We Know How to Help America’s Poorest Kids. Don’t Throw That Away.

Mr. Siddique was the principal deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2022 to 2023.

In 1965, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, the federal government asked experts a novel question: What does a poor child in America need to start kindergarten on equal footing with their better-off peers?

The answer was, essentially, a whole lot. Early learning classes, physical checkups, mental health services, nutrition support and disability services, all provided in partnership with families and communities because poverty affects every part of a young child’s life. That answer became the basis of the federal........

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