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Early Care Benefits Extolled
Education summit focuses on priorities
By Megan Duncan

Mark Jones, a teacher in the Karns City School District, said he’s seen improvement in the details of student drawings during his first year teaching full-day kindergarten.

This change in attention to detail came after the district this year expanded from half-day classes with the help of state money.

Community leaders said Friday they want to get more school districts to examine full-day kindergarten and to increase awareness in the county of the importance of early childhood education.

After a conference Friday, Butler County agencies plan to work together to make early childhood education a priority in the county.

The Early Care and Education Summit at the Day’s Inn brought together representatives from agencies involved with the Butler County Early Care and Education Council to learn about the benefits of early education from three perspectives and to develop an agenda for the county. About 70 attended.

Tom Lamb Jr., senior vice president of government affairs at PNC Financial Services, said investments in quality early childhood education can reap tremendous rewards.

“Investments in early childhood education has returns that can be as high at 18 to one,” he said. “Even if that is overstated by a factor of two, any investor would think that is worth investing in.”

Lamb, who works with PNC’s Grow Up Great program, said children who had preschool education are more likely to grow up to be part of stable families, to own their own homes, to graduate from college, and will be less likely to commit a crime or be a single parent.

“If the (return on investment) is 18 to one, why aren’t state officials rushing to pump money in?” Lamb asked.

Harriet Dichter, deputy secretary from the state office of Child Development, said early childhood education is a priority of the state.

The state uses six strategies to increase and expand quality education for the youngest learners. One, Accountability Block Grant money, was used in Karns City, and Dichter said more money needs to be directed to early education.
Larry Henry, the Karns City superintendent, said the district used the money to buy mobile classrooms for classes such as art and music. Then the district used the extra space in the school building to expand kindergarten to all day. It was a good investment, he said.

Those who work with young children with agencies such as Lifesteps, Butler County Children’s Center, libraries and faith-based pre-schools agreed investments in early childhood education are worthwhile. But they said the public needs to realize those benefits too.

Dichter said Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed budget includes a number of programs aimed at young learners, but she feared they would be cut or eliminated before the final state budget is passed.

Attendees said one of their first actions should be letting the Legislature know the importance of early education.

Other priorities of the group include:
? Make businesses aware of the rewards from early education and encourage investment and volunteerism
? Educate parents and others in the community to find quality early childhood education.
? Translate or simplify the state early learning standards so child care providers can understand and use them.
? Create incentives or subsidies to start more early education centers.
? Identify a common message all county agencies can tell the public.

Julie Fabian, the county early care and education council coordinator, said she hoped the summit creates enthusiasm and energy that will continue beyond that meeting. She hoped attendees would take ideas to their employees and work on the initiatives.

The council created a preliminary report for the state in March. The ideas from Friday will be used to narrow the goals included in the revised June report.

Sandy Mailoux of Lifesteps said it was encouraging to see people who have varying contact with young children and who have different backgrounds make the same suggestions on how to improve early childhood education.

Leslie Osche, executive director of the United Way of Butler County, said while individuals do what they can in their personal contact with children, the county needs to look at the broad picture of early childhood education.

“We have to bring the entire community to the table,” she said.

This article appeared in the Butler Eagle on May 7, 2006.