Georgia's Pre-K Program Serves One Million Children

/PRNewswire/ -- The location of the Millionth Child currently being served by Georgia's Pre-K Program has been revealed. The millionth child walked through the doors of Sumter County Primary School in Americus, Georgia! Governor Sonny and Mrs. Mary Perdue will kick off a special celebration at the school on Thursday, February 18. Georgia is the first state in the nation to serve more than one million Pre-K children in a voluntary, universal, lottery-funded program.

"We are thrilled with the outpouring of support that the Millionth Child Celebration has received," said Bright from the Start Commissioner Holly A. Robinson. "This exciting campaign could not have been successful without our generous partners, outstanding providers and teachers, and most importantly, the one million children who have benefited from Georgia's Pre-K Program."

Commemorative Millionth Child Celebration activities began last year and will continue through 2010. The celebration was launched in April 2009 by Georgia First Lady Mary Perdue who read How Much is a Million? to a group of Georgia's Pre-K children. She and Governor Perdue chose the book in honor of this milestone. Other activities include the Million Book Campaign challenging everyone in Georgia to read to children. So far, more than 622,000 books have been logged in!

"The millionth child campaign emphasizes the importance of a quality learning experience that includes a strong early literacy program for all of Georgia's children," said Mary Mazarky, Assistant Commissioner for Pre-K.

Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning administers the nationally recognized Georgia's Pre-K Program. High quality learning experiences are emphasized for every child participating in the program which has been in existence 16 years. During the 2009-2010 school year, 82,000 children in approximately 4,100 classrooms in every county in the state are being served.

Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning is responsible for meeting the child care and early education needs of Georgia's children and their families. It administers the nationally recognized Georgia's Pre-K Program, licenses child care centers and home-based child care, administers federal nutrition programs, and manages voluntary quality enhancement programs.

The department also houses the Head Start State Collaboration Office, distributes federal funding to enhance the quality and availability of child care, and works collaboratively with Georgia child care resource and referral agencies and organizations throughout the state to enhance early care and education. For more information, go to www.decal.ga.gov.

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One Million Americans - and Counting - Come Out Against President Obama's Health Care Plan

/PRNewswire/ -- The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and Salem Radio Network announced today the 1 millionth signature on their joint "Free Our Health Care Now" petition calling on Congress to stop the nationalization of the American health care system.

The millionth signature milestone comes just over a week after President Obama reached a million signers on his health reform petition, funded and promoted by the Democratic National Committee's "Organizing for America."

"It seems we have a horserace," said NCPA President and Kellye Wright Fellow John C. Goodman. "This national debate over how best to repair a dysfunctional health care system has evolved into trench warfare between government vs. patient and doctor controlled health care."

The petition, available at www.freeourhealthcarenow.com, was launched on May 25 by Salem Radio Network, with the team of Mike Gallagher, Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Janet Parshall, who reach millions of listeners each week and cover 90 percent of the United States. The NCPA, a leader in public policy research for over 25 years, provided the content and analysis on almost all facets of the debate, including educational guidance on the framing and substance of the petition itself.

"This is and continues to be an amazing response from a large segment of the American people," explained SRN president Greg Anderson. "Talk radio is at the epicenter of public opinion and citizens from all across the country are making their concerns known loud and clear."

"None of this could have happened without the expertise, acumen and dedication of the NCPA, and its CEO and President, Dr. John Goodman. His knowledge of health care, his experience in policy debate, and the great team he has built at the NCPA all were integral to this great educational success. The more our audience learned about the health care landscape, the more disenchanted our audience became with President Obama's desire for a so called 'public option,' and with his rush to get health care reform completed by the end of the summer."

"We are thrilled that our educational outreach with Salem Radio Network led to such a surge of interest in this topic," said Dr. Goodman. "Healthcare represents 17 percent of the economy, and the NCPA has long argued that placing government in control of health care would result in significant declines in access, choice and quality of care."

The Free Our Health Care Now petition will be delivered to Congress in late August, and at current signing rates, may become the biggest petition delivered to Capitol Hill since Newt Gingrich delivered 1.3 million signatures to Congress last summer as a part of American Solution's "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign.

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