation. Jennifer met and played with 12-month- old-Xavier, read "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" to a group of toddlers, spoke with parents, worked alongside Save the Children experts and toured the local area.
Yesterday, we released Save the Children's 2009 State of the World's Mothers Report at a local D.C. child care center. Among other startling findings, the report reveals that America ranks 18th out of 25 other developed nations on early childhood education.
With a supportive new president and a strong yearning for renewal across America, now is the time to invest in the next generation and early education is the key to doing it.
Today, one in six children lives in poverty in America. In rural America, including Jennifer's native West Virginia, that number is one in five. To help begin reverse this situation, we are calling for an increase of $2 billion for early childhood education on top of President Obama's $4 billion investment in the stimulus bill. In fact, yesterday afternoon, we met with more than a dozen Congresspeople and Senators who hold the keys to this funding need. We were very heartened by the support we received.
We can have a debate in this country about the role of government in helping poor families. But when it comes to the youngest Americans, there's one thing that's clear: three year olds don't even have bootstraps to pull on.]]>
