As Pennsylvania continues to operate without a final budget, one of many sticking points to be resolved is whether early childhood programs will continue to be a priority in the year ahead. While scaling back Pre-K Counts, Head Start, Nurse-Family Partnership, quality childcare and other early childhood investments may save limited dollars now, these are false savings because these programs are shown to reduce the cost of government in the future.
Early childhood is a narrow window of opportunity when we can make a huge impact on a child's social and emotional development and learning for life. Because the development of new brain circuits is at its most intense in the first five years, the same educational investment later in life will never have as great an impact as it does in early childhood. Any future remediation will be more costly and less successful than providing a strong start now.
For example, across the Commonwealth, almost 2 out of 10 high school students fail to graduate from high school on time. This puts all Pennsylvanians at risk because high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, are three-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested, and are more than eight times more likely to be incarcerated than high school graduates. In fact, throughout the country, 68 percent of state prison inmates have not received a high school diploma. Besides the threat to public safety, Pennsylvania's dropouts earn 37 percent less than high school graduates, pay fewer taxes, and are more likely to consume public assistance services.
Evidence from two long-term evaluations of the effects of pre-kindergarten programs show that participating in high-quality pre-kindergarten increases high school graduation rates by as much as 44 percent. According to researchers, a 10 percentage-point increase in graduation rates has historically been shown to reduce murder and assault rates by approximately 20 percent. If Pennsylvania could raise male graduation rates by 10 percent, the Commonwealth would save approximately $576 million dollars every year, including almost $364 million in reduced crime costs alone.
Research also tells us that we can even prevent crime by investing in babies in utero and the young low-income mothers who are carrying them. By the time the children in Nurse-Family Partnership in-home parent coaching program reached age 15, both their mothers and the children had about 60 percent fewer arrests than mothers and children left out of the program.
The program also cut child abuse and neglect among at-risk kids in half. While most victimized children never become violent criminals, they are sharply at risk of being arrested for a crime. The best available research indicates that of the 4,201 Pennsylvania children who were confirmed victims of abuse in 2008, approximately 168 will become violent criminals as adults who would otherwise avoid such crimes if not for the abuse they endured as children.
By not investing more in at-risk young children and families, we ensure continued rising expenditures on the back end. Right now, we are spending just over $1.6 billion per year — about 6 percent of the state budget — on the State Department of Corrections. When our children succeed, we all benefit. Every $1 spent on high quality early education saves $7 in reduced future expenditures for special education, delinquency, criminal justice, welfare, and lost taxes. In fact, the long-term return on investment for quality early education far exceeds historical returns from the stock market, with most benefits accruing to the public at large. We can pay for success now or pay a whole lot more for failure later on, both in dollars and in the agony that crime leaves in its wake. As our state leaders continue negotiating next year's state budget, they should make funding for Pennsylvania's early childhood programs a priority.
Bruce R. Clash is state director for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania, based in Harrisburg. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania is an anti-crime organization of 200 police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, other law enforcement leaders. and victims of violence.
Smart Start Series
July 23, 2009
Short-sighted spending cuts
- Smart Start Series
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Programs aim to get youngsters on right track
Free or low-cost family programs are crucial to childhood development, local community leaders say. “Anything we can do as a community that stimulates a child’s learning is going to help them, and it’s going to help their family,” said Karen Ulp, coordinator for the Early Care and Education Coalition of Northumberland County.
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Helping children impacts the workplace of the future
Since the end of World War II the economics of the workplace and the lack of quality child care encouraged fathers to work and mothers to stay at home while the children were young. Now, however, like my parents even then, mother and father both work, sometimes two jobs.
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Are you ready for kindergarten?
In a few short days our schools will be filled with children laughing, playing, learning, and going to school for the first time. Kindergarten, by design is the final transition from home to a formal academic education.
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Supportive bosses make for happy families
To get to his former law office in Maryland, Charlie Ross, of Selinsgrove, had to walk through an early childcare development center.
And so he is well aware, he jokes, of the importance for workplaces to be supportive of employees with children.
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Hospital partners with SUM Child Development for care
LEWISBURG - Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg found a way to become more supportive of its workers with children through a relationship with Snyder, Union Mifflinburg Child Development Inc.
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Early intervention is key to helping development
What should parents do if they suspect there may be something not quite right about their child’s development?
“Don’t worry—he’ll grow out of it.”
Those comforting words are often offered to parents who are not quite sure whether their child’s behavior is “normal” for his or her age.
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Short-sighted spending cuts
As Pennsylvania continues to operate without a final budget, one of many sticking points to be resolved is whether early childhood programs will continue to be a priority in the year ahead. While scaling back Pre-K Counts, Head Start, Nurse-Family Partnership, quality childcare and other early childhood investments may save limited dollars now, these are false savings because these programs are shown to reduce the cost of government in the future.
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There is much parents can do to help children learn
You just brought home your beautiful bundle of joy and as far as you can tell, all your baby does is sleep and eat.
Not so.
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EDITORIAL: Society will benefit from early childhood education
Today, The Daily Item publishes the first installment in "Smart Start," an occassional series of news stories and opinion pieces authored by local and regional experts on the importance of early childhood education. In a time of scarce public resources and increasing stress on home finances, there are few investments our state and our communities can make that will match the dividends of quality early childhood development.
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'Toxic stress' effects the brains of children
Living in poverty is a major factor in the development of "toxic stress," which can cause irreversible, negative effects in the brains of children through 5 years old, according to Valley physicians.
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