By Conor WilliamsFew people know the world of early learning better than Dr. Ruby Takanishi. Before becoming a senior research fellow at New America (where I also work), she led the Foundation for Child Development as president and CEO, taught at UCLA and Yale, worked at Carnegie Corporation of New York, and directed the American Psychological Association’s Office of Scientific Affairs.
This is why it’s so exciting that her new book, First Things First! Creating the New American Primary School, will be published on August 19, 2016. The book explores the present state of early education investments and the policies that govern them, but it also offers a new vision of early learning that links pre-K programs with what happens in elementary schools.
The book could not come at a better time. While K–12 education has been predictably ignored in the 2016 election so far, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has made early education a key part of her platform. But while investments in programs serving the youngest Americans are politically popular — and easy to promise — it’s much more difficult to actually deliver high-quality opportunities that are consistent with candidates’ rhetoric.
The following is a lightly-edited transcript of a conversation Ruby and I conducted over email this month.