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REMARKS BY: TOMMY G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PLACE: White House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development, Washington, D.C. DATE: July 26, 2001
Thank you very much, Representative Northup, for those kind words. It's a pleasure to be with all of you and a special pleasure to be here with our wonderful First Lady, Laura Bush. Mrs. Bush, thank you for your inspirational words about children and their education.
Your longtime commitment to improving the way our children learn and thrive made a tremendous impact in Texas and is now making a tremendous difference throughout America. We are in your debt.
President DeGioia , thank you for the hospitality and Georgetown's sponsorship of this important conference. Margaret, it's always good to see you, and working with you is a pleasure.
Representative Northup, your diligence on the House Appropriations Committee has contributed so much on behalf of children, literacy and education. Thank you again for your good work.
My friend, Secretary Rod Paige, will be speaking tomorrow, and he always has inspiring and insightful observations about education. I am pleased that Health and Human Services is co-chairing this conference with the Department of Education.
It was Plato who said: "The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life."
We are all interested in making sure that direction is the right direction. At this summit, we will hear about scientific research and new approaches to early childhood development. We are all concerned about overcoming the challenges we face in helping children grow, learn and stay healthy.
Even as we address these challenges, we should recognize all the good news these days about America's children - news that relates directly to the way children learn and develop at the youngest ages.
Just last week the Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics that HHS works with released its annual report: "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2001."
The report showed several strikingly positive trends. Let me highlight a few of them for you.
The child poverty rate continued to decline between 1998 and 1999, dropping from 18 to 16 percent, the lowest rate in two decades.
More children had health insurance in 1999 than in 1998.
In 1999, for the second year in a row, adolescent births were at a record low. In fact, the 1999 birth rate for teenagers between 15 and 17 was 29 per 1,000, a record low for the nation.
We can be greatly encouraged by what these findings mean for children, our nation's greatest asset.
We know that children who grow up in poverty encounter more problems in school, make less money as adults and are more likely to become teen-age parents. In turn, teen-age mothers have more low birth- weight babies, a condition that affects the children's development throughout their lives.
These same children are less likely to complete high school. And, the teen-age mother herself may very well drop out, seriously impairing her job prospects.
All these things are interconnected: work, poverty, health care, childcare, teen-agers having babies. Over my 14 years as governor of the great state of Wisconsin, early childhood development became a passion, a passion that grew out of welfare reform.
Mothers on welfare often joined me for lunch at the governor's residence to talk about their experiences. They told me that the lack of available, affordable childcare discouraged them from looking for a job.
At the same time, it's just as important that the childcare be of the highest quality - stimulating, safe and caring. If children start with a good foundation, they can find success in the working world and escape poverty as adults. I firmly believe that foundation should include reading and pre-reading skills, as well.
One year ago in Wisconsin, we created 18 Early Childhood Excellence Centers to provide high-quality experiences to support children's social, emotional, cognitive and language development. These centers are designed to ensure that infants and toddlers reach their full potential, and use many effective, innovative approaches to reach that goal.
These programs have low staff-child ratios and offer instruction for parents on early brain development activities. Individual centers feature programs such as teaching sign language to infants or group projects in areas like dance and art. All these efforts contribute to raising children who are ready to read, ready to learn.
Many of these centers are also developing programs to encourage parents to read to their children. Parents of all income levels want to do the right thing for their children. They just need to know how, and find help in doing it.
Of course, Wisconsin is not alone. Many states have seen the benefit of supporting early childhood cognitive development. I know many of the wonderful ideas coming from the President are rooted in his own experiences as governor of Texas, and of course, the insights shared by the First Lady.
In Wisconsin, we wanted a comprehensive approach that does not compartmentalize education into one slot, health care into another, and the workplace into yet another. We wanted creative and innovative programs, built on sound science.
We are embracing that same philosophy in the Bush Administration and at the Department of Health and Human Services, and research is a key to bringing it into the real world.
We are building on the innovative work already done in child development to overcome gaps in our knowledge. We are committed to doing this in order to develop the possible programs to reach children at an early age.
People like Dr. Landry and Dr. Kuhl, supported by the NIH, along with folks like Dr. Whitehurst, Dr. Neuman and Dr. Strikland - all of whom will be speaking here at this conference - have done much of the high-quality scientific research in early cognitive development. We know a lot about early pre-school programs' traditional focus on developing a child's social capabilities, emotional health and physical well- being.
But we have lacked a clear research focus on cognitive development, and specifically on language and early literacy. We need to be certain of what works in these areas, especially for at-risk kids, so they can enter school just as ready to learn as their peers.
The President learned of these issues early in the Administration. Right away he said: "Let's do more research. Let's see the evidence. Our children deserve it."
We are now undertaking a major initiative to determine the most effective means of promoting good, early childhood development. We will study ways of integrating the emotional and social development aspects of instruction with cognitive and school-readiness elements.
This five-year, $10 million research effort involves many divisions within HHS and NIH, as well as other agencies throughout the administration. Secretary Paige and the Department of Education will be valued participants. We're partners in this together.
It's an exciting project. Researchers will follow children from birth through kindergarten and beyond. They will identify children at risk for failure, and determine what programs will best prepare them for school.
The result will be scientifically verified, evidence-based programs. We will finally gain a solid
understanding of what it takes to provide pre-school-aged children with the tools to gain language and reading skills, the key to their educational success. Literacy is also a key to living a healthy life. The people at NIH are always making the important point that reading contributes to good health. Without reading skills, you can't figure out a prescription, or a warning sign, or keep up with news reports relevant to your health. Less information means greater risk. Put another way, literacy means a healthier life.
I talked earlier about the comprehensive approach toward early cognitive development that considers all aspects of a child's life. I believe deeply in this approach, and am committed to pursuing it at HHS.
Of course, there's Head Start, which you will hear more about throughout the conference. Let me assure you of the Administration's intention of maintaining a strong, effective Head Start program. You can see that commitment reflected in the President's FY 2002 budget, which proposed a total of $6.3 billion for Head Start, an increase of $125 million.
Health care also belongs at the heart of this comprehensive approach. One of the best ways we can foster a child's cognitive development is to make certain that child has access to medical care.
States are finding creative ways to provide health coverage to families whose income is otherwise too high for Medicaid, but who still lack insurance. Their changes to the Children's Health Insurance Program must go through an HHS approval process, and we have sped up the granting of waivers and amendments.
I'll give you just one example, but it's repeated in state after state. Earlier this month, I approved a waiver so New York State can add 33,400 more children to the Medicaid rolls. These children can now see doctors and other medical personnel capable of detecting potential development problems.
My time is drawing short, and there are tremendous speakers on the agenda who will delve into these issues in more detail, so let me leave you with a comment from one of my heroes.
I am fond of the wisdom of Winston Churchill. Knowing his image as a cigar-chewing, gruff wartime leader, I doubt many people think he gave much thought to children. But he was the father of five, and he truly cared for the youth of England.
Churchill once said: "There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies."
We have come to understand that basic truth in the United States, and to build on it. As we care for our children's physical well-being, we must be just as committed to caring for the development of their minds.
This Administration has shown just such a commitment in its reading initiatives, and its emphasis on good, solid research to help craft programs that work.
Thank you, First Lady, President DeGioai, and Representative Northup. Congratulations to all of you for participating in this conference. It's an important discussion for our nation's future.
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