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Investing in early childhood education

Editorial by Rep. Marie St. Fleur
Sunday, June 20, 2004

"Invest in Children" is the slogan on the state's special license plate that sends modest but important funds to help childcare centers develop quality programs for our youngest citizens. Yet overall, the well intentioned programs we use to invest in our preschoolers are fragmented and inefficient.

House and Senate members have agreed to a $22.5 billion spending plan that will start July 1. Our recovering economy has allowed us to modestly improve programs that help people, but we still need to do more.

The budget is now before Governor Mitt Romney, who can either accept or veto its provisions. For preschool-age children, the governor's decision is an important one in their young, hopeful lives.

The governor will be reviewing a provision to phase in over the next decade universal, voluntary preschool for children ages 3 to 5. This proposal was crafted in the House, and the Senate also included it.

Included the budget is the creation of a Department of Early Education and Care, which will promote school readiness when children's emotional and intellectual development makes them most ready to learn. It also provides for better coordination of childcare services for children from birth to 5 years. Furthermore, it streamlines childcare licensing requirements and cuts administrative costs. In short, it represents the kind of reform the governor says he wants.

The new Department of Early Education and Care represents a consolidation and refocusing of existing resources. Elements of the department will come primarily from the Department of Education, the Office of Child Care Services, and the Department of Public Health.

However, due to its extremely important mission, the new department will be a stand-alone agency whose commissioner will report to a board of directors. That board will be chosen from across the spectrum of children's services.

To date, Romney has made some efforts to address problems in so called underperforming public school districts. Provisions for early education have been limited to his advocacy of mandatory parental involvement training for those who receive state-subsidized childcare.

Parental involvement in education is critical. But many parents who would like to send their children to preschool either can't afford to or can't find a quality preschool. It's pretty tough to get involved with your child's preschool if he or she does not have one.

The governor's efforts so far treat the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself, a lack of school readiness that will hamper children's efforts to learn throughout their lives.

The Department of Early Education and Care represents a real cure for the problems that plague our public schools, especially in poor communities and communities of color, which suffer the majority of problems due to funding inequities in public education.

Across the state, nearly 40 organizations from organized labor, education, medicine, religion, and business have endorsed this effort. It is worth noting that the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council supports universal early childhood education as an economic development issue. The council promotes research and job creation in the biotech field, which holds great promise of high paying jobs for Massachusetts.

Romney has spent hours wooing the biotech industry to create and keep jobs in Massachusetts. Those jobs will disappear if we can't provide the educated, skilled workers to fill them. If there's one thing Romney knows, it is how to make a business investment pay off. It's time to make a business investment in our most valuable human capital, our youngest children. We must give them an education that will make them the productive citizens our society needs them to become.

A survey done last year found that nearly 75 percent of voters would support a publicly funded program to make early childhood education available to all 3 to 5 year olds. In our divided society, getting three-quarters of any group to agree on anything is nothing short of stunning. Creating the Department of Early Education and Care is a goal we should all work together to achieve. Governor Romney can support this critical investment in our future when he reviews next year's budget. It's an investment we ignore at our own peril.

Representative Marie St. Fleur, a Dorchester Democrat, is chairwoman of the House Committee on Education.

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