Building blocks daycare ponca city ok8/14/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Related: Want a free year of preschool in California? Have a fall birthday Even Massachusetts, generally seen as a leader in education, only serves 14 percent of its 4-year-olds in state preschool. Photo: Lillian MongeauĪ few other states, like Wisconsin and Georgia, come close to offering universal programs, but most states are light years behind the leaders. Principal Janalyn Taylor exclaims as Layla Lee, 5, shows her how she’s made a moving robot out of “cubelets” in the maker space at Nance Elementary in Clinton, Oklahoma. Likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has also made early education - an issue she’s championed for 40 years - a priority in her campaign.Īlthough Congress hasn’t approved Obama’s grand vision, it has incrementally increased funding for Head Start in recent years and awarded nearly $1 billion in competitive grants to states hoping to start or expand early education programs. In 2013 President Barack Obama called for $10 billion in federal funding to help states start new programs, primarily for children from low-income families - a call he has repeated every year since. Public preschool is high on the Democratic agenda right now. Related: Should college tuition be free or paid on a sliding scale? Just ask preschool advocates “As more attend, you can have a more enriched opportunity for everyone.” “I think it is popular because it is funded,” said Oklahoma State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister. Seventy-six percent of the state’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in 2014, a total of 40,823 children and one of the country’s highest enrollment percentages, according to the latest annual State of Preschool report by the National Institute for Early Education Research. 1, he or she is qualified to attend school for a year prior to entering kindergarten. Since 1998, Oklahoma has had fully funded preschool for every child, regardless of family income. The same might be said of the state as a whole. ![]() “It’s been around long enough now, I don’t think anyone thinks about it,” said Bridges of the town’s preschool program. I’m glad we were able to see it, even if we did happen by it on accident.“ has been around long enough now, I don’t think anyone thinks about it.” Tyler Bridges, Assistant Superintendent in Clinton, Oklahoma.īut in Clinton, some things are just taken for granted: movie-worthy sunsets, churches on nearly every corner, and sending kids to preschool when they turn 4. It is an incredibly beautiful, if somber, place. There are smaller chairs to denote the children who perished.Īt the center of the memorial is a large reflecting pool, and it is flanked my tall pillars at either side, denoting the time of the “last moments of peace” (9:01) and the time when “recovery began” (9:03). Each chair is engraved with the name of someone who died in the bombing. Precisely where the building had once stood are nine rows of metal chairs – a row for each floor of the building. It is engraved with the names of the more than 600 survivors of the attack. Most died not from the blast itself, but from when the building collapsed.Īt the north and east end of the memorial are pieces of salvaged granite from the original building, which comprise the Survivors’ Wall. 168 people died in the attack, including 19 children who were at a daycare located inside of the building. On April 19, 1995, the federal building that stood on this spot was bombed, in what became the deadliest act of domestic terrorism to have occurred on U.S. We’d hoped to make a pilgrimage there but had accepted that we wouldn’t have time, and then there it was: unavoidable. We were walking back to our hotel on our last day in town, and we passed it, quiet and looming in its spot adjacent to the main road on which we walked. We found ourselves at the Oklahoma City National Memorial by accident. ![]()
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