Early education essential, pays off

The verdict is in, and the judge has spoken:

“The child born to poverty whose cognitive abilities have been largely formed by the age of six, in a setting devoid of the printed word, the life blood of literacy and other stabilizing influences necessary for normal development, is already behind… (E)arly childhood intervention at the pre-kindergarten level and continuing through at least grade three is necessary to minimize, to the extent possible, the impact and the effect of poverty on the educational abilities and achievements of those children.”

Those are the words of Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr. in his ruling in the case of Abbeville District School, et al v. South Carolina, et al.

By RICK NOBLE

Full Story: http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/news/opinion/13683133.htm