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Investing in early childhood education

By Sen. Richard Tisei
Wednesday, March 10, 2004

In 1993, after the Legislature passed the landmark Education Reform law, then-Governor Bill Weld chose to sign the bill into law at the Holmes School in the City of Malden. Slightly over ten years later, the Holmes School in Malden has been turned into a state-of-the-art early education center.

It is only fitting. The 1993 Education Reform law marked the first step in improving education for all students across the Commonwealth. The next step now needs to be taken. The state must invest in comprehensive early education programs that will further equalize access to a quality education and prepare our schoolchildren for the 21st Century.

Studies have shown that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and age five than at any other time. Thus, the first five years of life are of utmost importance in the educational development of our children. It has been shown that children who have participated in early childhood education programs develop better language skills, score higher on in school-readiness exams, and have fewer behavioral problems once they enter school.

All children who participate in these programs share the benefits of early childhood education, but studies have shown that children from low-income families benefit the most form early education. Thus, investing in early childhood education programs is a vital social policy that would help level the playing field between lower-income communities and wealthier communities. In that regard, early education is truly the next step in education reform, which began in this state with the 1993 Reform Law.

Increasingly the jobs of the 21st Century will be knowledge-based jobs and the competition between states and countries for jobs will be intense. Investments in early childhood education will ensure that Massachusetts' schoolchildren have the education and skills to compete in this environment.

In as much as it is an educational issue, early childhood education is thus also an economic development issue. Businesses from around the state have joined forces with academics, education advocates, labor leaders, and others to support legislation, An Act Establishing Early Education for All, which would establish a comprehensive early education system in the state. The legislation calls for voluntary half-day preschool programs for 3-and-4 year olds and full-day kindergarten programs for 5-year olds in every community.

Currently, parents typically pay for preschool and studies have disparities between programs. Additionally, the costs of preschool are often prohibitive for many families. While many families receive subsidies to pay for preschool, there are long waiting lists for these subsidies. Furthermore, the state does not mandate kindergarten attendance and currently only requires communities to provide half-day kindergarten. Slightly over half of the state's 351 communities offer full-day kindergarten.

Business leaders have joined the cause because they know that sustained economic viability in this state depends on a highly educated workforce and early education is the key to achieving that workforce. Other states are beginning to make investments in early education. If we want to compete, then Massachusetts must do so also.

The investment needed of course comes with a price tag. Proponents of the Early Education for All legislation estimate that it will cost the state a phase-in cost of $1.2 billion over ten years. After that it is estimated it will cost $1 billion per year. Obviously given the fact that the state has been struggling with a fiscal crisis, passage of the legislation is uncertain and implementation of a statewide early education system will probably be incremental. The state, however, cannot afford to not make the investment.

The state has begun to take steps to expand access to early education programs. In the last several budget cycles, I have joined with other legislators to fight for funding for full-day kindergarten classes, which are a component of early education. Governor Romney's FY 05 budget recognizes the need for funding full-day kindergarten classes. This funding is one of the positives of the Governor's proposed budget.

Speaker Finneran has announced his intention to seek a statewide pre-school initiative. The Speaker hopes to have a comprehensive universal pre-school program by the year 2010. I support this initiative.

Recently, the Romney Administration released a report of the Early Education and Care Council that makes several recommendations for improving early education in the state. The intent of the report is to lay the foundation for a comprehensive system of early childhood education.

Among the main goals listed in the recent report will be efforts to strengthen state oversight over the various components of the early education system, increase parental involvement, and provide for better cooperation between state agencies involved with early education issues. The non-profit advocacy group, Early Education for All, which was established to promote the early education legislation, has stated that the recommendations of the report move the state forward to the type of system they envision. I will seek feedback on the report from local advocates for early childhood education.

Lastly, the Early Education for All Campaign has submitted some FY05 budget requests to the Legislature that will also move the state forward in this endeavor. Among these requests is the establishment of an early education workforce commission. The commission would be charged with the creation of a workforce development system designed to support the education, training, and compensation of the early education workforce. Mirroring the recent report, the Early Education Campaign is requesting the Legislature to adopt uniform standards and resolve coordination issues between agencies.

The Early Education Campaign is also requesting some funding. They are seeking $150,000 for a kindergarten readiness assessment system and also $25,000 to distribute planning grants for a pilot program. I have reviewed the requests and believe them to be modest. I will throw my support behind them in the upcoming budget debate.

It's been over ten years since I stood with Governor Weld at the Holmes School for the signing of the Education Reform Law. I had the pleasure to attend the opening of Malden's early education center, which is a model for the next phase of education reform, at the same sight last year. A good deal of progress has been made in the state's educational system in the years between these events, but the next step is just beginning.

Governor Mitt Romney will declare in his upcoming State of the State address that a surge in tax revenue and savings from his reforms will allow him to propose a modest expansion of some government programs, drawing a sharp contrast to the budget cutting of the last three years and the somber mood of legislative Democrats.

Romney, looking energized upon his return to the State House after two weeks at his vacation home in Utah, said he will not propose cuts in aid to cities and towns, or drastic cuts in other state programs, but instead will declare that the state has enough money to spend more on education, housing, and the environment. He will not advocate tax increases. "We're seeing good signs in our economy," said the governor, who will speak Thursday and then unveil his budget for fiscal year 2005 on Jan. 28. "I'm happy employers are doing better. I wish they'd start hiring more people, but I think you're going to see that happening throughout the year and that's going to turn into the ability to invest in our schools, to invest in more housing, to invest in our environment. All those things, I think, are on the plate for this year."

It also appears unlikely Romney will address the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling that declared gay marriage constitutional, aides said last week. Romney supports a ban on same-sex marriage in a constitutional amendment that is set to be debated Feb. 11 by the Legislature.

The governor's rosy optimism differs dramatically from the grim message he delivered last year, when he proposed cuts in health care and in state aid to cities and towns. As a newly inaugurated governor a year ago, he lamented that "I thought our budget problem was $1.5 billion. Instead it's $3 billion." That set off another season of state budget cuts, for the third year in a row.

The message also is in sharp contrast to the views of Democratic legislative leaders, who are entering this year's budget season much less optimistic than Romney about what the state will collect in taxes this year and much more pessimistic about the size of the budget shortfall in the coming year.

One Democratic analysis estimated the expected gap in next year's $23 billion budget at $2 billion, while Romney's budget specialists have placed it at closer to $1 billion. Whatever the size, the shortfall is largely the result of exploding health-care costs and a doubling of the amount the state will have to pay into its pension fund.

Aides to the governor insist there won't be substantial cuts in programs or services, though they will propose what they call "economizing."

But even those who subscribe to the governor's revenue estimates, or believe the state will collect even more in taxes than he predicts, have a hard time believing he can balance the budget without significant cuts.

"Even with the improving picture, there will need to be substantial cuts in some areas of state government for fiscal 2005," said Michael J. Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded nonprofit that studies taxes and government spending. "I'm sure there will be some areas where they'll put in additional spending. But you can't close a $1 billion gap and have additional spending without having some cuts somewhere."

Widmer pointed out that last year the administration overestimated the savings it could gain by eliminating what it described as government waste.

An analysis by Moody's Investor Service released last week cautioned: "Moody's expects the Commonwealth will continue to face fiscal challenges over the near term, particularly given the slow pace of the economic recovery."

Nevertheless, Romney and his aides are clearly bullish on the budget. Last week, the Department of Revenue announced that the state is running $356 million ahead of its projections for the first half of fiscal year 2004, which ends June 30. Buoyed by that figure, administration officials now expect to have at least $500 million in extra revenue they can carry into fiscal year 2005 to help close the budget gap.

The state collected more in capital gains and corporate taxes than it did in December 2002, but it received less in income withholding and sales taxes, which are viewed as the most accurate gauge of the state's economic health.

The administration is also counting on another $300 million it can secure by delaying the scheduled payoff of a liability in the state's pension fund, using a different method to calculate the value of the assets in the fund and postponing some interest payments. But it is unclear whether lawmakers will agree to those changes.

Pointing to rising corporate tax collections, Romney said that businesses are recovering and that it's only a matter of time before they begin hiring, which will pump even more money into the state's coffers. "We're seeing very clear signs that our employers are doing better and we're convinced that as employers do better they'll begin hiring more people," Romney said Monday.

House and Senate leaders, however, look at stagnant revenue from income withholding and fear a jobless recovery, and they expect to have far less extra tax money to close what they fear could be a $2 billion budget gap.

"We keep hearing about the good news that corporate excise taxes are way up. But corporate excise taxes represent only 5 percent of the total revenue pie for Massachusetts," said state Representative John H. Rogers, the Norwood Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. "What we should be primarily, if not exclusively, concerned about is withholding or income taxes. Those are jobs, human beings, and if they're not working out there, then we're not taxing them and the money is not going into the Massachusetts coffers."

Rogers said that the state's revenue projections for the first half of fiscal year 2004 were so low it was easy to exceed them.

The target numbers are much higher in the second half of the year, and the state might miss them if the recovery founders, leaving it with even less than the $356 million in extra money it has in hand now.

Senator Therese Murray, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, noted that US Labor Department figures released Friday indicate only 1,000 new jobs were created nationwide last month, well below the 130,000 to 150,000 many economists expected from the holiday shopping season.

"I just think we have to be cautious and fairly conservative," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat. "I think people feel more optimistic, and maybe that will translate into more spending and job creation. But I haven't seen any."

In his own address last week, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran somberly noted that "the economic stress created in thousands of households across Massachusetts is palpable - you can feel it, and it is scary."

Finneran emphasized that the state is better positioned to deal with its troubles than it was during the recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s, but he left little doubt that significant challenges remain. At the same time, though, Finneran proposed an expansion of an early childhood education program that could cost $1 billion a year by the time it was fully operational in 2010.

Romney had a much sunnier attitude over the holidays as he labored over the first draft of his State of the State speech at his log-style mountain home in Park City, Utah.

The governor, who woke up at 5 a.m. many mornings to tap out the draft on a computer in his den, has "a sense that it's going to be a new, better year, and that the bad days are behind us," according to communications chief Eric Fehrnstrom.

He said rising revenues and reforms will create "a pot of money that can be used for expansion in certain areas of the budget." Though Fehrnstrom declined to detail all of the specifics, it seems certain that Romney will try to glean some savings by once again trying to consolidate courthouses and merging the Massachusetts Highway Department and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

"What you'll see in the governor's State of the State speech are specific policy proposals that will allow us to build a better future for our families and children," he said.

"He'll describe how we can accomplish these things if we make the special interests take a back seat to the interests of our citizens," he said.

For Romney, "special interests" include the unions that represent state workers, with whom he clashed repeatedly during his first year in office. David Holway of the National Association of Government Employees, which is the state's largest public employee union, said Romney ignores the fact that state workers have bolstered the state's budget by lobbying in Washington for more federal money.

"We expect the governor, given the comments of his $150,000-a-year press person, to continue his attack on the people who deliver essential services to the citizens of the Commonwealth," said Holway, referring to Fehrnstrom

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