A new way to get every child ready for kindergarten

I am an historian,

and what I love about being an historian
is it gives you perspective.

Today, I'd like to bring that perspective
to education in the United States.

About the only thing people can agree on

is the most strategic time
for a child to start learning is early.

Over 50 years ago, there was
a watershed moment

in early education
in the US called Head Start.

Now, historians love watersheds
because it makes it so easy to talk

about what came before and what's happened since.

Before Head Start, basically nothing.

With Head Start, we begin to get
our nation's most at-risk children

ready for school.

Since Head Start, we've made strides,

but there are still
2.2 million children in the US

without access to early learning,

or more than half of
the four-year olds in the country.

That's a problem,

but the bigger problem is what we know
happens to those children.

At-risk children who reach school
without basic skills

are 25 percent more likely to drop out,

40 percent more likely
to become teen parents,

and 60 percent less likely
to go to college.

So if we know how important
early education is,

why aren't all children getting it?

There are barriers that the solutions
we've come up with to date

simply can't overcome.

Geography: think rural and remote.

Transportation: think
working parents everywhere.

Parent choice: no state requires
a four-year old to go to school.

And cost: the average cost for a state
to educate a preschooler

is five thousand dollars a year.

So am I just going
to keep talking about problems?

No.

Today, I want to tell you about
a cost-effective, technology-delivered,

kindergarten readiness program
that can be done in the home.

It's called UPSTART, and more than
60,000 preschoolers in the US

have already used it.

Now, I know what you might be thinking:

here's another person throwing tech
at a national problem.

And you'd be partially right.

We develop early learning software
designed to individualize instruction

so children can learn at their own pace.

To do that, we rely on experts from fields
ranging from reading to sociology

to brain science development
to all aspects of early learning

to tell us what the software
should do and look like.

Here's an example.

(Video) Voice (sings): Zero.

Zero.

Zero is the number
that's different from the others.

Zero is a big round "O."

It's not like one,

I'm sure you'll discover.

Zero is a big round "O."

(Laughter)

Claudia Miner: That is "The Zero Song."

(Laughter)

And here are Odd Todd and Even Steven
to teach you some things about numbers.

And here are the Word Birds,
and they're going to show you

when you blend letter sounds together,
you can form words.

You can see that instruction
is short, colorful and catchy,

designed to capture a child's attention.

But there's another piece to UPSTART

that makes it different
and more effective.

UPSTART puts parents in charge
of their children's education.

We believe, with the right support,

all parents can get their children
ready for school.

Here's how it works.

This is a kindergarten readiness
checklist from the state,

and almost every state has one.

We go to parents wherever they are

and we conduct a key
in-person group training,

and we tell them the software can check
every reading, math, and science box,

but they're going to be responsible
for motor skills and self-help skills,

and together we're going to work
on social emotional learning.