I know I need good workers, but why do I care

about early education?Presentation to OCBC Workforce Development

Committee

Steven Cahn, California StrategiesFebruary 22, 2012

Why you should care about ECE

• Three main reasons to care about the quality and accessibility of early education:

• Competitiveness – for your company and the economy, California and the U.S.

• It’s a smart investment – high ROI• Peer pressure – other business leaders are on

board, don’t get left behind

High-quality ECE works

• Studies show that high-quality early education helps better prepare students: RAND, Pew Center, Abecedarian, Perry Preschool

• Recent study of five high-quality, state-funded pre-k programs in New Jersey, Oklahoma, Michigan, South Carolina and West Virginia found gains of 31% in vocabulary, 44% in early math skills and 85% in print awareness

ECE establishes ‘soft skills’

• Early learning programs help kids develop social skills such as cooperating, making friends and accepting new responsibilities.

• Early childhood education builds important pre-literacy and early math skills and fosters children’s love of learning by encouraging exploration.

• Companies increasingly are demanding workers excel at ‘soft skills’

Competitiveness

For your company and the economy – today• Workers you want and need today – highly

skilled, highly trained, highly educated – choose where to live and work based on the quality of education – and that begins before Kindergarten

• If workers’ kids aren’t in a safe, nurturing environment, your workers will be distracted or will call in sick

Competitiveness

For your company and the economy – today• ECE is a major industry in its own right. It

providing tens of thousands of jobs in communities across California. In LA, it generates $1.9 billion in gross receipts and creates more than 65,000 full-time equivalent jobs

• Are you big enough to provide high-quality, on-site early education? Would workers want that?

Competitiveness

For your company and economy – tomorrow • PPIC projects that in 2025, California will have

a deficit of 1 million college-educated workers• California, and Orange County, will be led by

strengthening of creative and innovation economies: high-tech, biotech, sciences

• Strong ECE programs today = strong workforce in the years and decades ahead

Competitiveness

For California• California ranks 46th out of 52 states and

jurisdictions in student performance. Behind us? Tennessee, New Mexico, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and the District of Columbia, according to 2011 stats

• In 1960s and ‘70s, California ranked at the top• The story is the same among just best students. Just

4.5% of California students are advanced in math – U.S. average is 6%

Competitiveness

For the U.S. • U.S. ranks 21st in science and 25th in math

among 30 industrial countries• On average, by 8th grade U.S. students are two

grades behind in math compared to peers in other countries

• Only 6% of U.S. students are at an advanced level in math. That’s 31st. Taiwan is 28%. Finland is 20%.

Competitiveness

For the U.S.• # of students in China: About 325 million• Top 10 % of Chinese students: 32 million• # of students in India: About 270 million• Top 10% of Indian students: 27 million• Total top 10% of Indian and Chinese students:

about 60 million• # of students in U.S.: About 70 million

Smart investment

• Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman is a strong advocate who has measured the ROI on early education at more than $7 for every dollar spent.– The earlier the investment, the greater– It saves government spending on K-12 education,

public assistance and the criminal justice system, and increases tax revenues as a result of higher earnings

Smart investment

• Studies tell us that kids who start school behind their peers stay behind

• At age 3, low-income kids have vocabularies of only about 500 words, while high-income children know more than 1,100 words

• The cost of this achievement gap is steep – if the U.S. had closed it a decade ago, gross domestic product in 2008 would have been $440 billion to $670 billion higher, according to a McKinsey & Co. report.

Smart investment

• U.S. spends $3,900 per child on early childhood education, roughly what China spends on college

• China spends $6,000-$10,000 on early education – closer to what U.S. spends on higher ed

• The latest: Does remediation – grade repetition, special education, extra tutoring – actually cost more than a year of preschool for the neediest kids?

Smart investment

According to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University:

• Early experiences – particularly from birth to 1st day of kindergarten – shape whether a child’s brain develops a strong foundation for learning, health and behavior that follow

• Neuroscience indicate that early preventive intervention is more efficient with more favorable outcomes than remediation later in life

• Babies’ brains require stable, caring, interactive relationships with adults – programs that foster these relationships benefit healthy brain development

Smart investment

Peer pressure

• The business community is one of ECE’s strongest advocates

• OCBC is a member of the California Preschool Business Advisory Council: Represent 6,000 companies that employ more than 2 million workers in California and operate in more than 35 different sectors of the state’s economy

• Educare centers on way in LA and San Jose; business is helping fund-raising efforts

Peer pressure

• Coalesced around Transitional Kindergarten– As part of moving the kindergarten start date from

December to September – in line with most of the U.S. and because the ‘youngest 5s’ often are not ready for the rigors of school – the state established TK

– TK will bring developmentally appropriate early learning in public schools. 125,000 kids per year will be eligible (also can opt out)

We’re talking quality

• This isn’t babysitting. This isn’t just playtime• This is well-researched, well-tested, age- and

developmentally appropriate learning• These programs engage with parents and

families• 1 teacher/10 students• Tested curriculum

We’re talking quality

Teachers in high-quality programs:• are expert, well-trained and have received specialized

training in early childhood education• receive ongoing professional development• are professionally compensated with salaries

commensurate with their education and experience• reflect cultural and linguistic diversity of the children and

families they serve• are given time to reflect on their classroom practice,

observe and track children’s progress and develop curriculum plans based on each child’s needs

What’s happening next?

• In December, California received $52 million in federal grant money to help develop a statewide ratings system; better coordinate ECE with K-12 and help with workforce development

• TK is under scrutiny in the budget• Tax measure. Munger initiative would provide

10% of projects $10 billion to ECE

How can I get involved?

• Talk to Alicia Berhow about the REAL Coalition and the Advisory Council

• Find out more about Transitional Kindergarten• Connect with the Orange County Department

of Education

Resources

• Nobel Prize winner James Heckman: http://www.heckmanequation.org/

• Preschool California: http://www.preschoolcalifornia.org

• Center on the Developing Child http://developingchild.harvard.edu/