Punishing little kids

In the early 1960s, someone got the bright idea to split poor black children in Ypsilanti into two groups. One group got high-quality preschool education. The other group did not.

The results, more than 40 years later, are stunning. The lucky kids who got the pre-school program were far more likely to graduate from high school, earn a living wage, and stay out of prison.

Today’s kindergarten teachers in Michigan give us similar warnings — a third of their incoming students don’t recognize letters and numbers and are generally unprepared for learning.

Likewise, many of the 6,000 participants to date in the Center for Michigan’s Community Conversations across the state place high priority on early childhood education.

Lansing isn’t listening.

The Senate has proposed killing the entire $100 million Great Start Readiness Program for at-risk pre-schoolers to balance the state budget.

It’s maddening to people like former state schools Superintendent Tom Watkins, who wrote in this morning…

As Michigan superintendent of schools, I proposed in November 2002 the following:

However, due to other priorities, and the economic whirlpool the state has been facing, resources for early childhood programs have been anemic and, in many cases, disappeared.

A variety of Lansing interest groups, especially those that rely on tax revenues, have questioned why the Center for Michigan continues to push for government efficiencies and reforms.

It’s because of debates like this one over early childhood education.

Losers are going to outnumber winners in the ongoing budget fights in Lansing — there’s no doubt about that. And just about all of the budget losers are going to make very strong, emotional, and rational arguments why they shouldn’t get cut.

But there’s still a lot that doesn’t add up.

We’re considering zeroing out budgets for arts and culture at a time when we need compelling, creative, and fun central cities to draw entrepreneurs and young professionals.

We’re considering zeroing out early childhood education programs.

We’re at the epicenter of the world’s greatest source of fresh water, yet we’re out of cleanup funds to right past environmental wrongs.

And yet we’re still refusing to benchmark the effectiveness of local government service delivery in hopes of saving money or redirecting limited funds to programs that work.

We’re not providing funding rewards or communities and schools that combine services to save money (or taking funding away from those who don’t).

We’re paying prison employees more than those who watch over felons in neighboring states.

We’re allowing state employee benefits costs to far outpace the coverage available in the private sector.

We’re ignoring significant reforms and budget savings proposed by state reform commissions and the governor’s own expert panels of budget veterans.

There’s still a lot that doesn’t add up.