Features Mar 28, 2012 at 4:00 am

High-Quality Early Education Pays for Itself. So Why Won't Lawmakers Fund It?

Robert Ullman

Comments

1
Thank you
2
Right on. I work with 2nd and 3rd graders, and have to work extremely hard to assist kids with behavioral problems that could have been seen and addressed 5+ years earlier.

Over the summer I subbed in a pre-school classroom. The types of problem solving and life learning skills being addressed at age 3 make a student a drastically better learner for life.

We can prepare our students better. By all means it's time to raise revenue, for this and many other righteous uses.
3
Great article! As the state looks at dedicating funds for basic education, early learning should be part of the planning and conversation. Because as much support as there is, there has to be funding to implement what we know works.
4
Thanks for this article! As WA looks to revenue sources for funding public education in the wake of the McCleary decision, early learning should be included. It's well and good to say you support early learning, but without funding it doesn't get you much for children. And school reform without early learning ignores great research and data on what works.
5
Do people realize that full-day kindergarten isn't even funded in Washington? I mean, universal preschool is really essential if we want both to allow parents to be in the workforce and to get kids on a strong academic track. (Most other industrialized countries have some form of subsidized or free preschool.) But Washington doesn't even fund full-day kindergarten yet (parents have to pay an extra $275 a month or else keep their kids at home afternoons).

Washington talks a big game about education, but between early education and kindergarten and university funding, Washington basically has no demonstrable commitment to education in actuality.
6
Amen - Arts education too. Bucketloads of peer-reviewed research going back decades showing it enhances achievement - first thing to get cut.
7
Sure, the state can't keep up with funding for basic K-12 education so let's add another layer.

What it comes down to is getting kids away from their screwed-up parents as soon and as much as possible. Sure that works. There are a lot of screwed up parents.

But stop calling it some form of early education. It's extraction. Extraction from unstable home lives that include drugs, abuse, alcohol, filth, neglect, malnutrition and more.
8
@7 actually, a high quality early ed program partners with parents/caregivers. the head start/early head start program is built on the idea of supporting parents to be the first and best teachers for their children. i assure you there are a lot less "screwed up parents" out there than you think, and a lot more well intentioned, loving parents that just need a little support.
9
This, this, and this some more.
10
@7: Did you not read the piece? High quality early education saves more money in K-12 than than the Pre-K costs.
11
Goldy, those "savings" won't pencil out. Go to some school board and tell them to spend, say, $600,000 on preschool education and deduct the same amount out of their K-12 spending because of the savings they'll realize. They'll laugh you out of the room.

First, they wouldn't begin realizing your savings for years, if ever. Second, most of the special education funding you speak of comes through the federal government. Lose the special education students and you lose that funding.

I maintain it's all about bad parents and getting their kids away from their influence as quickly and often as possible. That makes sense on a societal level but head start/early start are already there for that purpose, mostly.
12
United Ways in Washington State have been working this issue in the state legislature as their number one priority for the last 8-9 years...and it's a huge reason why there is at least philosophical support in both chambers and on both sides of the isle. Other advocates have been working it even longer, but the United Way effort has been particularly effective because they cover nearly every local legislative district with a local United Way. We have miles to go, and other states are far ahead in actual funding, but the research is becoming so clear that eventually Early Childhood Education WILL be more fully funded. I mean, really, how long can we all remain so stupid and unresponsive about such a proven long-term investment.
13
cletus,
unfortunately, head start/early head start are not even coming close to covering it. our early head start program is only able (funded) to serve a fraction of the eligible children in our area. and then not even all of those children will get into head start because vast areas of king county and washington state are not served by head start. they are served by the under-funded, over-crowded and long-waitlisted ECEAP program. So, even now we are not serving all the eligible children/families. and eligible means under 100% of poverty line, which is the poorest of the poor and leaving huge groups of low income (working poor) people who cannot afford any sort of high quality early ed
14
Yes, early learning absolutely should be funded. No need to dis education reform though, reform just means improvement and there's lots of ways to (and lots of opinions on how to) improve education.

There's a whole article on the A+ Washington plan in the Everett Herald that mentions Bremerton as well: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/2012040…
15
It's popular and unquestioned to throw teen pregnancy into the same boat as people who commit crimes and go to jail, unemployment, and low life expectancy - all three things nobody wants.
But as somebody who actually had a kid as a teenager, and who is still happy 10 years later that I made that decision, I resent this common impulse to throw teen parenting into this same down-in-the-dumps category. Many teen parents are thriving and providing for themselves and their children. So fuck you, Goldy, for throwing young parents under the bus, and for your lack of critical thinking skills. Keep following the mainstream standard of what makes someone's life good or bad.
16
I'm not against funding education but having idiots in charge of education is a bad Idea?

Money can buy you sex but it wont buy you love (some old Beatles song)

Money can buy you Education But It cant Buy you Intelligence.

I am tired of freaks asking for Money? Seems the State wants to gut more industries? this one is called preschool and they want to tax you so "they" can live up to their great reputation of "affordable and effective education" ?!*!?

Trying to make excuses for the failures of Olympia will keep you employed for a long time and if 9 years has not brought anything new and just the same old question for new new money?

Seems they have not even provided up keep for most of the schools as they have roofs that leak and are in need of repair or better yet 100 million for a new school?

The great teachers taught because they were teachers and the students hungry for knowledge were slaves to their brains.

You want to give every 3 year old an IPhone with a Washington State Good To Go payment app is "all" you are yacking about.

The clowns should with no doubt worry about the school they cant manage and stop worrying about preschool? If the morons cant un-stick them self's from being stuck on stupid then they should stop looking for tax payers to Invest in their management mayhem and open a preschool with donations and non-profit organisations and learn how to run a effective preschool that dose more then terrorize kids and make them sick.
17
#16. You ended most of the paragraphs in your sentence with a question mark.

Does that mean you're not sure you believe what you believe?
18
@17 I think its about focus and concentration, I wont use any terminology as it changes like bad fashions in the medical terminology field but I don't pay attention as I should to writing skills, My writings are more communication focused and not at all acceptance focused, similar to texting (not even in your spell checker) or symbols like XOXO (not in your spell checker.

As always if it involves some stupid idea involving money for idiots of the state or city or county I get a fan club that cant focus enough concentration to explain their feelings on the topic or the article as they seem afraid to defend valid points or at least offer some reasoning why my concerns are not totally valid.

non the less we all jump behind the wheels of cars and trucks focused on different things. Parking, speeding tickets, gas mileage, tolls, toys in the driveway, yes there is my Chariot going down the I-5 that seems very out of place and believe me it is indeed as I am not a writer and I am not impressed enough or feel a need enough or in any way am I seeking any approval or disapproval for my writing skills.

It may be that you do not pay attention to the fusion of technology and communication and are relying on me to write in a TRS-80 BASIC code format that would keep your mind from crashing every time you see a word that ends in "?".

Reading and comprehension can take on many meanings unless you are a product of that lost generation in space that feels that everyone must speak and write and poop perfect British Royal English and must video tape every Royal wedding.

Indeed we thank all of those good writers whose writing would be perfectly understood even if you tossed the paper into the engines of a Boeing dream liner as indeed it can be painful to try to obtain a descriptive picture out of a mangle of word and symbols and illiterate keyboard finger painting.

You need not fear? you will get your Hockey/NBA team in the SODO district and millions of tax dollars will pay for it, What will not be gotten for those tax dollars we wont know as its out of our hands and no vote or protest or YouTube video clip can stop the powers that be.

If you want pre-school then you better get the hatchet out and start chopping and start a restructure of the Tax codes and ditch the idiots who cant fathom a sustainable tax structure as they cant understand the fusion of Federal State County City moneys and what is needed "now" as in right now right now not maybe 9 years from now.

They don't write "about" the schools or the dedicated teachers or the wonderful students both advanced and challenged, they write about more money "wanted" for formula that makes no sense and with a range of variables that is unknown and apparently made to be that way.

The moral of the story is every child in Washington State can reach a triple masters degree and it wont change one damn thing or make any benefit to the People of Washington State and all it would do is make it appealing to tax people with College degrees and that has already been pretty much maxed out even though the clown circus would answer with "Tax Degrees?" we don't now, well why don't we? it sounds good and we could have more money to spend on the needed pre-schools that the people of Washington State are in such desperate need of.

Its time to ask the Federal and State,County,City "Ask not what your country can do for you.... ask what you can do for your country" and when they try to explain how the question is supposed to go the other direction you will understand why question marks can hand all over the place and not make any real difference at all???????????.

Please wait...

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