Every once in a while, a statistic just comes out of nowhere and knocks me down. The share of GED recipients who actually complete college once they've started (now, there's a conversation for another day). The Red Sox' abysmal September record (now, there's a conversation for ... oh wait, there might not be another day).
Yesterday's stunner? A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.
Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact. Why don't we fund 0-5 better?
Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent. A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home. The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12. The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true. But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.
For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis. Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform. These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools. Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school. Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs. Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job. Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.
But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well. Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on. But this crisis is much more silent. It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers. Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad. And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.
So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids. Even if we did, where would the political will be to act? Kids don't vote. Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.
Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood. I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?
Yesterday's stunner? A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.
Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact. Why don't we fund 0-5 better?
Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent. A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home. The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12. The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true. But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.
For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis. Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform. These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools. Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school. Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs. Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job. Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.
But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well. Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on. But this crisis is much more silent. It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers. Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad. And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.
So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids. Even if we did, where would the political will be to act? Kids don't vote. Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.
Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood. I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?
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