Programming note

By Dylan Matthews

The best policy measures are those that address more than one major problem at once. Health-care reform expanded access to underserved patients while improving the United States' long-term fiscal picture. Cap-and-trade would reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change while reducing our dependence on oil from unsavory regimes. And adopting a comprehensive child care and early education system would allow millions more parents -- mostly mothers -- to enter the workforce while helping reduce the achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Two of these three policies have gotten plenty of attention on blogs like this one. Child care and pre-K policy, however, has not. This week, I'm going to try to remedy that. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've spent last week and this one talking to a lot of people who are, and I'll be posting interviews with them throughout the week. There are two main facets to the topic -- pre-K education policies designed primarily to benefit students, and child care policies designed primarily to let parents work -- and you'll be hearing from experts on both, as well as from people intimately familiar with the political challenges involved in achieving a universal child care and early education system.

The first interview will be posted shortly, so stay tuned.

Dylan Matthews is a student at Harvard and a researcher at The Washington Post.

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