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In his March 10th speech before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Obama repeated his campaign pledge to help states expand and improve early learning programs.

In defiance of skeptics who question the value or feasibility of early childhood education, the National Association of State Boards of Education points to Obama's home state of Illinois. The Illinois program can boast both strong acadmic results and cost-effectiveness, NASBE argues in a recent policy brief:

Illinois met nine of its 10 benchmarks for pre-k quality, ranked... 12th in access for 4-year-olds and first in the nation for 3-year-olds, while spending slightly more than $283 million. The headline, then, is not just that Illinois operates high-quality programs, but that it does so even though its ranking in state spending on these programs was 22nd in the United States, while all spending on pre-k gave the state a ranking of 27th.

Illinois may offer a model for other states struggling to meet ambitious goals in lean academic times.