RSG | Press Page: Don't Shortchange Early Childhood Education

What investor would pass up a 16 percent annual return? The Connecticut General Assembly. Worse, by passing up on this rate of return, the legislature will also cost Connecticut's taxpayers about $86 million annually. But the harm incurred goes beyond the financial. In making this decision, the legislature is shortchanging thousands of the state's preschoolers.

This happened when the legislature decided to continue underfunding the early childhood education program. As a result, 15,000 children in "priority school districts" (those with high percentages of students living at or below poverty level) will not get full-day, full-year preschooling.

So how does underfunding this program end up costing so much and hurting so many?

Numerous studies have demonstrated both the short-term and long-term return on dollars invested in such high-quality early childhood programs as School Readiness in Connecticut, which returns $7 for every $1 invested. Long-term savings come from reduced spending on special education services, reduced welfare assistance, higher taxes paid on higher earnings and reduced crime costs.

A recent landmark study found that children in priority school districts were twice as ready for kindergarten in language, literacy and math skills. These students were 11/2 times as ready for kindergarten in social and emotional skills and fine motor skills.

From a humanitarian perspective, the benefits of early childhood education are frequently extolled: reduced retention rates (children held back in a grade), reduced danger of becoming a substance abuser, reduced potential of becoming a felon and so on. Seldom, though, do we hear about the economic reasons for increased spending on early childhood education. In Bridgeport, for example, studies have shown that children who participate in a high-quality school readiness program have dramatically reduced likelihoods of being held back in kindergarten through grade 2. In Stamford, school readiness raised reading achievement, lowered retention rates and decreased the need for special services for participating children.

Reduced retention rates alone provide dramatic cost savings that we can no longer simply ignore. The Bridgeport study showed that as many as 50 percent of children without pre-kindergarten education were retained at least once by the end of second grade vs. only 1 percent of students who did have pre-kindergarten education. If we extrapolate that statistic to the 15,000 priority district students who do not have access to pre-kindergarten, one could forecast as many as 7,500 retentions in the first three years of school. This very simply means at least one extra year of school for each of these students at an average cost of $11,500 per pupil per year. This adds up to the startling $86 million cost to taxpayers every year that we fail to fund early childhood education.

The most successful economies are those that invest in education. So said Art Rolnick, senior vice president and director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, to Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell at a forum at Fairfield University this past January. Rolnick said that an investment in early childhood education yields a real rate of return of 16 percent.

The math is simple but the logic behind Connecticut's underfunding is less easy to figure.

There is hope. At least one highly placed person in state government recognizes the importance of early childhood education. In fact, last November, this person said, "We can't afford not to make preschool learning a priority. Achievement gap, preparation gap, call it what you will, it's real, it's hurting our children and it's unacceptable." The speaker? Lt. Gov. Rell.

Now that she is Gov. Rell, perhaps she can help the legislature understand how the failure to commit to universal early childhood education is not only costing us money, but costing us young minds who will become the future of this state. Or as Rell so succinctly put it last November:
"It is vital that our state invest in the future by giving all Connecticut schoolchildren access to a quality preschool experience. All children should enter kindergarten ready for school success so that they have the opportunity to reach their full potential."

Michael Zebarth is director of the Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science, a Wesleyan University initiative that improves the teaching skills of teachers of pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade students.