Early childhood education begins from the moment a baby is born; the first lesson being social interaction and learning to nurse. From there, infants adjust to their new environment with stimulus that teaches them who their parents and family members are, and they will recognize them – especially their mothers – immediately.
It is rather amazing how fast these babies grow and develop. It’s actually a growth spurt unlike any other time in the lifespan of a human. Language acquirement, fine and gross motor skills have a child blurting two, and sometimes three, word sentences while walking, climbing stairs and fingering Cheerios into their mouths by the time they are 1-years-old.
This innate ability to learn can be nurtured and capitalized on by tools that will adequately prepare each child to enter the public education system. This is where quality preschool education for 3- and 4-year olds can vitally make a difference in how a child’s attitude is formed towards school and learning.
Whether from home or in a preschool setting – private or pubic – the advantages of introducing basic academics to young children goes beyond kindergarten readiness and extends into impacting economic growth. How?
Early childhood education advocates stress the economic benefits of preschool programs, though it has been difficult to garner support for these short-term investments given the long-term nature of the economy. But in an April, 2006, a policy brief by The Brookings Institution entitled: “The Effects of Investing in Early Education on Economic Growth,” by William T. Dickens, Isabel V. Sawhill, and Jeffrey Tebbs, determined that a high-quality universal preschool policy on economic growth could add $2 trillion to annual U.S. GDP by 2080. (http://www.brook.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb153.htm)
By 2080, a national program would cost the federal government approximately $59 billion, but generate enough additional growth in federal revenue to cover the costs of the program several times over, the brief said.
Despite this analysis, one of the most successful programs in the federal government, Head Start, which readies America's poorest children for kindergarten and beyond is being cut year after year. Head Start and Early Head Start have been doing more with less for nearly five years after facing severe financial constraints that include a threatening proposal by President Bush’s administration to enact a zero increase in federal funding for fiscal year 2007. That means these programs will have experienced an 11 percent real cut in federal funding since fiscal year 2002.
That will translate into 35,432 fewer classroom slots – including 500 or more in each of 23 states (yes, including Utah) – under a proposed 2 percent reduction in federal discretionary spending, according to the National Head Start Association (NHSA).
While the federal government stepped up to the plate 40 years ago when it instituted these programs, it has now left it to the states to fill in the gaps. Utah is at a disadvantage because it is already dead last in per pupil spending in the nation for public education. There is simply no means for it to pick up the entire slack from the federal government to educate the state’s poorest children - and this in turn will affect its future workforce.
“Economists have long believed that investments in education, or "human capital," are an important source of economic growth. Over the last 40 years output has risen about 3.5 percent a year. Growth in the productivity of labor, the major driver of increases in wages and standards of living, has measured about 2.4 percent per year. The contribution of education to labor productivity growth is estimated in different studies to be between 13 and 30 percent of the total increase. Whatever the contribution of education to growth in the past, investments in human capital may rise in importance relative to investments in other forms of capital as we transition to a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy,” the policy brief said.
Why the federal government isn’t taking that seriously is beyond me. While universal preschool is a vision I have for Utah, the funding realities prove most difficult for it to ever come to fruition. Thank heavens, Gov. Jon Huntsman and Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, are invoking some ingenuity of thought to give some solutions.
Huntsman is proposing a $7 million bill to provide optional full-time kindergartens for Utah’s most disadvantaged children, who will desperately need the help with Head Start and Early Head Start’s accommodations being stifled with drastic funding cuts.
Stephenson is proposing a kindergarten readiness initiative earmarked for the same amount of money to train 100 early education experts who will train parents, preschools and daycares with the tools they need to prepare young children to enter the public education system.
Both of these bills compliment each other, but for some reason are being pitted against each other as it’s either one or the other. Couple these bill together and Utah will invest into a resource that will affects its future labor force dramatically for the better with people who learned early on the importance of an education.
Work still needs to be done to license private preschools and regulate them so as to ensure their quality and teachers are appropriately trained and educated, but these two men are facilitating a start in the right direction. I support them both and will continue to advocate for early childhood education.
The next time you see a baby examining his or her hands, keep in mind those hands could be those of a future brain surgeon, Pulitzer Prize winning author or master carpenter. The possibilities are endless – especially given the right opportunities beginning with toddlerhood.
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