New Poll of Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Shows 80 Percent Support Greater Pre-K Investment, Even If It Means Increasing Revenue

6/4/2003

From: Bruce Clash of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 717-233-1520 or 717-385-5300 (cell); Web site: http://www.fightcrime.org

HARRISBURG, Pa., June 4 -- Eighty percent of Pennsylvania's police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys support increasing state revenues to make pre-kindergarten available to children from low-income families along with other early childhood education investments, according to a poll released today.

The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania, a bipartisan anti-crime organization of more than 100 top law enforcement officials. Along with the poll, the organization released a new report, titled Pennsylvania's Pre-Kindergarten Crisis: A Crime Prevention Tragedy, showing that quality pre-kindergarten has been proven to cut crime and save taxpayers money as preschoolers grow up.

In the poll, the police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys were asked if they supported or opposed "a proposal to increase revenues to provide pre-kindergarten programs and reduce class size in school districts in which at least 35 percent of students are from low-income families, and to expand access to full-day kindergarten." Eighty percent supported the proposal; 14 percent did not.

Seventy-nine percent of Pennsylvania's law enforcement leaders agreed with the statement: "If America does not make greater investments in pre-kindergarten and early education for children now, we will pay far more later in crime, welfare and other costs."

"These results remove any doubt about where law enforcement stands on the issue of kids and crime prevention," Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico, Jr. said at a news conference held in the Capitol Rotunda. "By investing now in our most at-risk kids, we can help make sure they never become our most wanted adults," he said.

A second news conference to release the poll and the new report was held simultaneously at the Bright Horizons Child Care and Learning Center in Philadelphia. It was attended by Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham; Philadelphia business leader Jerry Lee; University of Pennsylvania criminologist Lawrence Sherman; State Senator Allyson Schwartz; and Sanford Newman, president of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

Marsico was joined by Harrisburg Police Chief Charles G. Kellar; Jeffrey A. Beard, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; James J. Eisenhower, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency; State Senator Jane Clare Orie; State Representatives Patrick M. Browne and Phyllis Mundy; Bruce R. Clash, Pennsylvania state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids; and Governor Edward G. Rendell.

Currently, Pennsylvania is one of only nine states that does not provide any state money for Head Start or other preschool programs. The proposal now before the General Assembly would invest $238 million starting next year to serve 40,000 four-year-olds in school districts where at least 35 percent of students are from low-income families.

Clash said nearly two-thirds of children under six in Pennsylvania have their only parent or both parents in the workforce. That means most children are in some form of child care every workday. The issue is whether it's quality care that will help them succeed in school and life, or little more than "child storage" that can harm their development, Clash said.

Many low and moderate-income working families can't afford quality care, Clash said. The average annual tuition at a pre-kindergarten center in Pennsylvania is $5,668. That's more than the average annual cost of attending a public university ($4,695). Care for two kids costs more than what a full-time, minimum-wage worker earns in a year.

Federal programs fall far short of meeting Pennsylvania's needs, Clash said. The Child Care and Development Block Grant, the principal federal program that provides child care assistance to working families, is so under-funded it can serve only one of every seven eligible three- and four-year-olds in Pennsylvania. Head Start is so under-funded that it can serve less than half the state's eligible three- and four-year-olds.

"Those of us in the law enforcement community know that we can't just arrest and imprison our way out of the crime problem. Our commitment to putting criminals in jail must be matched by our commitment to keeping kids from becoming criminals in the first place," said Harrisburg police chief Charles Kellar. He cited a study of Chicago's government-funded Child-Parent Centers. Of the 100,000 three- and four-year-olds it has served since 1967, researchers tracked nearly 1,000 of those and compared them to 550 similar children not in the program. By the time they turned 18, those not in the program were 70 percent more likely to have been arrested for committing a violent crime.

Kellar said another study of the Child-Parent Centers found that the public saved over $7 for every $1 invested.

Eisenhower commented that early childhood education programs, like those proposed in Governor Rendell's Education Reform Package, will give our Commonwealth's children a better start in life - and a brighter future.

Secretary Beard remarked, "Quality pre-kindergarten programs are important not only to the child enrolled in them, but also to my Department specifically. Studies show that the sooner we are able to reach at-risk children and educate all children to the best of their potential, the sooner we will reduce the risk these children face in becoming future inmates."

Former Pennsylvania Governor Mark S. Schweiker, who is currently the President and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, could not attend the event but issued the following statement: "Fight Crime: Invest In Kids Pennsylvania understands something that we all must: Pre-kindergarten is vital to the future of our children and our communities. Pennsylvania's children must be nurtured at the earliest age so they can excel, live happy, full lives and make extraordinary contributions to society. This report underscores our duty to make that vision a reality."

The Governor's Task Force on Early Childhood Care and Education, commissioned by then-Governor Schweiker in 2002, recommended, among other conclusions in its final report, that preschool be available to all three- and four-year-old children on a voluntary basis beginning with those most at-risk of failure.

"Pennsylvania has a choice," Clash said. "It can invest now in its most at-risk children to help assure their success and keep us all safer, or it can spend far more later for failure."