J. Lee Kreader is Director of Child Care & Early Education Research Connections at the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. NCCP operates Research Connections, a hub for research in the field, in partnership with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For Research Connections, he has synthesized research on child care subsidy use and infant and toddler child care. Dr. Kreader is co-author of Toward a National Strategy to Improve Family, Friend, and Neighbor Child Care as well as numerous reports with NCCP research partners: Abt Associates (National Study of Child Care for Low-Income Families, Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies); Bank Street College (Assessing Child Care Development Fund Investments in Child Care Quality); Chapin Hall (Child Care Subsidy Use and Employment Outcomes of TANF Mothers, Employment and TANF Outcomes for Low-Income Families Receiving Child Care Subsidies); Oregon State University (Validating Child Care Market Rate Surveys) and The Dynamics of Child Care Subsidy Use team. Planner and first coordinator for Illinois' child care resource and referral system, he has directed child care programs in Chicago. His Ph.D., from the University of Chicago, is in U.S. social history.

Linda Smith is the Executive Director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) located in Arlington, Virginia. NACCRRA represents over 800 community-based child care resource and referral agencies located in all states and nearly every community. Ms. Smith is an expert in the field of early care and education systems and program development. During Ms. Smith's 25 years experience at the Department of Defense, she served as the Director of Family Policy, where she was responsible for policy and oversight of comprehensive family service programs affecting 2.1 million family members of military personnel. Additionally, as the Director of Child Development Programs for the Secretary of Defense, Ms. Smith lead implementation of the landmark Military Child Care Act of 1989, vastly transforming the program into one singled out by President Clinton and the United States Congress as a "model for the nation." Prior to joining NACCRRA Ms. Smith served as a Legislative Fellow and professional staffer on the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee under the Chairmanship of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In addition to testifying before the United States Senate, she has served on numerous National Committees, co-chaired the Federal Interagency Child Care Committee, chaired a White House Committee to examine background screening of child care personnel, and helped plan the 1997 White House Conference on Child Care.

Valora Washington, President of the CAYL Institute, directs several leadership programs for practitioners, including the Schott Fellowship in Early Care and Education, and the Principals Fellowship for Elementary school principals with prekindergarten programs---both of which offer new models for leadership development. She also has co-created several institutions, such as Michigan's Children, a statewide advocacy group, and the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.

She has been Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Governor's School Readiness Commission; Board Chair for Voices for America's Children; Secretary of NAEYC; chair of the Black Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development; Co-Chair of the National Head Start Association Commission on 2010; and a member of the current governor's Readiness Commission subcommittees. She currently serves as a trustee of the Boston Children's Museum and Wheelock College. Since 2005, she has co-led workforce development initiatives in Massachusetts; In July 2008 she completed service as one of three co-chairs on the Massachusetts Task Force on the early Education and Out of School Time Task Force. Valora is a former Vice-President of the Kellogg Foundation, where she led a process to develop over $18 million in grants related to early education and child welfare, and $86 million overall. She has held executive and teaching positions at institutions including Antioch College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a co-author or co-editor of over 50 publications, including "Children of 2010 and Keeping the Promise: a Study of the Massachusetts Child Care Voucher System." Advocacy for the voucher system led to 52,000 children in Massachusetts having opportunities for a one year certification period, effective last fall. Ready or Not: Leadership Choices in Early Care and Education, her latest writing venture (with Stacie Goffin) was published by Teachers College Press in June 2007.

She was educated at both Indiana and Michigan State Universities and holds honorary Doctorate degrees from both the Bennett College and the Meadville Lombard Theological School. She is a Certified Association Executive with the American Society of Association Executives.

Diane Trister Dodge, M.S., is the founder and president of Teaching Strategies, Inc., a company that seeks to improve the quality of early childhood programs by developing and providing training on comprehensive curriculum and assessment systems for children under age 5. She has been a preschool and kindergarten teacher; served as the education coordinator for Head Start and child care programs in Mississippi and Washington, D.C.; and directed national projects in education and human services. Ms. Dodge is the lead author of The Creative Curriculum® and is a well-known speaker. She served on the Governing Board of NAEYC (1990-1994) and the Center for the Child Care Workforce (1995-2002), and she has been a member of the D.C. Mayor's Advisory Committee on Early Childhood Development (since 1984). For the 2002-2003 academic year, Diane was the Barbara E. (Mound) Hansen Early Childhood Lecturer at Iowa State University. In October 2004, she received the Bank Street College Alumni Association Recognition Award for outstanding accomplishments in the field of education.

Luis A. Hernandez, T/TAS Early Childhood Education Specialist, holds an M.A. in Bilingual/Multicultural education from the University of San Francisco. He is active in a number of national organizations that support children and family interests. At NAEYC, he is active in the new accreditation process, and developing professional and leadership development opportunities. He currently serves on the Board of the Parent Services Project in California, the Advisory Board of the McCormick Tribune Center for Early Childhood Leadership, and the United Way's Center for Excellence in Early Childhood. He has served on the Boards of the Florida Children's Forum , the Child Care Workforce, and NACCRRA, the Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies. A regular speaker at national, state, and local conferences, his special interests include early literacy, second language learning, collaboration and partnerships, changing demographics and diversity, adult learning, and ECE management topics.

Dr. Eric Karolak directs the efforts of the Early Care and Education Consortium (ECEC), an alliance of more than 7,600 early learning programs providing care and education for nearly 800,000 children in 49 states and the District of Columbia. ECEC supports sound investments in early childhood education and has focused on assuring that prekindergarten initiatives are designed to meet the wide range of child and family needs from a birth-to-five, whole child perspective. From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Karolak led the National Child Care Information Center, the largest federal clearinghouse and technical assistance center focused on child care and early education for low income families. He has worked closely with states developing the technical aspects of child care assistance programs, quality rating systems, and partnerships across early childhood programs. He has conducted policy research and fiscal analysis in the areas of child welfare, child care, women's labor force participation, and public housing, and has testified before several state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. Dr. Karolak also has served on the boards of a national quality initiative, a non-profit child care center, a local government agency, and a metropolitan United Way. He earned a doctorate in economic history from The Ohio State University.

David L. Kirp is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. A former newspaper editor as well as an academic with interests ranging widely across social policy, Dr. Kirp addresses the question of justice in much of his work. His latest book, The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, published in 2007 by Harvard University Press, won the 2007 Association of American Publishers Award for Excellence in the Education category and was named a San Francisco Chronicle notable book for 2007. Excerpts appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and the Nation. Dr. Kirp has given numerous talks about early education at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Chicago, as well as statewide political and advocates' gatherings, the Google Forum, the National Conference of State Legislators and the Education Writers of America. His current project, The Kids-First Agenda, expands the scope of his interest in the lives of children.

Nina Rees is Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Knowledge Universe Education LLC, responsible for advancing the company's goals of providing the highest-quality early-childhood education and after-school tutoring, and finding ways to improve K-12 educational outcomes. She previously worked in Washington, D.C., most recently as the assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement at the Department of Education, where she oversaw grant programs that supported 1,300 projects around the country. She also coordinated the implementation of several provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, she served as a domestic policy adviser to Vice President Cheney and the education advisor to the Bush presidential campaign. From 1997-2001, she served as the chief education analyst for The Heritage Foundation. She was the foundation's lead author and spokesperson on education and worked closely with members of Congress and state legislatures on policy proposals aimed at reforming federal education programs.

Kathy Patterson joined Pre-K Now in March 2007 as federal policy director after serving 12 years as a member of the District of Columbia Council. Ms. Patterson ran for political office as a public school activist in 1994 and unseated a 2-term incumbent. On the D.C. Council, she advocated fiscal responsibility, stronger public schools, and accountability from District officials, and was a key player in the city's financial recovery. She served as chair of the Committee on Government Operations from 1997 through 2000, led the Committee on the Judiciary from 2001 through 2004, and served as Chair of the Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation during her last two years on the Council.

As chairman of the Committee on Education, Libraries and Education, Ms. Patterson was instrumental in gaining passage in 2006 of legislation to fund major renovation of D.C. Public Schools. She fought to provide incentives for public schools to recruit and retain quality teachers by helping teachers receive national board certification, and helping cover the costs of classroom supplies and training. Her other legislative accomplishments range from making Washington D.C. smokefree, to landmark legislation protecting the first amendment rights of individuals demonstrating in the nation's capital.

Ray Suarez joined The NewsHour in October 1999 as a Washington-based Senior Correspondent. Suarez has more than thirty years of varied experience in the news business. He came to The NewsHour from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago. In 2006 Rayo/HarperCollins published his examination of the tightening relationship between religion and politics in America. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and many other publications.

Earlier in his career, Suarez was a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London. Over the years he has narrated, anchored or reported many documentaries for public radio and television. He is the host and narrator of the upcoming documentary, "Jerusalem: Center of the World" (Oregon Public Broadcasting), and is the narrator for National Geographic TV's new series, Animal Genius. He is also the host of the monthly foreign affairs program America Abroad, heard on Public Radio International stations nationwide.

Suarez was a recipient of NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He was honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar Award from the National Council of La Raza, and the 2005 Distinguished Policy Leadership Award from UCLA's School of Public Policy. The Holy Vote won a 2007 Latino Book Award for Best Religion Book.

Suarez holds a B.A. in African History from New York University and an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by many colleges and universities, most recently by Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. He is a winner of the Benton Fellowship in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago. He has also been honored with a Distinguished Alumnus Award from NYU, and a Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago.

A life member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez was a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.

Libby Doggett is the executive director of Pre-K Now. Prior to joining Pre-K Now, Dr. Doggett worked for the National Head Start Association, where she directed the HeadsUp! Reading program, an innovative, credit-bearing course designed to provide early-childhood professionals the skills needed to help young children learn to read and write. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Heinz Endowment, AT&T, and a number of states, the program used satellite television and the Internet to bring college-level training to early-childhood professionals nationwide. A trained facilitator coordinated the learning at each of the 2000 sites in 47 states across the country.

Upon coming to Washington, D.C., in 1995, Dr. Doggett worked in the U.S. Department of Education, where she served as special assistant to the director of special education (OSEP) and as executive director of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council, coordinating multiple federal services for infants, toddlers, children with disabilities, and their families. As part of the OSEP's leadership team, Dr. Doggett helped to analyze and develop effective special-education policies, identify program strengths and deficiencies, and provide specialized, early-childhood expertise to the director. While at the Department of Education, Dr. Doggett also worked on the America Reads Challenge and helped lead the Children's Health Insurance Program outreach team in building a coalition of local school administrators dedicated to making children's health-insurance enrollment a regular part of school business.

In her home state of Texas, she served as the executive director of the Arc of Texas, the largest voluntary organization for persons with mental retardation and their families in the Lone Star State. She also helped found and then chaired the Disability Policy Consortium, a coalition of 20 Texas disability advocacy organizations.

Dr. Doggett co-authored the first book written on child care and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Honors for her leadership on children's and disability issues include an appointment to the Texas Commission on Children and Youth, the Governor's Trophy from the Governor's Committee on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities in Texas, and the Friend of Early Childhood Intervention award. She holds a doctorate from the University of Texas in early-childhood special education.

During her undergraduate years at the University of Texas, she met her husband Lloyd Doggett, currently a U.S. Representative from Texas and a senior Member on the Ways & Means Committee. The Doggetts have two daughters, Lisa and Cathy, and two granddaughters, Ella and Clara.