No Ohio child should be doomed by a poor start

Shannon Jones

Who doesn’t tell their children, “You can be anything you want to be, do anything you want to do”?

For many of Ohio’s children, that assurance is not true. Children who start behind, stay behind.

There are exceptions, of course. But the trend lines are unmistakable. Look at any measure of children’s well-being in the early years — low birth weight, exposure to trauma, access to health care, attendance at a high-quality preschool, third-grade reading proficiency — and you’ll see that many of our kids will never get past the fact that they didn’t get a good — or a fair — start in life.

This reality is especially true for Ohio children who are African-American, live in Appalachia or are growing up poor. Kids’ success is being determined by their race, where they live and whether they’e poor. That’s wrong, and we can’t pretend it’s not happening.

When kids fail, the rest of us lose: We lose their talent, and we pay higher taxes for everything from special-ed teachers to prison guards.

A new report from the organization I lead documents just how hard it is for kids to overcome disadvantages early in life.

“From the Ground Up: Unearthing Fairness for Ohio Kids” looked at 25 measures of children’s health and achievement. The trajectory is predictable — we know early which children are at risk of failure in school and even in life.

Children who start kindergarten behind often are poor readers in third grade. Poor readers tend to struggle with eighth-grade math, and success in middle-school math is a good predictor of whether a student will go on to graduate from high school. If a young person doesn’t graduate, he or she is not going to college, and probably will have a hard time doing the reading or math that’s required to earn a job credential.

A big part of the explanation is that early disadvantages compound. Think of the power of compounding interest. If you don’t save when you’re

young, you won’t have a nest egg in old age; you can’t fix your failure to plan by opening a savings account or 401(k) at age 55.

The same is true when it comes to investing in children. If we don’t invest in children when they’re young, they almost certainly will have difficulties throughout their lives.

As voters, we have to connect the dots. Just 40 percent of Ohio’s kindergarteners are fully ready to learn at the start of the school year; just 43 percent of our workforce has a two-year or four-year degree or credential. Isn’t it telling that those two numbers are nearly identical? Isn’t that fact a call to action considering that by 2020, 65 percent of all jobs will require a degree or credential?

Data about large numbers of children is not destiny for individual kids. But the heartbreaking story the statistics show should compel us to make better public policy.

It makes financial sense to: • Support home-visiting programs for new moms, so babies will be healthier.

• Prevent incidences of lead poisoning that can impair children’s brain development.

• Invest in high-quality child care and preschool so children enter Kindergarten ready to learn and aren’t later held back in school or require expensive social and academic interventions.

• Treat children’s asthma so kids don’t miss school or need costly hospital stays.

• Ensure all children are reading on grade level in third grade so they can master the challenging work that’s ahead.

Ohio’s laws, policies and practices don’t recognize just how much we can pave the way for children to succeed by supporting them in the early years. Ohio spends almost $10.5 billion on K-12 education, but not even $1 billion on children’s health and growth from birth to age 5. The first five years of life are when the brain is developing the fastest and being hardwired for all future learning. We can’t miss that chance to give children a chance.

Finally, if we believe that all children deserve a fair shot at the American Dream and the opportunity to be successful, we also have to look at who is being left behind. When a child’s health and educational achievement are predictable by race, geography or class, only adults can fix that tragic injustice.