CFK Reports From: The Economic Promise of Investing in High-Quality Preschool: Using Early Education to Improve Economic Growth and the Fiscal Sustainability of States and the Nation
Event: Forum
Organized By: Committee for Economic Development
Where/When: Willard Inter-Continental Hotel; July 25, 2006
Report by: Martha Pitts
Believing that early childhood education does more than prepare kids for kindergarten, an organization of business leaders, the Committee for Economic Development (CED), made the economic case for publicly funded high-quality universal preschool for all kids through their report, The Economic Promise of Investing in High-Quality Preschool. The organization hosted a forum to discuss their report, which finds that quality programs are linked not only to school readiness, but also to longer-term positive impacts lasting into adulthood.
According to the report, high-quality preschool programs advance students well into their adolescent and adult years, improving their educational achievement, employment, earning, and health, while lessening their involvement in crime and dependence on social programs. Findings of the long-term benefits of preschool were based on evaluations of adult attendees of the High/Scope Perry Preschool program, the Abecedarian program in North Carolina, and the Chicago Child-Parent Center, which enrolled economically disadvantaged children and followed them into adulthood.
Economically speaking, the report said that implementing preschool initiatives would produce a $2 to $4 in net present-value benefits for every dollar invested.
The study comes on the heels of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's signing of the "Preschool-for-All Bill" yesterday (July 24), which will offer preschool to all 3-and 4-year-olds in the state. Two months ago, California voters rejected Proposition 82, which would have provided voluntary, free preschool to all four-year-olds.
"Today's children are tomorrow's workers and consumers," said Jim Rohr, Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Groups, Inc. "As the United State continues to confront global challenges to its economic prosperity, education, especially in the early years, is proving to be a key contributor to the nation's competitiveness." PNC has sponsored a ten-year $100 million effort to prepare children through early childhood education.
Many states have preschool programs, but only three states, not including Illinois, have universal programs. Georgia started its program in 1993, using lottery funds. In 1998, Oklahoma started its program. Most children are served in public schools, and money comes through the state's education funding formula. And last year, Florida took the plunge, using state funds. The three states serve 4-year-olds.
Noel Epstein, former education writer for The Washington Post, described the campaign to invest in early childhood education as a movement that has made modest gains despite the fact that there is broad support for pre-kindergarten in public schools.
"Early childhood education is an American tradition," he said. "It's not a new phenomenon."
Sara Watson, senior program manager at The Pew Charitable Trusts, which has invested over $50 million in research and public education campaigns in over the last five years to states that show the benefits of high-quality pre-kindergarten education, discussed her organization's initiative: Advancing Quality Pre-K For All. The initiative supports state campaigns designed to significantly improve quality and expand access to preschool.
"We're in a race with PNC to see who's going to invest more," she said.