Collective will

Fear is a powerful motivator. It has fueled a three-decade-long public spending spree, including the war on drugs, tougher criminal sentencing and the warehousing of a substantial segment of the nation’s population. In fact, one out of every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Hope doesn’t have the same political appeal. Its benefits take longer to materialize, and that’s not helpful to politicians needing immediate successes to tout during re-election campaigns. So as a society, we transfer money from the Hope Account into the Fear Account, and when that doesn’t work we do it again.

Need a new jail? Put it on the ballot and then tell voters just how scary life will be without it.

Need early learning programs and the wraparound services that can keep people from turning into criminals? That’s a much tougher sell. It takes patience. The results are not immediate. The avoided costs can be difficult to demonstrate. So proponents scrape by with grants, charitable contributions and the occasional public expenditure.

The theme of this newspaper’s Our Kids: Our Business series is that protecting and nurturing children is everyone’s business. Abuse and neglect affect us all, directly or indirectly. But solutions won’t materialize unless there is a groundswell from the community that demands it, just as there was when crime became a sure-fire rallying cry.

The usual suspects can tell us about the true wonders of high quality early learning programs, but the message might resonate more if it came from unusual sources, such as law enforcement or the business community.

Last month in Sumter, S.C., it was the police department that announced the results of a report that showed a prekindergarten education program reduces the crime rate and boosts the graduation rate for at-risk kids. The report was written by “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids,” a nonprofit organization of law enforcement agencies across the country.

Last summer at an early learning seminar for editorial writers at Columbia University, the most passionate and effective proponent was Daniel Rose, a New York developer and philanthropist. He skipped the issues of fairness and compassion, and went right to the bottom line, which ought to stir business leaders:

“It pays. Put that in your newspapers,” he shouted.

It’s true studies show that for every dollar spent, the return on investment is anywhere from $3 to $9. That’s because early learners are more apt to graduate, avoid jail and be productive members of society. But the issue of avoided costs can be difficult to track and trust. It takes a constant infusion of cash to reap the benefits, and that money can be tantalizing. Tennessee is a national leader in early learning, but the governor is constantly battling legislators who would like to siphon money for pet projects.

To gain the trust of the public, leaders must construct systems that ensure that the money saved is reinvested in safety net programs for children. They must also provide a regular accounting for the money and results-oriented reports.

It will take a wide-ranging commitment, but hope can prevail where fear has failed.