Washington is an incredibly scripted place where even the seemingly most off-the-cuff remarks are made with assured precision, which is why I found Shavon Collier's testimony about early-childhood education today in front of the Senate Budget Committee refreshing.  Collier is not one of the usual Washington insiders. She's a mom-—one who was struggling financially to the degree that her children qualified for Head Start.

Collier enrolled her son and daughter at the Edward C. Mazique Child Center in Washington—and brought her now 10-year-old daughter Sakhia, who graduated from there—to the session.

Sakhia is now on the honor roll at her current school—a success by many measures—as is her brother.

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