Congress Calls for Investment in Early Education

On Wednesday, June 27, the U.S. Joint Economic Committee held a hearing on "Investing in Young Children Pays Dividends: The Economic Case for Early Care and Education." The House and Senate also joined to introduce S. 1374 and H.R. 2859, the Prepare All Kids Act. The week’s focus on early education underscored the recent push towards investing in young American’s education at the earliest age possible. Members of Congress and early education advocates all seem to agree that investing in education at younger ages is a good way to help ensure that future generations are healthy and prosperous.

Wednesday’s hearing included witness testimony from:
• Dr. James Heckman, Nobel Prize-winning professor of economics from the University of Chicago;
• Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius;
• Harriet Dichter, Deputy Secretary at the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning; and
• Douglas Besharo, Director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Social and Individual Responsibility Project.

Research indicates that non-scholastic, social factors are vital in determining a child’s success in school. A landmark study that followed children in the Perry Preschool Program in Michigan found that for every dollar invested in that program, $17 were saved in other costs, including those for crime, welfare and education. Dr. Heckman testified that while the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) focuses on measuring early cognitive ability through achievement test scores in the fourth grade, a range of other factors spur success in school and later in life, including socio-emotional skills that promote motivation, self-confidence and tenacity.

To show their support for proposals and suggestions offered from the panel, members of the committee touted that joint effort in introducing the Prepare All Kids Act. Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA), introduced the bill in May, while Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) introduced the House version on Tuesday. The bill works to provide at least one year of high-quality pre-kindergarten education to all children and free for the neediest low-income children, as the bill targets children from families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, about $40,000 for a family of four. The programs will use a research-based curriculum that supports children’s cognitive, social, emotional and physical development, as well as individual learning styles.

Resources:
Frank Wolfe, “Congress presses investments for pre-K programs,” Education Daily, June 28, 2007.
Author: SAS

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Early Childhood Issues

On Wednesday, Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY) presented the most detailed education initiative of the escalating 2008 presidential campaign.



The proposal would expand pre-kindergarten classes to all children by creating a pre-K matching grant system. States would have to establish high quality plans, as defined by Clinton’s proposal, for making voluntary pre-K services universally available for all four-year olds in the state. In exchange for this plan, the federal government would provide matching grants that would increase over time. Where state-committed and federally matched funds are insufficient for universal access to pre-K, the plan would place a priority on assistance for low-income families and for kids learning English. States would be able to use these funds to expand their Head Start programs.
The federal government would allocate $5 billion in the first year to states to establish and administer universal Pre-K. Over the next five years, the federal commitment would increase to $10 billion as states increase their commitment to Pre-K.
Sen. Clinton’s proposal is a likely indication of proposals to come. Early childhood investment has been popular for years in Washington, but the Brookings Institute has been actively promoting the early education programs by touting the educational and fiscal benefits, something that campaigning politicians are eager to hear in tight financial times. Early childhood investment, argue Jens Ludwig and Isabel Sawhill of Brookings, delivers great return on the investment:
The United States currently spends around $7,300 on elementary and secondary public schooling for each school-age child (five to seventeen years old), for a total of around $530 billion. But family background generates large differences in child outcomes well before children start school and even before they are old enough to participate in the federal government’s preschool program for disadvantaged children. [….]
The program that Brookings has proposed, and that Sen. Clinton is echoing, would provide early intervention and, they claim, generate economic and social benefits that would far exceed the program’s costs while providing efficiency savings to the government throughout the student’s education career. This is a win-win for federal deficit reduction, public education and other related social programs. Accordingly, we can expect to see a number of similar proposals throughout the presidential election cycle and, potentially, in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.
Resources:

“Success by Ten: Intervening Early, Often and Effectively in the Education of Young Children,” February 2007, http://www1.hamiltonproject.org/views/papers/200702ludwig-sawhill.htm
“2 Candidates to Roll Out Domestic Proposals,” New York Times, May 21, 2007.
Author: DAD

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