First National Forum: Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools

A national forum on Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools will bring together more than 200 community leaders, education and early learning experts and other policymakers from 35 states on Monday, March 30, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), Education Commission of the States (ECS), Voices for America’s Children, the Children’s Leadership Council and select members of the Learning First Alliance, this two-day conference will focus on the transition and alignment policies necessary to help young children and their parents move easily from the early care system to K-12 education.

Participants include include Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Department of Education (invited); Sterling Speirn, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Ellen Galinsky, co-founder of the Families and Work Institute; David Lawrence, president of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation and retired newspaper executive in Miami, FL; William Raspberry, Pulitzer Prize winner and founder of BabySteps in Okolona, MS; Barbara Bowman, Chicago Public Schools; Sharon Lynn Kagan, Columbia University and others.

An audio news briefing for this national forum will be held Friday, March 27th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.