Gov. Jim Douglas, barely back from France, will head to Maryland next week to announce another initiative as chairman of the National Governor's Association.
The event is set for Wednesday afternoon at the Gaylord National Resort in a place called National Harbor.
Here's the announcement.
"Millions of American children face formidable challenges to their long-term health and academic success because they live in poverty and lack access to high-quality health care and constructive early learning opportunities. With this in mind, the NGA Center for Best Practices will host a first-of-its-kind summit that brings together state teams to develop a coordinated policy agenda among state health, early education and human service systems to ensure better outcomes for our children. As part of the summit, Gov. Douglas will speak at a session titled Creating a Children’s Agenda in the New Economic Reality about the importance of comprehensive initiatives that address high-quality early childhood programs and children’s health and welfare in the context of the current economic climate."
This seems like a big challenge -- at a time when governors have a lot of their plates. Next week in Vermont, for example, is the deadline for the Douglas administration and the Vermont State Employees Association to reach an agreement on $7.4 million in cuts or a bunch of state workers will be laid off.
-- Nancy Remsen
Labels: children, Gov. Jim Douglas, National Governors Association, VSEA