Study backs early childhood education

BOISE – Idaho and the nation could reap huge future budget benefits if they made big investments now in early childhood education, a new study suggested Tuesday.

If the one in five young children who live in poverty were given high-quality early education programs, the benefits 17 to 25 years down the road could be enough to offset a substantial portion of the cost of baby boomers’ Social Security benefits and other pressing problems, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute.

“This important report shows that growing child poverty and a less productive economy are the price we are paying for our failure to invest in children,” said Judy Brown of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy. “But it also demonstrates a way out of the problem: that a significant new investment in our youngest children by our local, state and federal governments would not only greatly reduce child poverty, it would actually help our state’s fiscal balance sheet, reduce crime and grow our economy over time.”

Idaho is one of fewer than a dozen states that puts no state funds into the federal Head Start program, an early-childhood program for low-income families that also includes parent education and other services. In 1999, the state dedicated $1.5 million annually of its federal welfare block grant to supplement the program, allowing it to serve 200 more children for a total of about 3,700. But still, Idaho is serving only 34 percent of the youngsters who are eligible for Head Start.

“For every one of these kids, there’s another two out there who qualify who just can’t be served,” said Jim Wilson, executive director of the Idaho Head Start Association.

The Head Start Association, the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children and several other groups joined at a Boise news conference on Tuesday to announce the new national study.

“This report talks about the need to make a public investment that will yield big long-term returns,” said Roger Sherman, program director for United Vision for Idaho. “In Idaho, we really do know what needs to be done. We just need to do it.”

Doug Fagerness, director of Head Start for North Idaho, said there are 297 children currently in Head Start in the five North Idaho counties. Another 207 are on waiting lists.

“There’s not room for them,” Fagerness said.

But based on census figures, there are more than 2,000 eligible children in the five counties, who could be in Head Start if the program could accommodate them.

“I would like to be able to do more,” Fagerness said.

But in recent years, federal funding for Head Start hasn’t kept up with increasing costs, he said. As a result, this year North Idaho Head Start had to eliminate its busing program.

“There may be people that should be on our waiting list but aren’t, because they’re despairing about transportation,” he said.

The new Economic Policy Institute study found that while providing high-quality early childhood education to all of the country’s poor children would cost billions of dollars, it would save much more over time in lower costs for remedial and special education, criminal justice and welfare benefits, and would generate more taxes when those children grow up and become higher-earning, productive members of society.

If a comprehensive program were started next year, the study found, the budget benefits would exceed costs by $31 billion by the year 2030.

“The United States should be investing in high-quality early-childhood development programs to improve the quality of life for millions of children, reduce crime, make the workforce of the future more productive, and strengthen the overall economy,” the study concluded.

Fagerness said, “I was just looking at a study yesterday about the high correlation between teen pregnancy prevention and quality early-care and education programs. The litany goes on and on. We know all these things, and yet we don’t seem to have the will to act on them.”