Early childhood education deserves focus
Tracey Sparrow says she often tells people involved in early childhood programs that they are doing the most important work anyone can do.
Many others can make claims about the importance of their work, so let’s not get hung up on a competition about importance. Instead, take Sparrow’s thought as a challenge to our priorities, both in terms of public policy and our personal lives. She’s making a valuable point — it’s hugely important to give infants, toddlers and kids up through kindergarten age a good start in life.
Sparrow is president of Next Door, a nonprofit whose services include two large centers with early childhood programs on the north side. Hundreds of children who take part in Next Door programs daily are from lowincome homes. Almost all are nonwhite. Overall data shows that among children such as these, it is common to enter kindergarten already well-behind better-off kids, already on the way to the gaps in success that we know so well.
There is a generous supply of research that shows that high-quality early childhood programs for low-income kids have lasting benefits on academic success, behavior and family life. A widely used figure is that the “return on investment” is $13 for every $1 spent.
Early childhood is education’s off-off-Broadway show. A good example of what I mean is the way education issues are shaping up as Wisconsin’s budget season gets underway. Big attention is focused on the University of Wisconsin system. Bright spotlights shine on issues around kindergarten through 12th grade.
And over there on the side, with almost no one paying attention, are the programs intended to help kids before they reach kindergarten.
I’m guilty of this myself. I almost never write about early childhood education.
Some argue that early childhood is a matter to be taken care of at home. That’s fine when it works. But what about when it doesn’t? That is, unfortunately, true way too often. There is a lot of bad parenting out there and a lot of kids leading unstable lives, which they bring with them to school.
Wisconsin is among the states with relatively high percentages of children going to 4-year-old kindergarten programs, which is good. According to the state Department of Public Instruction, more than 48,000 children were in 4K programs in September 2015, with participation in 399 of the state’s 413 school districts that have elementary schools.
That’s good, but Sparrow says if we leave the efforts to get children on track until even 4, “we’re missing the most critical time.”
“We know that things like language differences start showing up as early as 18 months of age, and some studies say 9 months of age,” Sparrow said.
Wisconsin’s record for early childhood programs has bright spots. In addition to 4K offerings, they include:
Young-Star, a program that rates licensed child care providers on a scale of one to five stars. Joe Scialfa, spokesman for the state Department of Children and Families, said that since 2012, the portion of 3,500-plus participating programs that are getting three, four or five stars has increased from 26% of the total to 53%. Hundreds of centers have earned more stars by steps such as better training of their employees.
Home visits. A program run by the state and mostly funded with federal dollars allows professionals to pay visits to the homes of children considered “at-risk.” The visitors provide coaching and other help involving health, nutrition, safety at home, access to social services and good child-development activities. In his budget proposal, Gov. Scott Walker included an additional $3.9 million to serve 400 to 550 additional families in the next two years.
Last year, the Assembly Speaker’s Task Force on Urban Education made a recommendation with bipartisan support that the Legislature should “explore additional options for investing in early childhood education.” Other than the home visit increase, that doesn’t appear to be reflected in Walker’s 2017-’19 budget. But state Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (ROak Creek), who chaired the panel, said she was happy some other recommendations were included by Walker and that she hopes the state will continue to invest in quality early childhood programs in low-income school districts.
More options needed
Overall, however, the need for high-quality early childhood programming is much greater than the availability. It remains true that work in day care centers is often done by people with limited educational backgrounds who work for low pay. Some who know this field call a lot of what is available “baby-sitting” rather than the kind of stimulating, constructive programming that could make real differences.
What is the ideal in early childhood work? Next Door offers the best example around here: the Educare center that is part of its operations at 2545 N. 29th St. Funded largely by private donations, particularly from the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, Educare offers highlytrained staff, low child to staff ratios, extensive programming with families, and other state-of-the-art advantages. A new study by researchers from five universities looked at results at four Educare centers, including the one at Next Door, and found results for children including significantly higher language skills, better parent-child interaction and better behavior.
A big issue, of course, is the cost — about $21,000 per child per year for the Educare program here. How can that be afforded for more than a small number of kids?
The researchers said, “It may be that Educare’s cost matches the level of investment needed for children from low-income families to perform at the same levels as their more advantaged peers.” The report said, “It seems overly optimistic to expect an easy or inexpensive solution.” Agreed. But I hope it is overly pessimistic to think ways can’t be found to move the needle in Milwaukee and statewide toward more positive impact on little kids now and fewer problems when they become adults in the long run.