National Teacher Appreciation Day

Floor Speech

Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today on National Teacher Appreciation Day with an oft-forgotten remedy to our economic downturn: investments in early childhood education.

Successful nations invest in three things: infrastructure, research, and education. To compete in the global market, we need to have the most highly skilled workforce in the world. And to develop that workforce, we have to start at the beginning with early childhood education.

Research from Stanford shows that rich students perform better than middle- and low-income students. Quite simply, they enter kindergarten more prepared thanks to high quality preschool. Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman found a 7 to 10 percent annual return on investment in effective preschool.

Every child deserves a chance to succeed in school and throughout their lives. Providing early childhood education can give them that chance, and the entire Nation will be better off for it.

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