Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.
COMMENTARY: Steve Pearce fails to understand how New Mexico is poised to become a national leader in child well-being. He also lacks a basic understanding of how the Land Grant Permanent Fund (LGPF) works, and how we can leverage a high-quality early childhood education system to build a robust, diversified economy.
For far too long, New Mexico has had the worst child well-being outcomes in the country, and all the while we’ve sat on a more-than $17 billion fund that continues to grow by the day.
When you pave a road, you can’t just put down asphalt and paint lines without first laying a solid foundation for the road. Without a solid foundation, that road will crack and deteriorate almost immediately. Education is similar, and the first five years of a child’s life are the foundation for their future success. We cannot have a strong K-12 system, or higher education system, without a strong early childhood education system.
Courtesy photo
Javier Martínez
Consequently, we cannot have a prosperous economy if we don’t make substantive investments in our children’s first five years. So why would Steve Pearce want to do things backward? It just won’t work.
Numerous studies show that high-quality early education greatly improves a child’s cognitive abilities in language, literacy and math, along with social skills development and emotional growth. Those studies also show that the benefits of early childhood education persist throughout the life of the child.
In fact, a recent meta-analysis compiled dozens of studies from 1960 to 2016 and confirmed that not only does early childhood education improve child well-being, it also reduces education expenditures in the long run through decreased grade retention and higher graduation rates, as well as decreased expenditures in incarceration, drug addiction treatment and expensive social welfare programs.
Pearce’s plans to skip over early childhood programs are ill-planned and short-sighted, but they’re nothing new. Pearce has worked to slash education funding for our youngest children for decades. Last year, Pearce supported legislation that would cut education by billions, including critical K-12 teacher and classroom funding. Going further back, in 1999 he was one of only eight in the New Mexico House of Representatives who opposed a law guaranteeing full-day kindergarten and expanding early education programs.
Pearce’s lack of understanding of and commitment to early childhood education is inexplicable and inexcusable.
That’s why I support Michelle Lujan Grisham, who will make early childhood education the hallmark of her administration. Her plan to use the LGPF to invest in early childhood education is a logical and critically important step. Just a small, additional distribution from the fund for early childhood programs will result in hundreds of millions of dollars annually for our youngest children. Our children are our most precious resource and deserve sustainable, permanent investments to ensure their success.
Do not let the naysayers scare you into believing that investing money from our LGPF in early childhood education is “fiscally irresponsible.” In fact, what’s fiscally irresponsible is to not invest in these proven programs. Well established research from the University of Chicago has shown that the return on investments in comprehensive quality early childhood education are approximately 13 percent per year – a consistently higher return that would be the envy of any successful fund manager. Furthermore, according to the State Investment Council’s own analyses, we can afford to make the additional investment while also maintaining the health of the fund.
Investing in early childhood education paves the way for a brighter future for our children, and for our state. We can build an economy that works for all of us. We can build an equitable education system that serves all students, not just some. We can transform New Mexico, one child at a time. Let’s help our children succeed. When they succeed, we all succeed.
Javier Martínez, a Democrat, is a state representative from Albuquerque. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.