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The toughest patches on Chicago’s South side offer few havens for children. Outside are flying bullets and police sirens; inside are poor teenage mothers and’ (occasionally) fathers. Yet here, in the shadow of a condemned public-housing block, a cluster of pastel-colored buildings contains what many experts see as a model for early childhood education in America. The Educate Centre, run by a non-profit group called the Ounce of Prevention Fund, offers an unusual mixture of care and education to 153 black children, from six weeks to five years old, who have little other stability in their lives.
The benefits of early education are well known. It helps to determine how long children stay in high school, whether they turn to crime, and how quickly they will find a job. A study by the National Institute for Early Education Research says that every dollar invested in good, full-day, year-round pre-school education (which is rare) yields a $ 4 return in the long run to children, their families and taxpayers. "There’s a huge cost-benefit advantage just in decreased jail time," says James Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago.
With state budget so tight, pre-school programmes are suddenly vulnerable. New York state, for one, is threatening to cut universal pre-school education, and programmes are threatened in Tennessee and Massachusetts, among others. Ten states cut pre-school funding in 2002. A few states hope to make progress, though: the governor of Illinois wants to set up a programme for poor children deemed at risk. He hopes it will grow, over three years, to cover 25,000 children at a cost of $ 90, though a huge state budget deficit may squash his plans.
Congress is now considering reauthorization of the Head Start programme, which provides educational, nutritional, medical and social services to the poor three and four year olds, and their families. The Bush administration is proposing changes—improvements, it says—that will shift accountability for Head Start to the states, where the money is spent. But the public-funded pre- kindergarten programmes now available in 40-odd states vary greatly in quality and in the numbers they serve. Some early-schooling advocates worry, therefore, that a shift of Head Start to the grates will undermine national standards.
They also fear that cash-strapped states will cut back other pre-school programmes further if they gain control over Head Start, or that money will no longer he earmarked for extra food and health checks. "If kids are hungry or can’t see, they’re never going to learn," says Harriet Meyer, the president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund. The future of Early Head Start, which serves children from birth to three, is equally uncertain.
Head Start currently provides about $7,000 for each child, and Early Head Start provides $8,000-10,000. The Educare Centre spends an average of $13,000 for each child by combining Head Start and Early Head Start cash with state money for other programmes. Compared with the hodgepodge of pre-school activities that millions of American parents cobble together, the Educare Centre is admirably integrated. By pooling money from different sources, it can hire plenty of educated teachers and pay them well; it takes children for a full day, all year round; providing a safe and cheerful place in which to play and learn
Why are there not more such places The reasons include turf squabbles and jealousy among other child-care groups, unwillingness to believe that existing programmes need improving, bureaucratic hassles over families’ eligibility for funding, and lack of money. Researeh also shows that many Americans think pre-school children should be at home with their mothers. But that is a vanished age. Nowadays, when 73% of American mothers work, including 61% who have children under three, efficient and affordable child care is essential for employee-productivity as well as for the good of the children themselves.
Adele Simmons, of Metropolis 2020 in Chicago, says it is time to invest in children as part of the nation’s social infrastructure. "The increase in funding for roads and bridges has been far greater than the increase in funding for kids," she says. "Kids who enter school not ready to learn never catch up. \
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