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Commentary: Cities should support early childhood education

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Re. “The Crowd: Spreading awareness of children’s needs,” (Sept. 18): When I read the story about National Child Awareness Month, I saw the potential for organizations like its sponsor, the Festival of Children Foundation, to be leaders in helping cities and school districts collaborate in supporting high-quality early education (HQEE).

Simply put, the goal of this proposed collaboration between city and school district is to make sure that high-quality early education is fully funded.

HQEE is, at heart, today’s educational response to Alexander Pope’s 18th century observation, “As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.”

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Research shows that 90% of a child’s brain develops in the first five years of life. The earliest years of children’s lives play a huge part in how they prosper — or not — in the rest of their time on Earth.

It is but a small step for a city to begin financially supporting HQEE.

A city’s infrastructure already supports residents’ well-being by providing parks and recreational activities, as well as libraries. Since cities eventually benefit from both the physical and intellectual well-being of their young residents, it follows that they should also support HQEE as part of their investment in infrastructure.

HQEE is used here as an umbrella term for the various flavors of high-quality early education. Factors common to most such efforts are using highly trained teachers with at least a bachelor’s degree and requiring family involvement and providing daylong schooling. Depending on resources, students in a narrow age range (Pre-K, ages 3-4) to a wide range (from birth to age 9) are served.

The concept is no flash in the pan. HQEE is mature in research as well as practice. The granddaddy of studies of HQEE in public schools is the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), began 30 years ago. It has followed a large group of preschoolers and their parents, who had participated in the mid-1980s in Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers program.

The results are impressive. CLS found that for every dollar invested in Chicago’s high-quality early education program, society got back in the range of $7 to $12 worth of benefits as the participants matured into their 20s. This is an average return of between 10% and 13% annually over 20-plus years, an achievement many mutual fund managers may well envy.

If it’s so good, skeptics might ask, why don’t we see HQEE in every city? Until lately, a school district would have had to bear most of the cost of delivering HQEE, while the ultimate benefits would have gone to many other parts of society. Understandably, school districts haven’t been willing to bear the full burden of funding the program.

This is changing fast, because wide-ranging support is growing. Business leaders and foundations are joining in. Governments are investing, from major cities, through states, on up to the national level.

Foundations, such as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, support high-quality early childhood education.

The signature campaign promise of New York City’s current mayor was to provide universal, daylong pre-school for the city’s 4-year-olds.

Every 4-year-old in the reddest of red states, Oklahoma, gets free access to one year of high-quality pre-kindergarten.

HQEE was a call to action in President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address.

HQEE yields society-wide benefits. There is less crime as participants pass through their teens and 20s, so budgets for policing, courts and incarceration can be smaller. There is higher tax revenue from HQEE graduates who, on average, get more education that leads to better-paying jobs.

There are lower expenses for welfare of all kinds, because the population tends to stabilize at higher levels of education and income. And an improved talent pool is built that is better able to compete in the global economy.

Are there worthwhile benefits to a smaller city? Closer to home, a little-hailed benefit of HQEE is that HQEE participants provide stronger competition to children from more-affluent families. This is a plus for parents who believe that their children achieve more when immersed in a challenging environment.

In addition, as HQEE-trained students progress through the grades, school performance metrics and reputations will naturally increase. This leads to better neighborhoods, higher property values and more revenue for businesses and the city.

Teachers automatically become more effective. They can give more attention to all their students since they don’t have to spend inordinate time and energy on classroom behavior problems and tutoring ill-prepared children.

Smaller cities can lend support. But is it legal for a smaller city to use its resources to fund an educational project? The answer is yes if it serves a public purpose.

There is precedent. Irvine and its school district, through a joint-powers agreement made in 1984, collaborate on the Irvine Child Care Project to provide school-age childcare on elementary school campuses.

“A sound mind in a sound body” is a popular motto for both educational institutions and athletic clubs. Cities already support the latter half of that motto through youth sports. It is now time for small- and medium-sized cities to support the “sound mind” half by including a line item in their budgets for HQEE.

Costa Mesa resident TOM EGAN is a former Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee.

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