EARLY EDUCATION is thriving in Chelsea. The city's John Silber Early Learning Center is a bright, airy place where more than 300 3- and 4-year-olds are getting the social, emotional, and cognitive skills they'll need to do well in kindergarten.

The long-term data also look good. Last year, 93 percent of 10th-graders who've been in the Chelsea school system since preschool passed the MCAS exam on the first attempt, according to Chelsea's school superintendent, Thomas Kingston. That's better than the 65 percent pass rate for all of Chelsea's 10th-graders. Preschool also helps children who are learning English as a second language and those with special needs.

Kingston will tell this story today at a State House hearing on early education, part of a public conversation on how to build a statewide universal preschool program.

Last year the Legislature poured a foundation by creating the Department of Early Education and Care. Now it's time to build a first-class preschool system.

A good blueprint is the Act Establishing Early Education for All proposed in a bill filed in the House by state Representative Patricia Haddad of Somerset and in the Senate by state Senator Frederick Berry of Peabody.

The bill calls on the new department to adopt standards and guidelines that have been approved by the Board of Education. Wisely, these standards would be adjusted so they could also be used by providers who run programs in their homes. So no matter where children are -- preschools, centers, or home-based programs -- they would find a deliberately built road to success.

The bill also calls for a commission to study the expansion of full-day kindergarten across the state, a sound way to continue children's early accomplishments.

The department also would have to set workforce development plans. This is crucial. The state needs ways to educate, pay, and provide professional development for teachers and providers. Without highly qualified staff, early education can't fulfill its promise.

The bill sets a deadline of 2012 for building the statewide universal program. It's a good way to galvanize state attention and action.

A high-quality system would give the state's children a chance to rack up early developmental successes. Many children who don't get this support find themselves racing to catch up on the first day of kindergarten. A good system also promises to give Massachusetts a student population that has the emotional and cognitive resilience to do well in school and avoid costly remedial programs.

The sooner the system is set up, the sooner Massachusetts will reap these benefits.