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Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health.
In episode 51, we interview Elliot Regenstein, a partner at Foresight Law + Policy. He has extensive experience in state-level policy and advocacy, with a particular focus on early learning. He has consulted with more than two dozen states on a wide range of education policy topics.
In this episode, he shares what led him to focus on K-12 and early childhood education.
Elliot said many people begin in education and find their way to policy work, but his journey was different. He started in policy work and found his way to education.
He was working as a municipal and land use lawyer, and a colleague from a previous job was working in a high-up position for the Illinois governor’s office. They were running a major education initiative, and his colleague contacted him and asked for his help on it. He didn’t have any experience in education policy at the time, but his colleague promised he could learn it on the job. That was more than 20 years ago. As a governor’s office staffer, Elliot simultaneously learned all about early childhood education, K-12 education and higher education.
“Sometimes I think that’s given me a really different perspective on how these pieces fit together, but I was certainly very grateful for that opportunity and have been trying to keep learning ever since,” he said.
In this episode, he also discusses:
- School choice
- Early childhood curriculums
- Authoring multiple books about education
- Successes with states that have established a unified government structure for early childhood
- Challenges states face
- The importance of local leadership
- The role philanthropy can play in developing early childhood policy
- How far the early childhood system has come over the last 20 years
And much more! Listen now, and learn more about how Elliot is an innovative leader in education.
Please see the Pioneers in Health page on our website for more information on our podcast series and links to other episodes.
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