The 2011 National Business Leader Summit on Early Childhood Investment will be held on July 21 - 22, 2011 in Boston, MA at the Boston Harbor Hotel. The event will convene business leaders from across the country to discuss how early childhood policies benefit state economic recovery plans, business advocacy for smart investments in proven early childhood programs, and new research on the economic development benefits of early childhood programs.

The Third Annual Telluride Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investment took place Sept. 20-22, 2009 in Telluride, CO. This event was attended by business, economic, finance, philanthropy, and policy leaders, and was co-hosted by the Telluride Foundation.

The Second Annual Telluride Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investment was held on September 21-23, 2008 in Telluride, CO.  This is an invitation-only event for senior business leaders and co-hosted by the Telluride Foundation.

The Summit was a forum for business, finance, and policy leaders to discuss the economic benefit of building human capital through early childhood investments and to review new research in the field.

The Partnership's National Conference convened March 10-11, 2010, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. This conference was attended by business, finance and economics leaders, advocates, policy-makers and philanthropists interested in advancing investments in early childhood. Be sure to check out the conference page to see materials and presentations used!

The National Economic Forum on Early Childhood Investment: The Annual Conference for the Partnership for America's Economic Success will take place on July 9-10, 2008 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, DC. Read more about this event.

The Partnership for America's Economic Success and the Milken Institute co-hosted a forum on February 28, 2008 in Santa Monica, CA. The forum convened business, finance, policy, and advocacy leaders to consider strategies for building the human capital necessary to support a 21st century workforce by investing in the nation's youngest children.

Nationally-recognized business leaders addressed attendees at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to talk about some of the latest issues in keeping our nation economically competitive and the importance of early investments in children's lives.

Over 200 business leaders and education experts gathered for an all-day forum to discuss progress with local, state, and national efforts to establish universal, quality pre-kindergarten for all American children.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and PNC Financial Group sponsored a conference for business leaders, economists, policymakers, and early education experts from across the country to review and discuss the latest research and developments regarding the links between investments in preschool and economic development. The all-day Washington, D.C. conference included presentations from over 20 early education and business leaders.

This webinar, held on November 13 at 2:00 pm ET, focused on the continued work on the business community on early childhood issues, in particular home visiting programs and policies. The discussion featured speakers from the business community who bring a national, state, and local perspective to this topic, and highlight the advocacy efforts of business that lead to policy change in Michigan. Mick Fleming, president of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives provided strategies and advice for engaging with state and local Chambers of Commerce. Andy Johnston, vice president for government affairs at the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, talked about how they built and used business support for the successful home visiting policy change in Michigan.

Members of the Great Start Collaboratives in Michigan to joined us on July 25 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm for a webinar on effective strategies for engaging business. They heard from the Michigan business community and fellow Great Start colleagues about effective ways for working with business on early childhood issues. This webinar provided a new set of ideas and best practices for when you reach out to the business community in your own backyard.

Business members of the Children's Leadership Council of Michigan and the Great Start Collaboratives joined this webinar on the economic case for early childhood investments in Michigan. This webinar was held Monday, June 25, from 2:30 - 3:30 pm ET.

The presentations provided the lastest economic evaluation research on the impacts of early childhood programs in Michigan and across the country. This information will help business executives make the case for public and private investments in the state's youngest learners. Click here to view the 2011 One Child Dividend report. To view the original 2009 report from Wilder Research on the savings from school readiness, click here.

Al Race, Deputy Director of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, discussed how to best use the new ReadyNation annotated PowerPoint on the neuroscientific research on early brain development and the importance for children's healthy growth. This PowerPoint and the other video options are intended to help non-scientists deliver this content to a variety of audiences.

Pre-kindergarten/special education (PKSE) social impact bonds would invest in pre-k, and use the savings from reduced special education placements to create a continuous funding stream for early learning.  This webinar took place on April 3rd, 2012 at 3:00 pm ET, and discussed the findings of a forthcoming report on social impact bonds for early childhood programs.

On October 18, the Partnership and Pew's Home Visiting Campaign held a joint webinar on engaging the business community on home visiting. Featuring Larry Langley of the New Mexico Business Roundtable and Steward Sandstrom of the Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce, this webinar discussed strategies and messaging that tends to resonate with business leaders.

At this February 27th Capitol Hill Briefing, Dr. Patricia Kuhl and Dr. Andrew Meltzoff used videos to illustrate their ground-breaking research on the brain development processes that enable young children to become school-ready, and will demonstrate how cultural and parental expectancies influence children’s success. Their latest work documents for the first time how babies begin learning language in the womb. Dr. Laurie Miller Brotman revealed new results from a family-centered, school-based program that trains early childhood teachers and parents to support pre-kindergarteners’ self-regulation, resulting in better educational outcomes, and lower rates of obesity and serious behavior problems for children at risk. Finally, business executive Philip Peterson, former co-chair of the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission, discussed implications of this research for federal policy.

This Summit, sponsored by the Insitute for Child Success and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, will feature Phil Peterson of Aon to discuss the importance of early childhood programs on the economic success of the region. If you are a business leader in Spartanburg County, SC, and wish to be invited, please contact Joe Waters at jwaters@instituteforchildsuccess.org.

The Building a Grad Nation Summit is the premier event of Grad Nation, a 10-year campaign to end the high school dropout crisis and prepare young people for college and the 21st century workforce.

The Grad Nation campaign has two specific goals:

• To increase the national graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020 with no school graduating less than 80 percent
• To regain America’s standing as first in the world in college completion

Addressing these critical issues requires all sectors of our communities working together in new, more coordinated ways. And that’s exactly what this annual gathering helps bring about. The summit brings together community organizations, educators, local and state leaders, national nonprofit organizations, businesses, youth and others to not only share progress but also catalyze additional action.

Building on the success of the first summit in 2011, the 2012 summit will bring together hundreds of participants on March 18-21 in Washington, D.C. to focus on progress being made against the Grad Nation goals in communities and states across the nation. Additionally, millions of others will be engaged through online outreach and media coverage. Click here for additional information on the summit.

The October 25 meeting of the Invest in Kids group will discuss sustaining financing models, and will feature Rob Dugger, Advisory Board Chairman of the Partnership, Janis Dubno of Voices for Utah Children and Brenda Van Gorder of the Granite School District. The call will start at 3:00 pm ET. Click here to register today!

This invitation-only conference, hosted by the Kauffman Foundation, is the second in a series of working group meetings focused on the development and evaluation of pay-for-success ways to finance quality prenatal to age-5 early child care and education programs. The goal of the project is to identify finance principles and approaches that will enable a mature economy like the U.S. to overcome entrenched obstacles to investing in youth human capital in ways sufficient to assure future workforce competitiveness and fiscal sustainability.

Web-conference call on May 20, 3:30 to 5:00 pm ET of the Kauffman-PAES Early Childhood Finance Innovation Working Group. This working group is a joint project of the Kauffman Foundation and the Partnership for America's Economic Success. The working group is focused on developing income-contingent and performance-contingent financing arrangements for early childhood programs. The working group's goal this year is to complete at least two workable income-contingent finance model contracts that can be the basis for sound entrepreneurial generation of investment-worthy non-profit and for-profit assets. At this point the prekindergarten-special ed model is most promising. A nurse visitation model should be workable also, and there appear to be important possibilities in dental care, certain child neglect and abuse prevention and treatment approaches, and MELF type scholarship programs. Dial-in information is available upon request. To request this information please contact teckert@hanoverinvest.com.

In this time of intense fiscal stress, states should use evidence of what works and what doesn’t to make smart investments in programs that provide the strongest returns. We will look at how states are using data to drive decision-making and strengthen their workforce, using the specific example of quality early childhood programs

The choices aren’t just about slashing programs or raising taxes. States need to operate efficiently and effectively to improve performance. We will look at how states like Texas are getting a better return for every public safety dollar by taking an evidence-based approach to their corrections system.

In this webinar we examined the current state of state budgets and used the specific example of public sector retirement costs to illustrate the long-term challenges facing most states. View the recorded webinar here.

This Partnership Invest in Kids meeting will feature speakers from ALAS and the World Bank to:

• Describe the Early Childhood Development policy environment in Latin America;
• Explain the role of ALAS, their advocacy tools and work with business leaders and artists; and,
• Discuss the role of the World Bank to address challenges.

The Louisiana Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investment is specifically designed for Louisiana’s business and governmental leaders. Nationally renown speakers will discuss the importance of investing in early childhood from several unique perspectives including:

* National Security
* Business and Workforce Development
* Economic Impact
* Brain Development
 

This invitation-only conference will attempt to identify finance principles and approaches, which would enable a mature economy like the U.S. to overcome entrenched obstacles to investing in youth human capital in ways sufficient to assure future workforce competitiveness and fiscal sustainability. We will focus on financing prenatal to age-five child parenting, care and early education.

The HCRC’s second national conference will focus on the impact of health and early childhood development on school readiness and other educational outcomes. While the conference is by invitation only, video coverage will stream live via the Internet during the conference. The video will also be available after the conference. Click here for more details.

The Vermont Business Roundtable is hosting a Business Leaders' Summit on Early Childhood Investment to expand the base of business support for public investments in early childhood initiatives.

An in-depth conversation on children's issues with the 2010 candidates for governor of Colorado:

• Mayor John Hickenlooper - Confirmed
• Mr. Dan Maes - Confirmed
• Congressman Tom Tancredo - Confirmed

E-mail advocacy@tchden.org to RSVP, space is limited.

This session will provide you the opportunity to learn what made Richard Alexander and Tom Chewning passionate about early childhood, and how you can mobilize business leaders in your state to advocate successfully. You will also have the chance to ask questions of both and to discuss with call participants how to engage and support such leaders in your communities.

Join the Partnership for America's Economic Success for an invitation-only event to discuss how early childhood initiatives can help improve our nation's workforce and economic successes. You and your colleagues should attend if they are concerned about workforce skills and development, education policy, national competitiveness and economic sustainability. Contact Rob Krupicka for an invitation.

Betsy Zeidman (the Milken Institute), Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), and Jennifer Wohl (Insight Center for Community Economic Development) will present research and suggestions for policy and program actions around the topic of “Innovative Financing Techniques for Early Childhood Programs.” Given the massive budget shortfalls currently facing states, and the gap between need for and supply of quality early childhood programs even before the economic crisis, it is more important than ever to explore non-traditional and perhaps overlooked means of funding. Such funding includes capital improvements as well as ongoing support for such interventions. This session will focus on key findings from Zeidman’s newly-released research for the Partnership, Congressman Polis’s suggestion to harness private capital, and Wohl’s work on the topic, including at a recent event co-sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. Zeidman and Polis’s papers will be posted later this week in their entirety on our website, so that participants can read and comment. Both authors welcome feedback on their ideas, input from anyone who has used or attempted to use an innovative method to procure funding, and other suggestions for creative funding mechanisms.

Presenters include:
• Jared Polis, Congressman (D-CO), U.S. House of Representatives
• Betsy Zeidman, Research Fellow, and Director, Center for Emerging Domestic Markets, the Milken Institute
• Jennifer Wohl, Director, Insight Center for Community Economic Development

Suzanne Muchin (ROI Ventures) and Rich Neimand (Neimand Collaborative) will present new, more persuasive messages and communication tools to spur investment in early childhood development. Through extensive research among policymakers, influentials and the public, ROI and Neimand Collaborative have found the best ways to leverage Professor James Heckman's groundbreaking work on the economic return of early childhood programs. Their session will focus on their research, findings and strategies for using The Heckman Equation to advance your advocacy. In addition, you'll gain access to videos, printed and interactive tools to enhance your communications as well as provide feedback on additional communications tools necessary to make the case for investing in early childhood development.

The group concluded its 4-part discussion on the development and use of a set of government policy principles.

The group continued to discuss the development and use of a set of government policy principles.

The group continued to discuss the development and use of a set of government policy principles.

Please join us for the next PAES/Invest in Kids meetings to discuss the development and use of a set of government policy principles.

Young Children Priority One and the Partnership for America’s Economic Success
Rob Dugger, Sara Watson, and Wil Blechman of Kiwanis International presented on the economic evidence to support investments in children, and how Kiwanians could advocate for smart policy change. More presentations are scheduled for District Conventions in Delaware and Florida. See presentation here.

The group discussed the development and use of a set of government policy principles.

Brookings Institution economist William G. Gale and former White House and congressional advisor Ron Haskins discussed the fiscal situation in general, and the impact of the new federal budget on today’s children and future generations.

The group discussed the Obama administration’s proposed economic recovery legislation from the standpoint of child development investing, and budget process steps that could be taken to increase administration and Congressional awareness and commitment to increased child development spending, as well as how the Children's Leadership Coalition (CLC) has been assembled and the coalition's work plan for 2009. Presenters included:

• Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and McCain campaign Chief Economic Advisor.
• William Bentley, CEO, Voices for America's Children and chairman of the new Children's Leadership Coalition (CLC).

The meeting was the second of many Invest in Kids Working Group meetings focused on making the case for prenatal to five spending as a national economic recovery and growth strategy.

Presenters included:

• Rob Dugger, PAES Advisory Board Chair and Managing Director, Tudor Investment Corporation (Download Presentation)
• Hal Kaplan, Chairman and CEO, Kaplan Early Learning Company
• Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus
• Henry Levin and Clive Belfield, Columbia University
• Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution (Download Presentation and Article)

Federal and state budget experts will discuss the impact of the new federal bailout on public officials' ability to invest in kids. Presenters included:

• Rob Dugger, PAES Advisory Board Chair and Managing Director, Tudor Investment Corporation (Invest in Kids Discussion PPT Presentation);
• Joan Benso, President and CEO, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children;
• Robert Johnson, Board of Directors Member, Economic Policy Institute; former Managing Director, Soros Fund Management; Chief Economist, U.S. Senate Banking Committee; and Senior Economist, U.S. Senate Budget Committee (PDF Presentation);
• Dick Berner, Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Economics and Chief U.S. Economist, Morgan Stanley;
• Isabel V. Sawhill, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution ("Paying for Investments in Children" Paper and PPT Presentation); and
• Ellen Nissenbaum, Legislative Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The group also released the newly ratified Telluride Principles for Investing in Young Children and discussed how to use these principles to call for budgeting based on long-term returns.

This invitation-only event for researchers was held at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

We are pleased to announce that the next PAES/Invest in Kids Working Group meeting will be held on Monday, June 23 from 3:00-5:00 PM. Rob Dugger will discuss the Proposed Telluride Principles for early childhood development investing and ask for input and comment on them.

Designed to guide the process and improvement of American youth human capital development, the purpose of the principles is to provide business, non-profit, and government leaders a common context or set of priorities within which to have effective discussions.

PAES/IIK Working Group meetings are open to everyone in person or by phone.  This month's event will be held at the offices of the Pew Charitable Trusts in downtown Washington, DC.  A conference line will be available for phone participants.  Register to receive complete details.

The group discussed what the next administration’s priorities should be in the area of early childhood development. Presenters include: Joan Lombardi, Director, The Children's Project; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and External Affairs, Administration for Children and Families, US DHHS; and First Director, The Child Care Bureau; Shannon Christian, Partner, Christian & Tvedt Consulting and Former Associate Commissioner, Child Care Bureau, Administration of President George W. Bush; Bill Bentley, President & CEO, Voices for America's Children; and Miriam Calderon, Associate Director, Education and Children's Policy, National Council of La Raza.

The meeting highlighted the work of physicians in the movement to support investments in early childhood. Presenters included: Renee Jenkins, M.D., F.A.A.P., President of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Dina Lieser, M.D., F.A.A.P., Executive Director of Docs for Tots; Laura Jean Shipley, M.D., Co-Director of the Pediatric Links with the Community Program at the University of Rochester and Managing Partner at Panorama Pediatric Group; and Jeffrey Kaczorowski, M.D., Co-Director of the Pediatric Links with the Community Program at the University of Rochester and Executive Director of The Children’s Agenda.

Republican pollster Chris Blunt (Overbrook Research) and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake (Lake Research Partners) discussed public support and the political climate for investments in kids.

Robert Kuttner (The American Prospect editor) and Ron Haskins (Brookings Institution senior fellow and former President George W. Bush White House advisor) debated the future of children’s policy in the U.S. Their discussion was based on the December issue of The American Prospect which includes a special section titled “Life Chances: The Case for Early Investment in Our Kids.”

This meeting was the third this year on the vital topic of performance evaluation. Michael Weinstein, senior vice president of the Robin Hood Foundation, explained how Robin Hood approaches this challenge. The Robin Hood Foundation invested nearly $140 million in 2007 alone in a vast array of programs, including early childhood, education, job training, micro-lending, housing, emergency food and health. The goal is to make grant decisions to maximize the impact on poverty, much like a financial manager chooses investments to maximize profit. 

The presenters were Professors Bernard Guyer of Johns Hopkins University and Angela Fertig of the University of Georgia.

The presenter this month was David Cleary, one of the country's leading mid-size medical company merger and acquisition investment bankers and one of the founders of SCAN - Stop Child Abuse Now.

The Joint Economic Committee convened for a Hearing entitled "Investing in Young Children Pays Dividends: The Economic Case for Early Care and Education."

The presenter was Sam Meisels, President of the Erikson Institute. The Erikson Institute is one of the nation's leading graduate schools in child development, dedicated to the education of child development professionals. Sam is the institute's president and one of the country's leading experts on assessing child development progress.

Rucker Johnson presented a paper written with Robert Schoeni on the relationships among early life conditions and cognition, human capital accumulation, labor market outcomes, and health in adulthood.

The meeting's presenter was Thomas W. Schultz, the Project Director of the National Taskforce on Early Childhood Accountability. The Taskforce is a joint project co-founded by the Foundation for Childhood Development, the Joyce Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. 

Paul Weinstein, an expert on pension and tax reform, budget and transportation policy, corporate responsibility, and political reform presented to the group. 

The working group reviewed the work of the Partnership for America's Economic Success (PAES), updated everyone on the status of each of the PAES research initiatives and gott member comments and guidance on what should be done in the coming year.  Rob Dugger, working group and PAES chairman, provided a powerpoint overview and led the discussion, along with Sara Watson of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The working group continued their enquiry into ECE finance policy. George Overholser, founder and managing director of NFF Capital Partners, presented a framework for funding non-profit ECE providers that utilizes many of the concepts of modern investment finance.

UNESCO released its 2007 "Education for All Global Monitoring Report" in New York City (read the full report or the report summary).  As with past editions, the report highlights national and international contributing programs and commitments to education, monitors movements towards the six Education for All goals, and focuses on one goal in detail. The goal selected for this report is Goal 1: Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and PNC Financial Services sponsored a highly successful discussion on Capitol Hill of the latest research on the economic benefits of pre-kindergarten. Entitled "The Economic Benefits to the Nation of Quality Pre-Kindergarten," the event brought together some of the nation's top economic and policy experts to share their research on pre-k with an audience of over 100 policy makers and key leaders in the field.