As a new school year begins across the country, many are looking back on a long, hot summer and wondering where did all that time go? For early childhood public policy, three developments over the summer are likely to shape the field for quite some time. By July, many states had wound up their budgets for the coming year. In addition to cuts to subsidy funding, many states reduced their investments in child care quality or cut access to state-funded prekindergarten programs. In Washington, the Obama Administration launched a high-priority initiative, the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC), the second significant development of the summer. The goal of RTT-ELC is to help states increase the number of children from birth through age five from low-income families with access to high-quality early learning and development programs. Few "Exchange" readers missed the third development of the summer, the debt ceiling deal, but some may be wondering how it affects child care specifically. While early childhood was nowhere mentioned in the deal--in fact, no specific program cut is identified in it--the outlines of the agreement will cast a shadow over federal spending that could affect early childhood education programs.