 Thank you, Jeremy. Linda sends you her best wishes and appreciates your remarks today. I would now like to introduce my colleague, Dr. Marjorie Wexler, principal research manager and lead author of the report, The Road to High Quality Early Learning Lessons from the States. Marjorie produced this outstanding report along with David Kerp and a research team that includes Titilayo Ali, Melon Gardner, Anna Mayer, Hannah Melnick and Patrick Shields. Prior to joining LPI, Marjorie was co-director of SRI International Center for Education Policy. Much of her work focuses on policies and strategies for improving the educational and life outcomes for traditionally underserved students. Marjorie will present the results of the report and we will then have a panel discussion with representatives of the four states that were featured in the study, which will be followed by a question-and-answer period. Without further ado, Marjorie Wexler. Imagine this. Imagine 18 squirmy four-year-olds gathered in a circle with three teachers sitting among them. One teacher built a bridge that looks similar to this one that you see up on the screen, but instead of blocks, one by one she put little bears on the bridge, each time asking the children if they think the bridge could handle one more bear or not. I bet you can imagine the gasp of anticipation with each little bear until finally, and it was the 16th bear, the bridge collapsed, shrieks of delight. The teacher did this experiment again, but the second time she folded ridges into the paper and had students predict if this second bridge would be able to handle even more than 16 bears or fewer. You want to know the answer? It held 23 bears. The lesson ended with the teacher telling the kids that there were a lot of materials waiting for them outside, so they could try building their own bridges and doing their own experiments. This was a real lesson that my colleague Anna and I observed at Brown's Early Learning School in Durham, North Carolina. Think about what a rich lesson that was. There was prediction. There was counting. There was experimentation. There was hands-on learning. There was one teacher for every six children. I could go on and on about the merits of this one 10-minute lesson. The question is, what can states do to ensure that their early learning programs are as high quality as the program at Brown's? That's the purpose of the research I'm going to tell you about. We know that states are investing a lot of resources in early education, as you've heard this morning, $7 billion across the country last year, with nearly all the states and the District of Columbia investing in their youngest learners. We also know from talking with state policy makers that there's little information available to them about how to take their visions of good quality education and make them a reality on the ground. So that's what we set out to understand and to document. So over the next 15 minutes or so, I'm going to present our study. First, I'll give you a quick overview of our methodology. Then I'll briefly introduce you to the states. And finally, I'll spend most of the time talking about the lessons we've learned about effective strategies for building high quality early education systems. As you've heard, we've conducted case studies in four states, Michigan, West Virginia, Washington and North Carolina to really understand the ins and outs behind the design and implementation of their programs. We chose these four states because each has evidence of quality as demonstrated through research and through their ratings on the benchmarks established by the National Institute for Early Education Research. They've all been able to expand their programs without sacrificing quality and they're very diverse in terms of geography, demographics and political context. We chose these four as examples. We know there are other states doing great work in this area. Our case studies included interviews with 30 or more individuals in each state. They represented policy makers, program administrators, teachers, parents and others. We visited early education programs in each state and we reviewed a broad array of documents such as program manuals, evaluations or court decisions. Each case is a rich story in and of itself. So let me start by giving you a brief taste of each one. Michigan, probably best known for the automobile industry and Motown. There's also the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan State-funded preschool. It's a program for four-year-olds targeted to those most in need based on income or other risk factors. The state serves just over 38,000 children through the preschool program, which is around 33% of the four-year-olds thanks to a recent influx of state funding that nearly doubled the size of the program. Since the program's beginning, Michigan has focused on quality. The state has had standards for early education since 1971. That's long before the standards movement really took off in education. They have standards for structural elements such as class size and teacher qualifications, and they have standards for elements such as how teachers and students interact. They regularly measure program quality against those standards and provide intensive coaching on-site to all pre-K teachers. And over the years, they have revised the standards and improved their systems, keeping quality at the center. West Virginia, so beautiful, John Denver called it almost heaven. It's also one of only a handful of states that offers universal preschool for all four-year-olds and for three-year-olds with special needs. West Virginia serves over 15,000 children, which is around 76% of the four-year-olds in the state. And in going universal, the state benefited from several design choices. For example, the legislature allowed 10 years for the rollout of the program, which enabled local districts to build the capacity and infrastructure for the program. Also, funding for the preschool program is integrated into K-12 funding formulas, so compared to many other states, funding is relatively stable. Washington, I know this hour in the morning you're probably all thinking about Starbucks from Washington. A few highlights of their program. It's targeted to three and four-year-old children living in poverty. It's a relatively small program serving just over 7,000 four-year-olds, which is around 8% of the four-year-olds in the state. Washington's program was modeled after Head Start and provides extensive wraparound services such as medical care, dental care, and social services. And recently, the state began to expand access to high-quality early learning by bringing home-based child care into the state's quality rating and improvement system. Essentially, this means that subsidized child care providers must offer strong educational program in order to continue receiving state funds. And to raise the quality of the child care up to the level of the state's preschool program, the state's providing intensive coaching to child care providers. And North Carolina. Did you know that North Carolina is home to Krispy Kreme, which would go really well with the Starbucks from Washington? North Carolina has two programs I want to introduce. Smart Start, which assesses community needs and coordinates early education services. These are public-private non-profit partnerships in each county with oversight at the state level from a non-profit agency. Smart Start initially focused on birth to age three, but it created the infrastructure for early childhood programming across the state. So when state preschool came in, the state could easily get that up and running, which brings me to the second program, NC Pre-K, which is North Carolina's preschool program. NC Pre-K is targeted to four-year-olds from low-income families and serves just about 27,000 children, just under a quarter of the four-year-olds in the state. Our case studies go into great detail on each of these states. And you have the full cases on the flash drives that we provided when you came in. It's also downloadable from our website. But now I'd like to turn to the lessons that rose to the top when we looked across the four states. And these fall into five big areas. Program quality, workforce development, coordination of programs, funding mechanisms, and programmatic support. As I go through each one, I'll be giving some examples from the states, but I'm not going to give you every example from every state or we would be here for hours. But know that these findings were cross-cutting. They did not come from just one single state. But an overarching lesson, though, that you heard from David earlier, is that there is no single road to starting, expanding, or improving early education at the state level. But there are factors that contribute to success. Each of these states has invested in strategies to improve their early education programs. They have standards on everything from class size to the way teachers talk to and interact with students. And the states have assessors who go into the classroom to observe those interactions in order to gauge the quality of the classroom and target assistance where needed. They have quality rating and improvement systems to reinforce those standards. These systems provide a basis for program accountability and they support program improvement through technical assistance, in-class coaching for teachers, or financial incentives. Another way they prioritize quality is to link funding to ratings on those program assessments. Consider North Carolina, for example. North Carolina is just one of a few states that integrates its child care licensing with its quality rating and improvement system, requiring that all early childhood programs, including subsidized child care and preschool, participate in the quality rating and improvement system. Child care providers must maintain a three-star license out of five stars to receive state subsidies and state preschool providers must maintain a four- or five-star license. And it also helps to have local supports to meet the needs of diverse communities. State agencies can't do this on their own. Administrators closer to the programs, such as those in county offices of education, have more capacity to manage and monitor programs and to address regional needs. West Virginia was specifically designed for strong local control, where county teams have autonomy to adapt programs to meet their priorities. These county teams include representatives from county boards of education, preschool special needs, child care, a head start, parents, and others. And they're making decisions about all aspects, ranging from the preschool calendar to curriculum. All four states place heavy emphasis on the quality of the preschool teachers. They all require their lead teachers to have a degree with an emphasis in early childhood education, child development, or a related field. North Carolina has particularly high standards, requiring all preschool teachers to be fully licensed, whether they work in public or private settings. But as states required more from their teachers, they gave teachers several years to meet the increased requirements supporting the current workforce. And they make training accessible to teachers by offering courses regionally in community college or in county offices or online. West Virginia has an apprenticeship program, where teachers remain employed and receive mentoring while taking classes at community and technical colleges. The states encourage teacher advancements through scholarships and salary supplements. North Carolina developed Teach, which awards scholarships for additional teacher education. It also developed Wages, which subsidizes teacher salaries based on their levels of education. And other states are using these programs as well. And the states provide on-site coaching. Michigan, for example, employs county-based early childhood specialists. These are experienced master's degree-level teachers who provide on-site support to all teaching teams in the state throughout the year. This is not a light touch. As Stephanie Fanhol, the former president of the North Carolina Partnership for Children said, people forget that you can't build an industry and expect it to be fine without investing in the people who work in it. Historically, Pre-K operates separately from K-12 and even from birth through age three. But these four states are at least beginning to work on creating a more seamless experience for children. And one way they have done this is by putting all children's services under one umbrella. Washington, for example, created the Department of Early Learning, which oversees most of the state's early childhood programs, including preschool, childcare, and home visiting. Putting all the programs within one administrative structure enables the state to coordinate among the programs. And in Washington, this is a cabinet-level agency showing how important early learning is to the state. One way the states improve coordination between preschool and K-12 is by sharing data. West Virginia, for example, has created a data system that spans Pre-K through grade 12, and it includes child assessment, health, and attendance data, as well as program assessment information. States also improve coordination by aligning curriculum and assessments. So Washington, for example, uses the same child assessment tool for both preschool and kindergarten classrooms. Adequate resources, of course, are essential to assuring that high-quality early education. And all four states rely on a number of funding streams, federal, state, and local. It takes dedicated state dollars combined with funding from Head Start, Title I, or subsidized childcare, to expand access and program quality. So you may have a classroom where some students are funded through state preschool program and other students are funded through Head Start, or you may have a classroom where the kids are served for a full day with the state preschool dollars paying for the morning and Head Start paying for the afternoon. However, because each program has its own reporting requirements, this combining of funds can be difficult when, for example, teachers have to report data for each program separately and not necessarily the same data. This is an issue that states and local programs continue to grapple with. Another important funding strategy is to leverage short-term funds. These funds are often used for building infrastructure rather than for funding preschool slots. Michigan, Washington, and North Carolina have used federal race to the top early learning challenge grants to build and improve their quality rating and improvement systems and develop to develop kindergarten readiness assessments. And having a public-private partnership is another strategy to bring in dollars to support early education. Thrive Washington, for example, coordinates government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits across the state working on early learning. It also jointly administers Washington's home visiting program and funds them from federal state and private money blended together. So how does a state even get a program started? And how does it maintain momentum given tight budgets and competing priorities? All four of these states relied on broad-based support. They all had broad-based coalitions working together with policymakers to promote high-quality accessible early education. And the various groups are hooked by their different interests. So when Michigan business leaders supported pre-K, because they read the research about the return on investment and they believed that in the long run preschool would provide them with a more skilled workforce. In North Carolina, prosecutors and police officers supported early education because they saw the evidence of long-term crime reduction. The state's also built support by offering parents a choice of providers, including public and private providers, so that parents can choose the setting that they believe best makes the needs of their child. West Virginia, for example, requires county boards to jointly run at least half of their classrooms with Head Start center-based child care providers and private preschool providers. By relying on a mix of providers, the counties are able to meet local needs and offer choice to families. And we found that having a political champion was key. That might be a governor, might be a legislator, but in each state there was someone who made early education a priority. And these folks represent both political parties even in the same state. Consider Michigan, which switched from Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm to Republican Governor Rick Snyder and both supported preschool. John Bebo, the president and CEO of the Center for Michigan, said this best. Early childhood, children's issues and poverty issues, they are not Democratic and Republican issues. They are reality. And if you come at this from a partisan perspective, it's probably not going to work. You've got to find solutions and right now Republicans and Democrats are both looking at early childhood as a potential solution. And this sentiment was not just in Michigan. Early education is one issue where there is bipartisan support. So these states and others have done a lot of hard work over many years to make early education as good as it can be. And despite their successes, they continue to work on their programs. Each state I've highlighted today has a list of things they are working on, like establishing kindergarten entry assessments, boosting the quality of their programs in the zero to three space, or creating tighter linkages between early education and K-12. And they all have faced and continue to face challenges. But there are lessons to learn from one another about how to address those challenges and other lessons, like how to fund early education programs, how to support continuous improvement, how to make quality a cornerstone. And that's what I hope we've been able to accomplish with this research, to provide examples and to start a conversation within and across states so that we all can provide the best possible for our youngest learners. Thank you. We are going to have an opportunity, you're going to have an opportunity to ask me questions about our research. Before we do that though, we're going to actually turn to our panel so you can hear from the states themselves about what I've been talking about. And then we can do questions about from the states and the research. So right now I would like to bring back my colleague David Kerp, who will introduce the panelists.