Iowa Governor Chet Culver plans to protect pre-kindergarten in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. In an interview with The Quad City Times, administration spokesman Erin Seidler said the governor's plan will uphold spending priorities in education, early childhood education and health care for children – all without raising taxes. The governor's promise should sound familiar to Iowa pre-k advocates; Culver was even more explicit about his education priorities in his State of the State speech on January 12: "To date, we have helped more than 12,000 kids in 175 school districts get a quality preschool education," Culver told the state legislator. "So, my budget request will include the last installment of our four-year, 60 million dollar commitment to preschool." Last year, the state legislature made Iowa one of 29 states that protected its pre-k investments.

A decade after founding the Harlem’s Children’s Zone, Geoffrey Canada is promoting his comprehensive pre-birth through college system of education and social services as a model to break the cycle of poverty in other cities. Civic leaders interested in implementing similar programs include Kansas City, Milwaukee and Miami. The Harlem Children's Zone, a non-profit organization that has expanded its network of educational programs, social services and community-building programs to nearly 100 blocks of Central Harlem, targets poverty-stricken children and their families. President Obama has praised their work and proposed $10 million in his FY 2010 budget for similar "Promise Neighborhood" initiatives. One of the cornerstones of the HCZ is early childhood education. The program features parenting workshops, summer pre-k preparation sessions and Harlem Gems, and an all-day prekindergarten program.

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