New Study Finds Investment Gap in Early Childhood

2/23/2004

From: Deborah Stein of Voices for America's Children, 202-289-0777 ext. 209 or stein@voicesforamericaschildren.org, Charles Bruner of the Child and Family Policy Center, 515-280-9027 or cbruner@cfpciowa.org

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 -- A new national study finds that federal and state spending on early education is woefully inadequate during the most critical time in a child's development.

The study by the Child and Family Policy Center and Voices for America's Children found that while 85 percent of a child's core brain structure is formed by age three, less than 4 percent of public investment in education and child development occurs during that period.

For every dollar the government invests in the education of school-aged children, it invests only 13.7 cents in the earliest and most critical learning years.

Calling the situation "a major investment gap," the study's authors called on federal and state governments to increase funding to help young working families pay for quality educational and developmental services. As an important first step, the authors said Congress should approve an increase of $1.2 billion a year in the Child Care and Development Block Grant when it comes up for a vote in the next few weeks.

"By investing early in our youngest children, we not only put them on a path to succeed in school and life, we save billions of dollars in future remedial education, crime and lost productivity," said Tamara Lucas Copeland, President of Voices for America's Children.

"We have a delay in the onset of public investment in education in this country" said Charles Bruner, Director of the Child and Family Policy Center. "Studies have shown that comprehensive, high quality investments in development and education in the early years have a very high rate of return, both for the government and society, and for the individuals served. Yet public investments in education and development are minimal before the age of 5."

"The study used fiscal year 2001 data -- the high water mark for state government spending," said Tamara Lucas Copeland, President of Voices for America's Children. "Since then, states have faced severe fiscal crisis and most have frozen or cut back their spending in this area, so the investment gap today is likely to be even larger. Closing this gap will require increased commitments at both the federal and state levels."

The Child and Family Policy Center and Voices for America's Children undertook the study in partnership with members of the Voices network of state and local child advocacy organizations. It looked at federal and state investments in children in 12 states. In every state, it found that investments in education and development in the earliest years constitute a very small percentage of overall public expenditures, and the majority of those funds came from federal programs; in many states investment in the early learning years constituted less than 1 percent of overall public expenditures.

"We know that learning begins at birth; the experiences of children during their first years lay the foundation for success in later, more formal education" said T. Berry Brazelton, well- known pediatrician and expert on early childhood development. "Parents are under undue stress today. It is bound to be transmitted to their children. The quality of children's care, their interactions with their parents and caregivers, are crucial, yet few of our children receive the kind of high quality care that every child needs to succeed."

Jane Knitzer, Acting Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, said "This investment analysis is an important new approach to assessing the resources available for children and families. It builds on the patterns that we documented in our Map and Track studies, which showed that while there are many programs offered for children, those programs are often pilot projects or very limited in scale. The profusion of programs can give the impression that there is significant public investment in the early years; this study breaks new ground by looking at the combined federal and state investment across a range of states, and it shows that despite the many programs, the actual level of investment is very small."

"This gap is particularly troubling because families with young children are in the early stages of their careers and are most likely to struggle economically" said Dr. Bruner. "They are the least able of any parents to be able to pay privately for additional educational and developmental services."

"This timely study highlights the pressing need for increased government financial investment in our children during their critical early years." said Dr. George L. Askew, Executive Director of Docs for Tots and former Chief of Health and Disabilities Services in the Head Start Bureau. Voices for America's Children is a network of state and local multi-issue child advocacy organizations in forty-four states across the country. Voices and its network are research-based, non-partisan, independent advocacy organizations committed to no interest group other than children.

The Child and Family Policy Center of Iowa's mission is to "better link research and policy on issues vital to children and families." The Center works both at an Iowa level, conducting the analysis of Iowa spending in this report, and at a national level, managing the State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network (SECPTAN) and producing publications on a variety of child and family issues.

To request a copy of the report, please contact Deborah Stein at 202-289-0777 ext. 209.