Start early education even earlier
Kudos to the Sun-Times for drawing attention to the evidencebased benefits of early education and urging us not to shy away from the costs of long-term success for our children and society. The Sun-Times is in good company in highlighting this issue, which has recently been featured in the State of the Union speech, Illinois’ State of the State speech and other national media. Each instance has highlighted the significance of the federal government’s decision to invest $1 billion in early education. But as the Sun-Times recognized, this is only the beginning of a muchneeded, significant investment.
But there is something else missing too. Most of the media attention we encounter talks about early education but then focuses solely on quality preschool. To reach our goals of student success and closing achievement gaps, preschool is important but not sufficient. Research tells us we must start much earlier with infants and toddlers (children ages birth to two).
A report released this month, The Youngest Illinoisans: A Statistical Look at Infants and Toddlers in Illinois, sheds light on the challenged state of Illinois’ infants and toddlers. The study shows that in Illinois, nearly 45 percent of infants and toddlers live in low-income families, 12 percent live in extreme poverty and nearly 31 percent do not have access to a sufficient amount of healthy food. Children living in poverty tend to face “multiple risk-factors” such as economic stress, exposure to violence, low levels of parental education and unemployment, all conditions that can fundamentally affect brain and overall development and keep children from succeeding academically and socially.
So you see, while the political and media attention is a great catalyst to spark dialogue and garner support, what we need now is action for all our children, including our infants and toddlers. Thank your congressman for investing in early education and urge them to invest in our youngest citizens as well.