October 29, 2018
We have important new information about the impact of racism on the preterm birth rates in our country. We have a very high number of preterm births compared to other countries — and those numbers are getting worse. The percentage of preterm births in this country has just gone up for the second year in a row. More than 130 other countries have lower preterm...
April 16, 2018
The science of brain development for children is increasingly clear — and we have failed miserably in sharing that very clear and important science about the powerful impact of development activities in the first weeks, months, and years of life for each child in useful and effective ways with far too many families and parents in America. More than half of our births this year...
March 14, 2017
The attached Huffington Post piece that just ran explains the epigenetic reasons why the first three months of life are so important for every child born in America. We have new and important information about the huge impact of the first weeks and first months of life for every child — and now that we have that information and that knowledge — we need to share it...
February 16, 2017
The biggest single public health deficit and failure in America today is the fact that almost no parents of newborn children have been told or taught that they can improve their child’s learning abilities significantly by exercising their baby’s brain in the first three years of life. The basic biological science on that issue is absolutely clear — and almost no one is sharing that...
February 15, 2017
We have just done some work at the Institute for InterGroup Understanding we believe could actually help change the lives of large numbers of children for the better. We have just built and offered the world a new, easy to use Three Key Years website, which focuses entirely on helping parents and families from all groups build better lives for children by doing the right...
December 15, 2016
Governor Jerry Brown has just re-appointed me to serve for four more years on the First Five Commission for Children and Families for the State of California. I have been honored to Chair that Commission for the past four years, and I love the work that the Commission does and is doing. Thank you, Governor Brown. The people of California created First Five more than a...
November 1, 2016
We have massive learning gaps between groups of children in far too many schools in our country today. Efforts to close those gaps over the past two decades have very consistently failed. We have an economic reality where minority Americans have an average net worth that is less than 30 percent of the average net worth for White Americans. Unemployment levels are far higher for...
September 12, 2016
Sixty percent of African American males in this country who drop out of school end up in jail. The recidivism rate for those prisoners is nearly 80 percent. Those numbers are horrible. They result in damaging life trajectories for far too many. We can change those trajectories — but to change them, we need to make those changes for people in the very first weeks, months,...
May 21, 2016
Many people who have read the Three Key Years book have asked me for a one or two page summary of the key points in language that can be helpful to new parents. The people who have made that request say the full book is a good teaching tool for parents, families, caregivers, community leaders, and educators — but it is not optimal as a...
August 7, 2015
The most recent learning ability scores for Minnesota school children showed that gaps between white students and Hispanic, African American, and Native American children continue at unacceptable levels. Seventy percent of the white children are reading at age appropriate levels compared to less than 40 percent of the children from the other groups. Those gaps are not due to race or ethnicity or even the...