Early Learning Nation: Bill, thank you for your time. Welcome to the Early Learning Nation studio.

Bill Canary: Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Early Learning Nation: You have been at the intersection of business, public policy and education, including early education, for much of your career. What grade would you give our nation in terms of early learning?

Bill Canary: Well, if we’re grading on the curve, I think we have much improvement. I think that from a business perspective, the concern that many of us have had is to try to change the paradigm for the business world, the business community, to understand the nexus, the paradigm, that needs to shift so that they get more engaged in a process.

You can have an educated workforce. Today, in America, every child needs a 13th grade education. You can’t do that by magic. You have to do that through a process.

Early Learning Nation: In early childhood education, you’re talking, maybe up to third grade, maybe up to fifth grade, but really much younger, in Pre-K. What’s the business case for that?

Bill Canary: I think the business case for that is return on investment. Going back to the 13th grade education, but equally as important is the ability to educate a child at that level will almost guarantee them the ability to read at the third grade level, at third grade. When they get to ninth grade, they’re still participating in a way that makes sense. Our dropout rates go down our … we can’t arrest our way out of a problem. The whole relationship between education and a good equal life are all altogether. It’s just one big process.

Early Learning Nation: How do business leaders react when you explain it to them that way? They’ve got to understand the concept of, invest now for payoff later. Invest a dollar now so that you can make $2 to $3 to $10 later.

Bill Canary: I’ll tell you, that was one of the greatest challenges and still remains a great challenge, because, historically, the business community doesn’t necessarily see itself engaged in the education side and so, you have to connect the dots.

It’s trying to convince people that you have both a moral responsibility and, equally as important, if you want to have an educated workforce, the two have to go hand in hand.

Early Learning Nation: Do they see it as a private sector challenge or do they see it as a public sector problem?

Bill Canary: Great question. Because really what we’re getting them to see it at is a partnership. Public/private. Geoffrey Canada, in the movie Waiting for Superman, the argument there is that Waiting for Superman, Superman always show up and save the day. Geoffrey’s premise is that Superman’s not coming. We have to do it. It’s our responsibility. And that’s how we have to convert that conversation into the business community’s mind.

Early Learning Nation: Are there success stories or examples that you talk about when you talk with business leaders about that public/private investment in those opportunities?

Bill Canary: I think the one that you’ll hear from others today in this conversation is that you can … if I told you today that you could project the prison rate by the children who are not reading at grade level in fourth grade, wouldn’t you change the system? And the answer is, of course.

I think that that’s one thing that folks begin to understand on the business side. But it also just simply comes back to that 13th education, grade, in terms of that process. If we’re going to compete in this global market that we’re in today, we can’t be behind. America’s always led the way, and we’re not leading the way in this particular arena right now.

Early Learning Nation: You are up here in New York, but you live in Alabama. What’s the state of affairs in Alabama? Is their energy behind the early childhood learning movement? Is there momentum there, or what’s going on in Alabama?

Bill Canary: Well, I spent nearly 16 years as the head … I just recently commenced from the business council of Alabama, which is the equivalent of a state chamber.

Early Learning Nation: Happy graduation. Congratulations.

Bill Canary: It’s great to be in the next grade, it really is. I’m originally from New York, so being in Alabama has been a great experience, a great opportunity.

One of the areas that we embarked upon was to be the lead agent on the Pre-K movement in our state. To ensure that every child, at four years of age, 69,271 children, would have the opportunity for a benchmarked Pre-K program, that would get them started in a way that would be equal across the board. And we are … it is a 10, 12, 14 year program, each year it ramps up a little bit further and a little bit further and we’ve been benchmarked as one of the best in the nation. That’s something that the business community is now very proud of.

What I love about it is, the policy makers, they’ve all embraced it as their program and they deserve it and they should. So now, when the governor gives her state of the state message, talks about Pre-K, talks about early childhood. And when the legislature convenes and moves the budget to fund, it’s not a problem. It’s moving forward.

I give the people of Alabama, and the political and the policy side, tremendous amount of credit. But it was helped and fueled by the business community to try to make that case that you asked me about earlier in this conversation. It can be done.

Early Learning Nation: That’s good to know and it’s good to have an example like that to look to. Just to close out. You once wrote, were part of writing, a report titled The Rewards of Early Childhood Investment. I love that you called it an investment. In that you wrote, “it is in the best interest of business to invest in quality early education since business is the greatest consumer of our education system, seeking students who can lead productive lives through more secure futures after their initial education ends.” Do the words still stand?

Bill Canary: The words still stand. And I would tell you that I think, from a business perspective, that the word investment is both an adjective and a noun, and it gives an opportunity for people to clear … It’s like putting things in terms that everyone understands. And communications is … that’s what the great thing about communications. When we talk about investing that, but we’ve seen already the progress that can be made. No person stands taller than when they bend over to pick up a child.

And people get that. It goes to their heart. You can’t move the head until you get the heart going in the right direction. In our state for … I would often say that we, the business community, are the largest consumer of a product called education and we can make it better.

That’s the mantra that we did and it’s a fight worth fighting for because the end result is success. And the end result is the great equalizer. Education creates equality, opportunity for every child, and that’s what we’re striving for.

Early Learning Nation: That’s what we’re of striving for. Well, it sounds like a terrific fight and it sounds like Alabama is moving the hearts and the minds.

Bill Canary: Yes. We’re not just all about football.

Early Learning Nation: Do they play football down there?

Bill Canary: Every other weekend.

Early Learning Nation: I’ve heard stories.

Bill Canary: But, you’re right. But it is the hearts and mind and I’m proud of the state of Alabama and I’m proud of the policy leaders and I’m very, very proud of the business community because they have stood up to do the right thing. And we’re making progress, it’s slow, it’s one child at a time, but you can change the world that way.

Early Learning Nation: Bill, thank you for stopping by the Early Learning Nation studio.

Bill Canary: Real pleasure. Thank you.

Early Learning Nation: Sumitra welcome to the Early Learning Nation studio. Thanks for joining us.

Sumitra Mishra: Thank you for having me here.

Early Learning Nation: For people in the US, what is a creche and why would one want it to be mobile?

Sumitra Mishra: A creche is traditionally a center that provides quality care in all its sense of integrated good quality holistic care for children under six years. It’s a place where working families would like to leave their children behind under the supervision of a trained and qualified caregiver. The interesting part of it is why does it need to be mobile? Because we work with the most vulnerable children and they are children of migrant workers who are moving from place to place in look of work, and these creches are located at their work sites. It is therefore mobile because a creche lasts at a work site till as long as the workers are working in that community at that work site. The workers move to another place in look of work, search of work, and the creche moves to a different location where there are more children who need those services. So, it’s not a bus that moves from community to community through the day, but the nature of it being mobile is that it follows the families where they find work.

Early Learning Nation: Early childhood development is hard. In a world of migrant children it would seem impossible so … very challenging. Nothing is impossible to an organization like Mobile Creches. How do you focus on helping advance the learning, helping advance the education in an environment where you’re dealing with children in some of the most difficult circumstances possible?

Sumitra Mishra: You’re right that this is a very challenging community to work with where their survival and existence is being questioned on a daily level. To think of early childhood care and development for their children is a very far off dream for most of the families that we work with. Therefore, our program is very central around the family. You’re looking at supportive parenting, just looking at building an understanding about quality childcare within the larger community, and then you are backing it up by supporting the child through a proper health, nutrition, and stimulation program. All of this … The main ingredient that binds all of this together is the love and the care. Don’t forget children need love and care, and all our care workers are trained how to find that love in their heart to give it generously to children along with all the other elements that is important for an ECD program.

Early Learning Nation: Does the knowledge, does the training, does the importance of love and the role that that can play in early childhood learning … Does that get delivered and translated to the parents as well? Is that part of it, or is this an environment where parents who have to work in difficult jobs under difficult conditions can at least for those hours feel good that their children are in an environment where they’re getting all of the things that surely the parents would like to be delivering on their own, but might not be able to?

Sumitra Mishra: Certainly for those eight to 10 hours a day when the parents are working, children are being looked after, stimulated, and protected in the hands of qualified center workers, but the program that Mobile Creches runs is very closely connected to the families and the communities. So, throughout the day, and through the week and the month there’s a lot of engagement with the parents in helping and supporting them to improve on their own child rearing practices, and improving their understanding so that when they’re moving away from this community and this creche some of the practices get embedded within their family lives.

Early Learning Nation: How about the businesses where these parents are working. What role do they play? Are they supportive of the efforts, and how does that relationship work?

Sumitra Mishra: I have been thinking a lot through since the last two days of this workshop to see how business leaders have in the US come together to talk about ECD in a very informed and a very strong argument. Unfortunately in India we are at the very early stages of building that argument. The businesses here care for the children because A, it’s a question of compliance under the law for them to be providing childcare entitlements to the workers. B, they care for the children because it’s a question of their reputation if something goes wrong with the families of the children and therefore a protective center is good. Three, there is hunger, and nutrition, and health issues of a lot of these children and we’re talking of hundreds of thousands of children who are stunted and [inaudible 00:04:57] in the country. So, there is a sense of responsibility of the businesses that while the workers and the children are with them they will provide better quality care. It’s a mix of different motivations. It’s not so much a policy and systemic issue that we would like to see like what I’m seeing here in the US, but we’ve got a good start with some of our business leaders engaging with us over so many years now, 50 years of Mobile Creches.

Early Learning Nation: You looked, you cheated! That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. Next year is your 50th anniversary which is a remarkable amount. It’s a remarkable testament to what Mobile Creches has done. Tell me the story of how began. I read about it online, and it’s an incredibly powerful story so tell me story of how you began.

Sumitra Mishra: Well, 1969 is when it began. It was founded by a woman called Meera Mahadevan who’s been an original Gandhian. Incidentally and ironically the first creche started at the place which was being constructed as a Gandhi memorial for his 50th year centenary. So, since 1969 to 2019 is going to be our 50th year journey, and we’ll be celebrating our 50th year with a Gandhi centenary celebrations.

The plight of children in the construction sites was very dismal. It continues to be dismal, but from the very beginning Mobile Creches did not look at a creche and the entitlement of a child as a question of charity. It was always a right of the child and in our negotiations with our business leader we always kept that in the front. That it is a right of the child and it is a responsibility for you to ensure that the child’s right is guaranteed. However we don’t wear our activist hats on when we’re speaking to business leaders. We are as facilitators, supporters to make it happen and that works. That strategy works.

Early Learning Nation: What is the environment like where these children are? Where the creches get put. Just describe that for people who may not have seen the pictures.

Sumitra Mishra: Well for one construction currently is happening outside of the main city limits which is completely unorganized. There’s no health, there’s no road, there aren’t any hospitals there. There aren’t any schools there because it’s a new area that is coming up. When migrant labor comes they’re not from that community. They’re coming from thousands of kilometers away. So, there is a language barrier. There is an issue around food, culture, and all of that. So, they are literally aliens within the community in which they’re living. These are very temporary living conditions, unsanitary living conditions. They can range from anywhere between 10 sheds of accommodation to living in a half built basement of the same building that they’re building. In those situations there is lack of access to water, to toilets, food is very poor there. So, you can imagine the plight of the children. It’s a question of survival.

Early Learning Nation: It’s a question of survival and with the work that you’re doing it’s a question of enhancing that survival.

Sumitra Mishra: Yes, making it a little better, being a little supportive in their survival. You can’t change it completely for them and that’s a public provision mandate. There is a government who needs to take responsibility, but how can you work with the government and with the community to make it a little better.

Early Learning Nation: Thank you – thank you for your work, and taking the time. Congratulations on 50th anniversary.

Sumitra Mishra: Thank you, it’s a pleasure.

Early Learning Nation: JD, welcome to the Early Learning Nation studio.

JD Chesloff: Thank you for having me.

Early Learning Nation: You have sat at the intersection of business, public policy and education, including early education, for much of your career. What’s the state of affairs today? And as you look around the nation and you look at Massachusetts, what grade would you give us?

JD Chesloff: Well, in Massachusetts I would say, you know, probably I give us a solid B plus, maybe bordering on A.

Early Learning Nation: That would be tough grade, or are you easy?

JD Chesloff: Well, I mean if you look at some of the rankings, for example, Massachusetts does very well. The reason why I wouldn’t give us an A plus, maybe even stay at a B plus, is there’s still significant achievement gaps in our state that we’re working on. Frankly, just to tie it back to your childhood for a second, it is a significant strategy to address achievement gaps.

Early Learning Nation: What’s the why? Why use and focus on early learning as a key driver to closing achievement gap?

JD Chesloff: One of the members of the Roundtable used a really great analogy. He said, “If you’re Michelin tires, and you have a hole in your supply chain of rubber, you immediately go to the beginning of that supply chain and fix it.” When we talked to a lot of employers, they will tell you there’s a hole in the supply chain of workers. If you’re going to use a strategy to go fix that supply chain, it makes a ton of sense to start at the beginning, and early childhood is that strategy.

Early Learning Nation: What’s the business case? Why should businesses care? I mean, of all the things they have to care about, why should they care about investing in early childhood learning?

JD Chesloff: I think it’s twofold. It is the supply chain issue. When we talk to members of the Roundtable, Massachusetts and ask them what are the most important issues they’re dealing with right now, they’ll talk about congestion and transportation issues, but they’ll talk about the inability to find workers with the skills necessary to fill open jobs.

We actually survey them, and that number’s gone as high as about 75% of the employees we survey will tell you they’re having a hard time. So this is a strategy, a long-term strategy to address that.

The other business case, of course is for the current workforce. If folks have quality options for their children, they are far more productive workers. So I think there’s a couple elements of the business case, but business folks certainly get that.

Early Learning Nation: The current benefit to current employees who have children, I think that gets overlooked a lot. We talk a lot about, how do you incentivize and get business owners interested in investing for the long term, and particularly we know for many companies that’s difficult when there are short-term and quarterly requirements, and yet there are some real short term immediate benefits that can accrue when you have an employee force that you need there, and it’s a benefit that you can deliver.

JD Chesloff: Yes, and I think what happens in Massachusetts, anyway, is that childcare is very, very expensive. So employers are seeing it, with their difficulty that their employees are facing in finding high quality care.

Early Learning Nation: Now you have a public policy background as well. What’s the public policy interest and how … and maybe if you can go beyond Massachusetts, that’s great, but if you want to focus on examples within Massachusetts, that’s perfect as well, that intersection and partnership between the public sector and the private. How does it work and how is it working?

JD Chesloff: I’ll give you a great example, a current example in Massachusetts. What I have found over the course of my career is that you really need three things to successfully move a public policy agenda. You need a champion. You need really great data, and you need a grassroots kind of field effort.

In Massachusetts, we have a great champion, and it’s the Speaker Of The House, right? So, he has said this is going to be a priority of his for all the research reasons we know. He then says, “Okay, we’re going to focus on the early childhood workforce.” Who better to understand the needs of how to develop a workforce but the business community? He brings the community together to say, “Hey, help me think about this. How do we build a system in Massachusetts that really focuses on creating a high quality early education workforce?” Created a business advisory group on early education, which I chair. That group has come together, done a report, advises the Speaker, and has led to a series of both financial and policy changes in Massachusetts that have really helped this issue. So that’s a great example of how business and public policy and policy makers can work together. It’s happening right now.

Early Learning Nation: I assume that while the public side is pushing the business, the business is also pushing the politicians and the public policymakers.

JD Chesloff: Absolutely, in fact, I served as the chair of the state’s Board of Early Education and Care for 10 years, and during that time got to tour a whole variety of early childhood centers, facilities. I remember being on a tour in one, where there was a boy. It was this beautiful kid in a city. I said to the guy who was leading the tours, “Geez, what a remarkable child.” He said to me, “Yeah, that child’s father is in jail. He’s been shot and is in jail, and his mother has drug problems, and this is the safest place he’ll be all day.” That stuck with me and I said, “Okay, how do I use, how can we use the platform that we have as business leaders to address that?” That’s kind of where we started to get engaged with a lot of this advocacy around early childhood.

Early Learning Nation: For you personally, is that where you got into this and got connected with this, or was this an interest of yours and a policy interest business interest of yours, even before that?

JD Chesloff: So how I got involved with this, other than having children of my own who went through a great program, I worked on a gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts and we lost. It was very difficult for me at that point to find a job with the new administration. With very few options I ended up going to work for an early childhood advocacy organization, called The Early Education For All Campaign. That’s how I got involved with the public policy aspect of early childhood, and during that time we developed and passed the legislation that created the [Born 00:06:09] Department of Early Education and Care in Massachusetts. That was really my initial foray into it, and I’ve just become a convert and advocate ever since then.

Early Learning Nation: You have gone on and you mentioned some of it, and you’ve worked in the public sector side. You’re in a group that really brings business leaders together in focusing on this issue. The Massachusetts Business Alliance For Education came out with a report, the New Opportunity To Lead report. I just want to quote from part of it. “The plan takes aim at persistent socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps,” which you were talking about, “And growing workforce skill gaps.”

In the end, is it going to the beginning of the supply chain? Is that where the answers to all of this really lie?

JD Chesloff: I think it’s a answer, one of the answers. I actually sit on MBA Youth Board, and I’m very familiar with that report. That report, it really looks at the entire continuum. If you’re going to invest resources in one place, it might as well be at the beginning, because it’s proven to be the most effective way to adjust the issue.

Early Learning Nation: JD, thank you.

JD Chesloff: Thank you.

Early Learning Nation: Sylvia, welcome. Thank you for your time.

Sylvia Acevedo: Great to be here.

Early Learning Nation: The Girl Scouts organization is iconic. It is a centerpiece of American culture. Why are you at a conference on early learning?

Sylvia Acevedo: You know, early learning is so important for kids’ lives. In Girl Scouts, we start from age five all the way to age 17. Recently we partnered with Head Start because we know Head Start gives kids all these tremendous advantages, and we want to keep them going, that sense of curiosity, that sense of wonder. At Girl Scouts, we really help girls learn how to develop courage, confidence, and character, and have all these amazing life skills. So what greater partner than to be with early childhood or Head Start?

Early Learning Nation: Tell me about that partnership. What does it mean? How do you bring the Head Start tools … because you’ve got an incredible audience of girls who could benefit from the Head Start program. How does it work?

Sylvia Acevedo: Actually we’re partnering with Head Start because what they’re seeing is that a lot of times parents are so involved in the Head Start program, but then when they go into traditional schools, they don’t know how to stay and keep that involvement. So what’s great is that in Head Start, parents have parent support specialists who help them understand how to navigate the U.S. educational system and how to be involved, but frequently they don’t have an outlet for that, and so Girl Scouts were introducing them to Girl Scouts, how they can stay connected to their daughters, and the amazing outcomes that you get through Girl Scouts. It’s a great partnership. We’re starting it in a few cities and we want to roll it out nationally.

Early Learning Nation: Maintaining and finding ways to maintain that connection as parents get busy, it’s central to early learning.

Sylvia Acevedo: It is absolutely key to early learning. Having those great relationships and shared experiences, that’s so important.

Early Learning Nation: So many people may not know … I was not as aware … of the Girl Scout Research Institute and the data driven research that you guys do with some of the leading universities and the resources that you have as well. One of the reports last year, The Girl Scout Impact Study … and among your findings, I’m quoting from it, “Girl Scouts also helps girls do well in the classroom and beyond compared to their non-Girl Scout peers. Girl Scouts earn better grades, have higher academic aspirations, desire a career in STEM, business, or law, industries in which women are underrepresented.” Why do you think those connections exist?

Sylvia Acevedo: There are several very important ones. One is that single gender focus that we have. We’re girls only, and that really matters, especially when you’re trying to do something non-traditional. So what happens it there unfortunately is a lot of bias where maybe teachers will call on boys more, or girls will try something and if they’re not successful the first time, they’ll quit, and they’ll say, “I don’t think I’m good at that.”

Well, in Girl Scouts you keep trying until you do that, until you’re successful. Also, you’re free to fail. You’re free to try something, and if you’re not good at it, you’re not good at it. That’s okay. We actually celebrate failures, because you’ve learned something that you’re not good at. Sometimes girls, they have high expectations. If they can’t do something perfectly, you’re not going to do it all.

But in Girl Scouts, we really give you that opportunity to really develop yourself and have all sorts of interests. I mean, we do things from STEM, outdoors, entrepreneurship programs, arts, crafts. I wore this bead bracelet on purpose today.

Early Learning Nation: I was going to ask where you got that.

Sylvia Acevedo: You know, we’re experts in how girls learn. So if you imagine five and six year old girls, we’re really trying to get them interested in STEM, and particularly coding. If you talk to coding experts, they’ll talk to you, “Okay, how you learn about coding … you learn about computers, and it’s basic 0 and 1s, and On/Off.” If you’re trying to teach five and six year old girls about that, they’re bored out of their mind.

But what we do instead is we express the alphabet in 0 and 1s and On and Off. We ask them, we say, “The blue beads are 0s and the yellow beads are 1s, now make a bracelet with your initials.” So this is S and this is A expressed in binary. Now girls will do this in less than 15 minutes. The next thing is they want a longer string because they want to put their entire name. Then they want a longer string, because they want to put all their best friends’ names on it.

So what happens is they learn the project management skills, because we ask girls the lead, they learn teamwork. Then those are skills that are very much transferrable to the classroom, that courage and confidence that they gain in these other activities transfers immediately into the classroom.

Early Learning Nation: I’m hearing you, and I’m hearing the importance of environment and context and building the right place. That translate not only, I assume, to success within the Girl Scouts world, but to early learning. I want to pick up, though, on one thing you were talking about earlier, which is the parents and the caregivers, because you talked about that connection. You focus on girls, obviously, in Girl Scouts, but how do you talk with parents and caregivers about their role, particularly when many parents may not have the time? Is there anything tangible, tactical that you could give any lessons about how to engage parents with the girls?

Sylvia Acevedo: In Girls Scouts, our model from the very beginning has been a learning model, which is to take a girl’s potential and teach her a skill, but then we ask her to apply that skill and the leadership. The fourth part of our model is parent involvement, or caring adult. At Girl Scouts, a lot of times our parents come into Girl Scouts, and they actually feel like, “I can’t be a leader, I’ll just watch,” but then little by little, they get more involved and their own leadership develops.

My mother was a great example. When she started, she watched me in Girl Scouts, saw that I was just thriving, so she wanted to be involved, but she didn’t speak English. So my troop leaders invited her to be part of refreshments, and then they helped her learn English, helped her get her U.S. citizenship, because she was eligible for that. Then my mother became the troop treasurer at a time when she didn’t even have her bank account. The first bank account she opened up was for Girl Scouts, then she opened up one for herself. She then managed the cookie program, which is fantastic. So my mother’s self-esteem grew as much as my self-esteem and confidence grew.

I have so many parents tell me that being part of Girl Scouts has helped them even more so than it’s helped their daughters.

Early Learning Nation: That’s remarkable to hear that you’re personal family tree is so intertwined with Girl Scouts and with the experience and clearly must be a significant part of why you are where you are now.

Sylvia Acevedo: Well, that is true. Many of the things that I learned at Head Start, I had my teacher really encourage me to role model that with my mother. She used those same lessons for my developmentally sister. So what you learned in early childhood is just applicable in so many ways in your life.

Early Learning Nation: I want to ask you about some work that Girl Scouts is doing that I read about and speaks to, I believe, the hardest, perhaps, to reach kids. You have a number of troops in homeless shelters in New York City?

Sylvia Acevedo: Yes, actually we have homeless troops in almost every major urban city in America. The one that’s most well known is Troop 6000, where we serve over 800 girls. When you think about those girls, they want the same opportunities they see Girl Scouts having, and so we’re so grateful for the partnerships that we have with the city of New York and other early learning organizations to make sure that those girls have the opportunities, because you know, they see that Girl Scouts have such success. I mean, half of all female elected officials in America, Girl Scouts. 3/4 of the U.S. female senators, Girl Scouts. All three secretaries of states, Girl Scouts. Almost every female astronaut in space was a Girl Scout. We have outsized outcomes and every girl who wants those should have the opportunity. Especially homeless girls, we want to make sure that they have the opportunities.

Early Learning Nation: Sylvia, thank you so much for coming by the Early Learning Nation studio.

Sylvia Acevedo: Oh, thank you. It’s so important.

Early Learning Nation: Cynthia, thank you so much for coming to the ELN studio.

Cynthia McCaffrey: Thank you for having me. It’s good to be here.

Early Learning Nation: UNICEF does obviously extraordinary work with and for children and families around the world. How important is and how difficult is it to establish the proper environments to even allow early childhood learning to properly develop?

Cynthia McCaffrey: To your first question, how important is it? It’s extremely important because our brains, anyone’s brain, is developing faster and more intensely in those early years of life. We talk about the first thousand days at UNICEF.

How difficult is it? It’s becoming a lot easier for two reasons. One is there’s more data and information out there. We’re seeing and learning from hard data that when you invest in a child’s early development, early life, getting them ready for school, they’re better students, they stay in school, they perform better, they’re more productive adults.

A second, though, is partnership. Ready Nation is bringing together not the usual suspects to work together to use data and information to take action together. So one of the exciting things that’s happening here at Ready Nation and that we’re doing all the time is working with local governments, working with national governments, but also working with non government organizations and the private sector. The private sector’s coming in with their resources, not just money but also their brains, their information, their experience.

The other is sitting with young people themselves and with parents to ask them, “What are we not thinking of? How could we do this together?” And we’ve got a great program in Mexico that we designed not just with the people who had the money or the policy decisions, but with the parents themselves.

Early Learning Nation: I wanted to ask you about the Mexico program. Because when you think about places like Mexico, but beyond Mexico and in many of the other countries, and I’m quoting from UNICEF here that much of your work focuses on children who are uprooted, “Driven from their homes by conflict or disaster while others are migrating in the hope of finding a better, safer life.” How can a child focus on advancing learning in the cases where families may just be trying to survive?

Cynthia McCaffrey: So we have the world … Our world has about 50 million on the move. They’re migrants, they’re refugees, they’re internally displaced in their own countries. So you’re absolutely right. It’s an enormous problem, and families are just trying to survive. However, we get through this, and we make progress at three main things. Persistence, through partnership working together and then practical solutions.

So on persistence, that’s the main piece. I was in the Philippines shortly after the cyclone a few years ago. We had built child-friendly spaces where parents could bring their children to continue at least playing in a safe place and even some learning. They were packed. And these children were not quiet sitting in a corner. They were playing and laughing and yelling and screaming. They are not giving up on trying to rebuild their lives, even though they had lost homes, they’d lost family members. And so that persistence of their coming … They’re meeting us more than halfway. How can we not as a global community meet them and go the rest of the way with them?

Early Learning Nation: That’s got to be such a critical moment. Disaster relief and then partnering. And there is another area where businesses globally and with supply chain do incredible work in terms of delivering-

Cynthia McCaffrey: Right. Absolutely.

Early Learning Nation: … disaster relief in time when it’s needed. Is delivering early childhood learning and development at those times, is that part of the need in disaster relief also?

Cynthia McCaffrey: Yes. Absolutely. So when we talk about making sure that families and children survive, it’s getting them the basic health, the basic nutrition, but absolutely getting them back into learning environments where it’s safe. It gives children some normalcy. It gives parents a break where they can help figure out how they’re going to build their family’s lives.

Early Learning Nation: Rebuild infrastructure. You’ve got one of the coolest jobs. You are Director of the Office of Global Innovation.

Cynthia McCaffrey: Yes. Wow.

Early Learning Nation: Yes, title aside, that’s just really cool! I’ve always wanted to meet the person who is innovating globally, so it’s great to meet you. What do you see out there? I know that innovation means a lot of different things. So I guess first of all, what does innovation mean to you? What does it mean in terms of the early learning space? And is there anything that in terms of innovation we maybe should keep an eye on five, ten years down the line?

Cynthia McCaffrey:  Absolutely. One is I am a little point, and UNICEF has a tradition of innovating. From digging water pumps in the ’70s to creating a Plumpy’nut that really helps children in emergencies. It’s a peanut butter paste. We’ve been innovating for years. And I just get to help right that wave.

What innovation means for us at UNICEF is doing something new and different that adds value. Fundamentally, we don’t come up with innovations and find a problem. We do it the other way around. We go in with our colleagues on the ground in South Sudan or Democratic Republic of Congo. What is your challenge? How do you get kids ready for school? How do you help parents have the skills they need to raise healthy babies and then young children? And then we figure out what innovation we might bring.

Two things, is we’ve got real time communication. We started with flip phones eight years ago trying to connect with young people, with young parents just through SMS. Today we’re moving to using things like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger so that if SMS is prohibitive, if you’ve got digital, we can communicate with you. Ask you what’s wrong. Ask for solutions. Give you resources. So that’s a solution that I think will keep going as we connect the world and really think about how we get useful information to people to help build the young citizens so that they can be tomorrow’s leaders.

Early Learning Nation: To close out: As you think about your focus, family supportive and friendly policies. Is that kind of the theme of what you’re about?

Cynthia McCaffrey: Yes. I think one of the key things that, because UNICEF has a global reach, we’re really trying to look at how you create that workforce of tomorrow. And it’s been interesting to be here at Ready Nation and talk about that.

And we’re trying to look at how you shift four main things. How you shift just from maternal leave to family leave, so that it’s both parents. How you shift from infrastructure to the person. Rather than just breastfeeding rooms, how you make breaks available so you can use them. How you’re shifting from looking at making things available, closing gaps for childcare and using that to create places where parents can come to work but leave their children in a safe place.

People are talking about scholarships here. How you close those gaps for an early childhood daycare center. We’re trying to shift from infrastructure to really more people focused, and business has a huge role to play there. To make it really specific to their context, their markets and make it global where everybody can benefit.

Early Learning Nation: It’s an incredible range of initiatives and areas, and it’s such a wide space. Thank you for your work, and thank you for stopping by the ELN studio.

Cynthia McCaffrey: Thank you for having us.

Early Learning Nation: Aleem, welcome. Thank you for coming to our Early Leaning Nation studio.

Early Learning Nation: Early childhood development can mean different things in different parts of the world. What does it mean to you?

Aleem Walji: Well for me, it’s, when I think about the places in the world in which we live that are underdeveloped in so many ways, and I think about just low-hanging fruit, 80 to 90% of a child’s brain development happens before they turn eight. If that’s the case, the question is, what do we do in those early years that is going to transform the trajectory of a child’s life? A lot of that has to do with how you deal with parents and caregivers. They are the first teachers of a child, and they’re the ones that spend the most time. What is it that we can do to prepare them? That’s what it means to me.

Early Learning Nation: Do you see a real opportunity there on parents and caregivers, maybe not enough going to them, maybe there are so many daily challenges already?

Aleem Walji: It’s absolutely clear that the parents that are the children of the ones that we care about that are the most underprivileged, the parents themselves are underprivileged, so they have many, many challenges. But we also know that parents want what’s best for their children. Often they just don’t know what it takes, and what it’s going to require to help their children get ahead. How many parents know that between zero to eight 80% of your brain develops? When they know that, all of the sudden it’s like an a-ha moment, and they think, “Gosh, what can I do?” The idea of exposing them to language, to words, to play-based methods. We know that for 21st century skills, play-based methods are super important. Most parents don’t know that. Helping your kids to play is not a difficult thing.

Early Learning Nation: You’re talking about places all around the world, and some difficult to reach places. Do you have to initially create the awareness, zero to eight is central to the brain development, and then also give the opportunities or the ideas on what to do with that time, particularly when we’re talking about parents and places in the world where there are so many daily challenges that this might fall down the list just because there may be day-to-day survival requirements?

Aleem Walji: Awareness is clearly where it starts, but it’s not enough. You have to do work in communities, you have to give parents the skills, the tools, the methodologies. You can read a book to a child in a kind of passive way, but when you read a book to a child where you’re asking questions, where you’re asking them to form ideas about what might be happening with characters, that’s what stimulates the mind. That’s what provokes thought. That can be taught to parents.

Early Learning Nation: Describe some of your programs?

Aleem Walji: We work all over the world. We work on something called the science of early childhood. It turns out that 95% of the children in the world live in what we call the majority world in developing countries. Five percent of the research comes from those countries. So, 95% of what we know about early childhood, or about really almost children’s development, happens in the Western world. We’ve developed a course called A Science of Early Childhood with Red River College and the University of Toronto, and this is to make available to parents, to policy makers, to teachers, to doctors, to nurses, to front line caregivers, access to knowledge and learning about what it takes to help develop the brain of a child, and socio-emotional learning as well. That’s now reached 45 countries, and in languages ranging from Arabic, to Russian, to Portuguese… and a number of other languages.

That’s a part of what we do, but I guess another thing that I’m very proud of is in Egypt, we’ve been working with schools of nursing and midwifery. Nurses now, all over the country, are developing the basic knowledge and skills, both to know themselves, but also to teach the parents as to what’s going to make a difference.

Early Learning Nation: Is that key? It’s come up in a couple of conversations that I’ve had with folks. Finding, I almost think of them as distribution channels-

Aleem Walji: Yes.

Early Learning Nation: Of ideas-

Aleem Walji: Yes.

Early Learning Nation: Is that central to-

Aleem Walji: It’s powerful. It’s absolutely essential if you’re going to get to scale. I often say there’s just a few ways to get to scale. What goes big is what’s adopted by the private sector, what’s adopted by government through policies, what’s adopted through media, and what’s adopted by the mass public. That’s often because of what happens through the media, or through the private sector, or through government. You have to identify those nodes, those distribution channels, as you say, that are really going to make a difference, and schools are one, hospitals are another, nurses and teachers-

Early Learning Nation: Midwives?

Aleem Walji: Are both essential. Midwives are essential.

Early Learning Nation: I wanted to follow up on the point that you were making before about 95% of the data comes from five percent of the world.

Aleem Walji: Research.

Early Learning Nation: Research. Are you gathering data now from that other 95%?

Aleem Walji: Yes. That’s where it’s happening. We’re doing research in the developing world for the developing world, to be done by the developing world. Many of the things that we’re finding resonate. So, we’re finding, for example, the importance of parents and caregivers is essential. The importance of early nutrition. The importance of stimulation. The importance of play-based methods. All of that is common. What we find is different is how to make those things happen? How do you, at the level of the household, intervene in ways that are effective? How do you involve the father, another caregiver? How do you deal with a caregiver when the mother is gone most of the day? There are differences and nuances as to what the data shows us, but there are many, many commonalities, as well.

Early Learning Nation: To close out, we like to talk about creating an early leaning world. You create value all over the world. What would it take to deliver early childhood learning to all corners of the world?

Aleem Walji: The ultimate scaler here is not going to be preschools, it’s not going to hospitals, it’s not going to be educational facilities alone. It’s got to be creating a ground game with caregivers and parents. Children spend the majority of their time at home with their caregivers and with their parents. Until they become expert educators and expert providers of services and stimulation and nutrition, we’re not going to have a world free of poverty.

Early Learning Nation: Aleem, thank you. Thank you for your work, thank you for coming by our ELN studio.

Aleem Walji: Thank you.

Early Learning Nation: Patti, welcome to the Early Learning Nation studio.

Patti Miller: It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Early Learning Nation: It’s great to have you. So let’s start. Too Small to Fail. What is it?

Patti Miller: Too Small to Fail is the early childhood initiative of the Clinton Foundation. We started Too Small to Fail five years ago. It’s a public awareness and action campaign focused on parents and caregivers. And what we’re focused on doing is raising awareness about the importance of language-rich parenting in the early years, from the moment a child’s born and providing parents with tools so they can talk, read, and sing with their infants and toddlers starting at birth.

Early Learning Nation: So why the focus … And I want to ask you about language-rich tools. But let’s first talk about the audience, the parents, the caregivers. Why there?

Patti Miller: What we know is that the first three years of life is one of the most critical periods for brain development. We know what best stimulates brain development in those early years is talking, reading, and singing when parents or other caregivers are actively engaging with young children. We also know that by the time you get to kindergarten almost 60% of children in the United States lack the language and literacy skills they need to be successful in kindergarten. So what we’re trying to do is get awareness out to parents about how important it is to engage from the moment a child is born, even when they can’t talk back, so that we can be boosting their brains and they can be developing their vocabulary so they’ll be kindergarten ready.

Early Learning Nation: When you talk to a parent and say, “Anything, really, is a language-rich opportunity,” are they kind of self conscious about it? What do they say?

Patti Miller: What we try and do is have parents focus on everyday moments and routines. Even the most well-resourced parent is strapped for time, right? And if you’re a parent working a few jobs to make ends meet and someone tells you, “Talk, read, and sing every day for 30 minutes,” you would think, “I would love to, but I don’t have that much time.” So what we try to do is focus on everyday moments and routines, bath time, meal time, you’re in the grocery store. You’re commuting to work on the business or in your car. These are great opportunities to talk and sing with your child and to actively engage with them. Diaper changing time is another great time.

We have really tried to think about where parents are, what are the spaces and places that they go to regularly, and how do we meet them where they are. So laundromats is a great opportunities. We have developed this incredible partnership with the Coin Laundry Association, and Brian Wallace-

Early Learning Nation: Isn’t that incredible?

Patti Miller: … the CEO is here today. And it’s really about this opportunity of when a family goes to a Laundromat, it’s two and a half hours of time generally. And we’ve seen these YouTube videos of these children just bored out of their minds. And we thought, “What if we actually engaged families at the laundromat?” So we started by creating these wash time and talk time posters and tip sheets, and we sent them through the Coin Laundry Association to 5,000 laundromats across the country. And we actually expanded that work, and now we’re creating these literacy corners in laundromats in New York City that look like almost these little mini versions of a preschool in a corner.

There’s the ABC mat and a bookshelf with children’s books and puppets and ABC magnets. And what we’re trying to do is actually when parents have that time when their laundry is in the washing machine to actively engage in early literacy activities with their children in these reading corners. And we’re doing a study of it right now with NYU.

Early Learning Nation: That’s really wonderful, because as to all of our regret, bookstores and places where you might think on a Saturday you could take a kid for 30 minutes, as those go away, one great to find other places but two, as you’re pointing out, this is where the parents need to be to get the wash done.

Patti Miller: That’s right. And what we also know about a lot of young families in this country is they lack access to children’s books. And in fact for a middle class family, a home library has about 14 books. In a low-income neighborhood in the United States, it’s one book for every 300 children. And in fact, JetBlue did a study and found that in Anacostia outside of Washington DC it was one book for every 800 children. So through the course of Too Small to Fail we’ve distributed almost a million children’s books so far. And that’s through Laundromats, diaper banks, playgrounds, you name it, where parents are, we’re there to deliver it.

Early Learning Nation: It’s a great point of view. It’s feeling like you almost look at any place as a potential distribution channel, if you will.

Patti Miller: That’s right. That’s right.

Early Learning Nation: I wrote down the list – the incredible list of people that you work with to reach parents: Pediatricians, hospitals, faith-based leaders, community-based organizations, businesses, entertainment industry leaders and others. How important is that network for you?

Patti Miller: It’s essential. It’s critical. This is really about how the work gets done. I mean, Too Small to Fail literally is very aptly named because we literally are too small to fail. We’re talking about six people. And so this doesn’t work without amazing partners across the country, and that means partners across sectors. So when we think about the entertainment industry, we know all of us love our favorite television shows. And we thought, “Well, what if we incorporated content about the importance of talking, reading, and singing in popular television shows?” So 14 television shows from Orange is the New Black to Law and Order SVU to Days of Our Lives to last week, How to Get Away with Murder have all incorporated content into their storylines.

Early Learning Nation: That’s funny, because I was going to say, I watch Game of Thrones. I’m not sure how you’re going to work it in there. But you probably could figure it out.

Patti Miller: It’s amazing. These writers and producers are extremely creative.

Early Learning Nation: That’s awesome. That’s great.

Patti Miller: And they have found really unique and creative ways to organically integrate content. We have a major campaign on Univision to reach Hispanic parents. Including we just created a five-part telenovela that’s taking place in an early childhood center. So while there’s a lot of drama going on with the characters there’s an opportunity to talk about early brain and language development.

Early Learning Nation: I want to just close by asking you about your cities strategy, Tulsa, Oakland, Miami, Minneapolis. How do you identify these communities, and no pressure, do you have plans to reach-

Patti Miller: Expand? Yes.

Early Learning Nation: Yes, to expand. Because yesterday’s news is yesterday’s news, Patti, you understand.

Patti Miller: Right. What’s happening next?

Early Learning Nation: Yes.

Patti Miller: So when we launched our city strategy, we launched in Tulsa and Oakland, and those were our pilot sites. The strategy really thinks about three components in a community. One is who is the trusted messenger in that community? So in Oakland it was pediatricians. In Tulsa, it was pediatricians as well as pastors of churches. So who do parents trust to get information and resources? And then we think about high-quality tools. So we have a Talking is Teaching tote bag with children’s books and a parent guide we created with Sesame Street and children’s clothes, onesies and t-shirts and baby blankets that prompt parents with the prompts actually on the materials and information on our text message program. And we distribute those through our trusted messengers and communities.

And then the final component is reinforcing the messages throughout the community, so billboards, bus messages, we were on every single bus in Tulsa with messages, TV and radio. So trying to reinforce the message that parents are getting from their trusted messengers. Oakland and Tulsa were phenomenal pilot sites. And from that work we actually created a toolkit for communities on how they could create their own campaigns. And we held a conference for cities across the country and said, “All of this is open source. All of this is available for free. We’re happy to provide technical assistance.” We now have 18 communities across the country that have Talking is Teaching campaigns.

We launch this summer in New Orleans at the children’s hospital there. Two weeks ago we were out at San Francisco General Hospital, which also has a campaign. We just did an evaluation of their work with pediatricians, and it found that 80% of parents were talking, reading, and singing more after this intervention with pediatricians. We’ll soon be launching in Detroit as well and two or three more cities to come in 2019.

Early Learning Nation: That’s terrific. And trust and trusted messenger, key themes. And it just it makes sense. That’s how to reach people is through individuals whom they trust.

Patti Miller: That’s absolutely right. We know that there are certain people in parent’s lives that they trust implicitly like their pediatrician or their pastor or their nurse or home visitor. So we think those are wonderful opportunities and great channels to reach parents with tools so that they can actively engage with their young children.

Early Learning Nation: Patti, thank you for coming by the Early Learning Nation studio.

Patti Miller: Thanks for having me.

Early Learning Nation: Kasper, welcome to the Early Learning Nation Studio.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Thank you so much.

Early Learning Nation: We know, Kasper, that children love to play. What role does play have, though, in early learning?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Let me begin by saying that childhood and play goes hand-in-hand, right? Where children has a natural ability to learn about the world through play, right from early infancy, so that’s actually where it starts.

We know that, in the early years, the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, the brain develops much faster than in any other period of life. That creates a window of opportunity where we can actually help the child develop, and stimulate them in a way that will have greater impact on their life trajectory than the rest of their life.

On top of that, you can also say that research that indicates that to stimulate and have that interaction with children in their early years, then play is a natural approach, a natural way for us to interact with them, and make them learn.

Early Learning Nation: Is play a starter to the learning process, or are there specific skills that kids can learn from playing? Or is it a little bit of both?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: I would actually say it’s both. Play is both a starter, but it’s also something that drives the skills. You must, say, look at it this way, that we know that the world is becoming increasingly complex. That there’s more and more disruptions here. We see that there is a need for developing a certain kind of competences. If you look at it, all childhood experts, they say that we need to develop competences such as physical, social, and emotional, cognitive, and creative skills in children. Play can do that.

The reason why play is so good at doing it is that play helps us open up the children and motivate them to explore, and thereby, to learn about whatever task they’re engaged in. It, again, becomes a natural habit for them to learn.

Early Learning Nation: It really must be motivating, and obviously, play and fun, it creates a different environment, and I would assume one, then, where kids can take on new learning and learn new skills. There’s something on the website, the part about this type of learning, where you state that “Play is too often underestimated in early-childhood programs, despite being the most natural way of acquiring essential life skills in early-childhood.” That makes total sense to me. Why is the role of play not well enough understood?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: I think, when we look at it, play is really looked at as a leisure-time activity, as something you do for fun.

Early Learning Nation: It’s play.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Exactly. But play should be fun. Learning should be fun. We want children to learn in a motivated way. Otherwise, you end up having passive learners, who’s actually not turning into lifelong learners, and we need that. Corporate-sector need it. Everybody needs it.

Early Learning Nation: Let’s talk about one of LEGO’s programs, your Communities of Learning through Play Program. What are your focus areas there?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Well, I can say the program is a geographical deep-dive approach, where we work in four different countries. We work in Denmark, Ukraine, Mexico, and South Africa. We work to establish play as a systemic approach to early-childhood development, as well as learning, and thereby actually drive a much more stronger focus on competency development of children in these countries, and work closer together with governments, local authorities, to do this.

Early Learning Nation: You mentioned the four countries. I’d like to hear about a couple of them. In Mexico, I know you have a couple of programs. In one of which, you’re working with the government to support practitioners. We hear about the importance of engaging children. The importance of engaging parents. This is a program that engages practitioners. Talk to me about that program.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: It’s because we can see in Mexico that there is a huge infrastructure of early-childhood centers. We are working together with what’s called DIF, and DIF has 9,300 early-childhood centers across the country.

However, we also see that those are very much looking at … Good quality is whether or not they are clean, whether they’re painted, whether children are registered when they come to the center. But they’re not so much looking at the content.

Somehow, we lose our natural ability to play throughout the way we have been schooled. When then the children come in and meet the practitioners in these childhood centers, they’re not natural facilitators of play anymore, so they don’t know how to actually move the children from A to B in their learning in a playful way.

Then we end up with something that can be very dangerous, and that is repetition. Because if a child learn to repeat something, they don’t necessarily know how to apply that knowledge.

Early Learning Nation: Another one of the countries you mentioned, South Africa. There, you are establishing something … I can only imagine that you’re the marketing genius behind this name … something you call Granny Garages. Please explain.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Actually Granny Garages is not me that is the marketing genius-

Early Learning Nation: Is it someone else?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Unfortunately. Granny Garages is a place where … often, the disadvantaged communities are bringing their children to a lady who is then taking care of them throughout the days. However, this lady has no professional training in how to take care of children. She’s doing it the best way possible, and she’s doing it from the right place in her heart.

We are, then, again, working together with her as an untrained professional, and see “How can you, with what you have, actually create playful learning environments?” What’s interesting here is you can play with everything. Scrap materials, whatever you have at hand, you can do storytelling. You just need to know how to be creative and engage the child.

Early Learning Nation: We know that. When a kid opens … You’ll forgive me … a box of LEGOs-

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Yes.

Early Learning Nation: We all want them to play with the LEGOS, but you know, sometimes they end up playing with the box.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Exactly.

Early Learning Nation: They can use any type of material. You also connect the education efforts … and you’ll correct me if I have it wrong … but in the home, in communities, and in early-learning and early-childhood centers. How do you connect those efforts, though, across those different areas?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: We do it in different ways. But what we try, because we really want to achieve large-scale and systemic development here, so we want it to stay when also we are out of the country. What we do is, again, to have parents working closer together with the practitioners around the child.

Way too often, and that goes in actually most of the national systems, it’s a process that actually defines when a child is moving from this school to that school, and then ahead of that. But we need to actually look at the child and see what does he or she need? And how do we give and stimulate that, as the ones surrounding the child?

You, being the parent, and thereby the primary teacher of his or her abilities to, should we say, face life. But of course, also, the practitioner, who has very often a toolbox in their rucksack, and then can take it off and help us, to say, “If you do this, you can actually help the child moving in that direction, learning-wise.”

Early Learning Nation: What inspired you to get into this? I mean, tell me just a moment about you. How did you get to this role, and how did you get to a place where you’re connecting the intersection of business and an iconic plaything, LEGO, with early-childhood learning?

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: I come from the NGO sector. I have worked in one of the largest NGOs in the world, called SOS Children’s Villages. There, I could see that we did a lot of service deliveries. We did amazing work, but very often, we lacked a good partner for also developing content.

Because we all learn now, from Millennium Development Goals, that just getting children into school is not good enough. That doesn’t mean they’re learning. We need to have the right content in learning.

On top of that, I then worked with CSR, in that framing, and I had a natural exposure to what actually interests companies, and how we can create a win-win situation. That brought me to the LEGO Foundation.

Early Learning Nation: That’s wonderful. Kasper, thank you for coming to the Early Learning Studio.

Kasper Ottosson Kanstrup: Thank you so much.

Early Learning Nation: Tonja, welcome to the ELN Studio. Thanks so much for coming.

Tonja Rucker: Glad to be here today with you.

Early Learning Nation: You are Program Director of Early Childhood Success at the National League of Cities, connect those for me, if you would. Early childhood success and the Cities, how does come together?

Tonja Rucker: The National League of Cities, our members are actually city governments, and so our members are mayors, city council members, city managers, folks that are governing over cities. All of our members are concerned about governing over thriving, vibrant cities. In order to have a completely successful city where everybody’s doing well, you have to consider the needs of your youngest resident, young children.

Our members are really concerned, the science, the data, that talks about the importance of the early years has really resonated with our members. They know that if they want all of their residents to thrive that they have to start with their youngest. They’re looking into ways that they can use city hall and leverage their bully pulpit to advance a strong agenda for young kids and their families.

Early Learning Nation: How do you get their action? I can understand how you get their attention, all right, you just said something to me and if I’m mayor of a town, how can I not listen to that? At the same time, I’ve got infrastructure problems, I’ve got crime problems potentially, I have housing problems, I have this whole host of problems, how do you get them to yes, of course, have interest, but turn that interest into action?

Tonja Rucker: As you said, if you’re a mayor or a city council member, you see your residents every day, and you have to be responsive to their needs. I think the thing that distinguishes from talk to action is the science. I think the data is critical. I think we’ve seen amongst our members the data around neurons, the first year of life, how the brain development, architecture of the brain forms. Mayors really understand that if you don’t support and invest in those critical years, then the investments later are much more costly. Families are saying, “We need support, we need help around childcare. What are some strategies that we can use so that we can raise our kids and be successful in our neighborhoods?” So, I think it’s the combination of that responsivity of being in touch one-on-one with your residents, but also just the science and data that’s really important, and that we turn on investment early.

Early Learning Nation: Funny how constituent voices can help motivate.

Tonja Rucker: Oh, most definitely. And part of what we do in the National League of City is that parent voice. Certainly, as you think about policy agendas, we have great ideas, but those ideas have to be informed from parents. Having community cafes, having community conversations and being out in neighborhoods, our members are hearing directly from residents, and whether it’s parents or grandparents, you’re hearing across the board whether it’s the low income or moderate or high income families, you’re hearing the need that families have to be strong if you want a vibrant, thriving city. You hear that and the mayors are stepping up to the plate and being leaders and champions.

Early Learning Nation: They’ve got to be your best spokespeople. The parents and grandparents and the caregivers. I’m also very interested to hear that it’s the science data that’s motivating because I would have, if you had made me guess, I would have thought that, well, they want to see policy outcomes, but those policy outcomes might be years in the making, I would think. So, it is the real science data that’s actionable for them.

Tonja Rucker: Oh, it is. It’s very much. I think elected officials are in office for seasons of time, and I think everybody wants to leave a legacy and kind of put their flag in the ground around what’s really important. To move the needle in early learning takes time, but I do think there are some short-term goals, some things that you see very immediate. Certainly, the engagement by the community is something that you can see more immediately. We can really get the word out, and we’ve done that with the support of our partners at the National League of Cities, and we have seen tremendous results.

Early Learning Nation: Let’s get tangible, let’s talk about some real examples. You were kind enough to write a column recently for EarlyLearningNation.com, and it was titled ‘.’ How are they doing that?

Tonja Rucker: I think what we’re seeing is that our members are really working across the aisle, I think we’re seeing the needs of families outweighing political affiliations or past historical and cultural divisions. It’s about mayors leading and using their bully pulpit to bring partners together. We’ve seen mayors reach across various sectors, reaching out to the folks in Health, Juvenile Justice, the business community, the faith community, and really leveraging their office and city hall as the convener to bring all key partners together.

As we think about building an early learning nation, we can’t do it alone, city hall cannot do it alone. We’ve seen mayors really reach out to superintendents of the K12 system and really initiate conversations and strategic planning. We’ve been so pleased to see that as cities develop their priorities, they’re doing that being informed by these various stakeholders in the priorities of their partners. The alignment of the work at the local level is really beginning to lead to some innovative practices and policies, and we’ve seen that really emerge in the last couple of years.

Early Learning Nation: Could we talk about a place where everything is up to date? Let’s go to Kansas City.

Tonja Rucker: Sure.

Early Learning Nation: There is Pre-K for KC, an initiative, it will generate $30 million annually to offset pre-K tuition cost for eligible families. How did that come about?

Tonja Rucker: I’m so excited about Kansas City. I think one of the key components of why they’re in this space right now is leadership of Mayor Sly James. He has just been an amazing champion. He has a technology bent, so he’s always been interested in technology. But he’s always open to where does the young kids fit into the city’s agenda? He’s been tremendous working across sectors, bringing key foundations, business partners together. He has consistently been a champion, finding ways that the city can support an agenda, where many of the community partners are doing great work, and Mayor James has been very strategic in like where can the city lead, but also, where can the city support. I think that leadership is just a key component across the nation where you see cities that are particularly in a great space. It’s the leadership and recognizing where the city can lead and where the city can support. Mayor James has been very effective and been a great champion and manager of city resources.

Early Learning Nation: They have an election coming up in Kansas City, as well. We’ll have to make sure that, regardless of who wins, early education remains at the top of the agenda.

Tonja Rucker: Well, that’s part of the leadership. I think Mayor James and other elected officials who may be terming out or may not be running again, great leadership is that you have a succession plan in mind way before your term ends. He’s been working at multiple levels to embed early learning at different places within city government. He has built a cadre of leaders, you inspire others when you’re a great leader. So, there’s leaders across the sector in Kansas City that’s poised to continue the work.

Early Learning Nation: Let me ask you about one other city before I let you go. Dayton, Ohio, the Preschool Promise Initiative. It’s building it from a small pilot, supported by county leadership, and eventually into a citywide program that’s been endorsed, to your point about executive leadership, endorsed by the Dayton mayor.

Tonja Rucker: Yes, yes. Mayor Whaley has been a tremendous champion. I think one of the things we note about her most effectively is her reach across city county structures. She has been a great partner, looking at different sectors, and she’s been thoughtful about her preschool … the preschool work. We worked with them for the past couple of years, getting them ready to get to this space.

I think the respect that she’s earned across sectors is key to why they’re doing such great work in Dayton.

Early Learning Nation: And to close out, once upon a time in public policy, city, local, and state governments were really seen as innovation labs. Are you seeing that today in the cities and can we think of our cities as early education innovation labs where the positive results can be shared?

Tonja Rucker: Certainly. At the National League of Cities, we believe that cities are the place for innovation, for solutions, that’s where you’re going to find your problem solvers. I mean, I think partly because you see your constituents every day, and mayors across the city and city mangers and select council members are rolling up their sleeves for … “We’ve got to figure this out.” In doing so, these amazing partnerships that are being created, strategic plans are being formulated with buy-in from the entire community, parent voice is lifted up, and we’re seeing great results at the city level.

I think, and I can speak on behalf of all of my colleagues at the National League of Cities, that cities is where it’s at, and we’re going to continue our work with our members and work with our partners and with the support of our foundation supporters, continue the great work across the nation to support all kids and all families.

Early Learning Nation: Tonja, thank you for coming to the Early Learning Nation studio.

Tonja Rucker: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here with you today.

Early Learning Nation: Sara, thank you for coming to the Early Learning Nation studio. It’s great to have you.

Dr. Sara Watson: I’m thrilled to be here.

Early Learning Nation: Big conference, how’s it going?

Dr. Sara Watson: It’s wonderful. The Global Business Summit on Early Childhood is the only convening in the world that is just for business people, to teach them how to become champions for early childhood. We have more than 200 business and civics leaders from 16 countries who are learning about what their peers in the business world are doing, what the latest economic and brain science evidence says, and what they can do when they go back home.

Early Learning Nation: Give me a brief description on ReadyNation, and why are you hosting this conference?

Dr. Sara Watson: ReadyNation is a business membership organization that supports executives to advocate for the future workforce. We help business leaders talk to policy makers about the need for public investments to help kids grow into successful adults, starting at the very earliest ages.

We do this convening so that we can find new champions and give them the tools they need to make the case on an economic basis, not on a charity basis or on a philanthropic basis, that investing in the next generation is essential for business growth.

Early Learning Nation: I want to talk to you about the individuals, because in the end, it’s business leadership. It’s individual leaders, and you’ve got them here at the conference. But you were touching on a point, incentives for business, interest for business writ large. Why are businesses becoming champions of early childhood development?

Dr. Sara Watson: Businesses are coming to realize that they cannot depend on the system that we have now to produce the job ready adults that they need. One of our wonderful champions is Jim Spurlino, the CEO of Spurlino Materials in Ohio, which makes concrete. He talks about the fact that, in any building, you need to have a good foundation, and if he doesn’t pour good concrete, you don’t want to be in that building.

Early childhood is the same way. They really understand that, just like in any other process in business, if you want a good result, you need to start early in looking at how things get started, and children are the same.

Early Learning Nation: Do they see purely long term investment? Do they see short term benefit? And how do they balance the short term versus long term, which just in a business mode can often be hard, and here we’re talking about early childhood development? How do they balance short term and long term?

Dr. Sara Watson: One of the great things about the field of early childhood is that you can have your cake and eat it too. There are many studies that show the short term benefits of good early childhood interventions. It improves health. It reduces emergency room visits. It reduces child abuse and neglect. It reduces special ed placements starting in the early years, and it also has those long term benefits of helping young adults do better in school, make better choices, do better in the workplace.

Now, those early benefits don’t necessarily accrue directly to business, but they do effect the quality of life in the communities where they operate, and it also determines whether our public dollars are going to be spent more on the prevention end or more on the back end when it’s much more expensive.

Early Learning Nation: And obviously, community and social responsibility for businesses is just one of the drivers that many of them are getting measured on, and investing back in their communities makes total sense. Let’s talk about some of the individuals, because again, you’ve got a big room filled with people and a lot of presenters as well. What are some examples that you have … I assume that they’re going to be ReadyNation members, I would hope, but of individual business leaders who are doing something special, interesting, unique around early childhood development?

Dr. Sara Watson: Well, one individual that just got our Business Champion For Children Award is Mike Petters, the CEO of Huntington Ingalls, the largest military ship builder in the United State, and he personally supports early childhood programs as well as being a champion for young children generally. And what he says in terms of the long term is that, pretty soon, he’s going to launch a new aircraft carrier.

That aircraft carrier is going to come back to that shipyard in 25 years to get retrofitted, and in 50 years, it’ll come back to be disassembled. He knows today what type of employee he needs 25 and 50 years from now, and so those are the two and three year olds that are running around Newport News, so he really cares about how those children are going to develop.

And I’ll mention another wonderful company we work with is Vanguard, the investment firm. The former CEO of Vanguard is one of our best champions. The current chief investment officer just spoke at our conference. They have made early childhood one of their corporate priorities, so they are investing in a wide range of strategies to improve early childhood.

Early Learning Nation: With these business leaders, do you find that it’s more than just a business connection for them? Is there something personal for most of the folks who really get involved?

Dr. Sara Watson: One of the wonderful things about the early childhood field is how much people intuitively understand these days about the importance of early learning. If you have a young child, if you have a young grandchild, if you have just a child in your family generally, you can see them learning from the very earliest ages, and so they understand at a very personal level that their children are probably going to be okay. They’re going to be read to and sung to and held and nurtured from an early age, and so they understand that not all children get that, and they want other children to get what their children have.

Early Learning Nation: Is the role for business in early childhood development, is that only a big business thing? You’ve mentioned a number of very, very large companies. Or can midsize and smaller companies get into this game as well?

Dr. Sara Watson: The wonderful thing about our field is that there is a menu of things that businesses can do, including very small businesses. We talk about getting active in your community. You can do that one-on-one. Getting the message out through your customers, social entrepreneurship, developing products that support early childhood and make money, speaking in the media, which we have many business leaders that sign op-eds with us or do letters to the editor or appear in the media of all sizes. And then there’s direct advocacy.

And policy makers want to hear from their constituents. It’s more important to them generally to hear from a small business owner who is actually in their district than some CEO of a giant company that’s far away. Sometimes those small business owners who went to high school with their member of Congress or who have known their legislator since they were a young person can have a huge influence because they have so much direct credibility.

Early Learning Nation: Sara, thank you for coming by our studio, and thank you for inviting us to your wonderful conference.

Dr. Sara Watson: It was wonderful to be here. I’m so thrilled for Early Learning Nation to have such great visibility here. Thank you.