Sharon Kayne
I never thought I’d agree with Michael Swickard about anything, but I find myself nodding about his notion in a recent column that New Mexico needs to be fundamentally innovative in order to improve our public education outcomes. Further, he accurately stresses that reading at grade level is very important to overall school success. My agreement with him ends there, however.
True K-12 reform will require a paradigm shift. Consider this: The nation’s current system of public education was created when the country’s economy was based largely on agriculture. That’s why school is out all summer – so kids could be available to help harvest crops. That’s also why, until the industrial age, most kids did not attend school beyond the eighth grade; a high school diploma was simply not necessary unless you wanted to pursue one of the few professions that required a college degree.
Times have changed, but our K-12 system is still based on an antiquated model. An economy based increasingly on information and technology requires that a much higher percentage of our workforce have college degrees if the United States is to remain competitive in the global marketplace.
Another change: Our current economy allows few families the luxury of having a stay-at-home parent while their children are very young.
So, the average family needs childcare for preschool-age children. A year of high-quality childcare costs as much as a year at UNM and comes at a time when a young family, just starting out, can least afford it.
Why is high quality such an issue? What’s wrong with less expensive care where a child is strapped in a car seat in front of a television all day? Plenty. (And, yes, such egregious daycare conditions exist. Click here to watch an eye-opening video.)
The importance of early childhood care and education
Science tells us that the vast majority (as much as 85 percent) of brain development occurs within the first four years of life. This development creates the architecture – the actual circuits and synapses – upon which future learning will take place. This development requires human interaction (which is why, among other reasons, the TV makes a terrible babysitter).
This development also requires a nurturing and safe environment where exploration and experimentation are encouraged. Like all learning, new development builds upon previous development as children master each skill and move on to more complex ones.
Despite knowing how important quality early childhood care and education services are, as a nation and a state we have failed to make all but the most miniscule of investments in them. In New Mexico, less than 1 percent of the general fund budget is spent on these most important years.
This, despite the fact that we know investing in these years provides extremely high returns. Several long-term studies have shown that the return on investment in early childhood is 10 percent per child, per year. These payoffs begin with savings in remedial and special education classes for children who fall behind. They continue, and include higher reading scores and high school graduations rates and lower crime and teen pregnancy rates.
A critical economic issue
Make no mistake: This is a critical economic issue. Noble Prize-winning economist James Heckman calls this return on investment the Heckman Equation. There is no greater investment we can make, he says, than on human capital. And the earlier we invest, the bigger the payoff.
Many European countries have already made this shift in thinking and have invested accordingly. Meanwhile, the United States falls further and further behind other wealthy nations.
So what we need is a paradigm shift. Learning begins at birth. We need to ensure that parents have the supports and resources they need to make the best of their children’s earliest years. We need to ensure that children are ready to start school by the time they reach kindergarten. We need to think of kindergarten and the grades beyond as parts of an educational continuum that begins at birth.
Children do not and should not enter kindergarten as “blank slates.” And children who start behind not only stay behind – they get further behind.
Once we change our antiquated way of thinking about formal education, and begin investing in the early years as if they matter as much as they actually do, we may find that our K-12 system doesn’t need so much reform after all.
Sharon Kayne is communications director for New Mexico Voices for Children, which advocates for an adequate and stable funding source for the state’s early childhood care and education programs.