Early education called business asset

An economic analyst visited Little Rock on Thursday to promote something other than subsidies and tax breaks to businesses as the best form of economic development: 4-year-olds.

BY VAN JENSEN

Rob Grunewald, a regional economic analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, spoke at the Peabody Little Rock hotel to a room of educators, bankers, legislators and business and community leaders on the economic importance of early childhood development.

The lecture — one of a series of "Breakfasts with the Fed," put on by the Little Rock branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — detailed Grunewald’s findings in a paper he co-wrote with Art Rolnick, the senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. That paper calls for an end to tax breaks and subsidies in Minnesota to be replaced by a $1.2 billion state fund for pre-kindergarten education.

For the past decade Rolnick has argued against subsidizing businesses because the practice often relocates jobs instead of creating them, Grunewald said. "Economic research points to the quality of the work force" as the key to improving an economy, he said, and the quality of the work force depends primarily on education.

Some of the legislators and educators on hand needed no convincing, as they have helped make Arkansas a leader in early childhood development, according to the Washington, D. C.-based Trust for Early Education and the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

However, looking at education funding as an economic issue was new to many.

Grunewald first cited a study that showed most of the "architecture" of the brain is formed by the time a child reaches 4 years, so before kindergarten a child’s ability to succeed has, in part, been determined.

From there, Grunewald said, he and Rolnick looked at studies showing the long-term results of early education. In one study conducted over 40 years near Detroit, the benefits of early education included reduced numbers of students in special education, higher graduation rates, fewer jail inmates and greater income. "[It’s a] tremendous public cost savings, particularly with at-risk children," Grunewald said.

The public would save money because of less special education and law enforcement costs, and the higher income would bring in more income taxes. The figures in the Detroit study showed a 17 percent return for the public on money invested in early education.

Martha Roberts, the early childhood education specialist at Rockefeller Elementary, said in an interview that she needed no convincing of the benefits of early education. "I firmly believe if we can intervene at an early age, it will save us money down the road," she said.

Roberts said students in early childhood education work on more than reading, writing and arithmetic. They also improve social skills. With such groups as Arkansas Better Chance for School Success and Head Start contributing, Arkansas has made early education a priority. In the past year legislators added $40 million in funding to Arkansas Better Chance, providing for 7,000 more preschool students. About 7,500 already were being served through the program, and 7,500 more are served through Head Start and other programs. State Rep. LeRoy Dangeau, DWynne, noted that the cost to the public of early education comes in far below figures Grunewald requested in Minnesota. In Arkansas, Dangeau said, the goal is to provide early education for as many children as possible. "Our goal is to reach $100 million [in] funding," Dangeau said. "That will reach every child in families below 200 percent of poverty."

The federal poverty level for a family of four is $19,350.

Grunewald said child-care and preschool providers could benefit by working together. He said states could also benefit by converting little-used or unused schools into early education facilities.

The Little Rock School Board recently decided to convert Fair Park Elementary to an early-childhood center with 10 classrooms, Roberts said.

One difficulty, Roberts said, is finding enough money for early education. "Funding is always a challenge," she said. "We need more and more money."

With no immediate visible results, Grunewald said, it can be difficult to illustrate the importance of funding early education. He said he hoped speaking about it in economic terms would make the point. "That is the difficult hurdle," he said. "Leaders in this are longterm thinkers."

Full Story: http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg&section=News&storyid=110345

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Early Childhood Development Reports from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/studies/earlychild/