Reporter Darrin Stineman can be reached at 822¬-1416 or by e-mail at dstineman@salina.com.
Salina Journal
Providing quality, early childhood education is expensive, Buffet Early Childhood Fund program director Michael Burke said during a presentation Wednesday morning at the Salina Country Club.
But failing to invest in the crucial early years of a child's development is far more costly, he said.
"Let's make no mistake, building a bridge over the first five years is a daunting bridge to build," Burke told a group of about 50 that gathered for a breakfast program sponsored by the Kansas Health Foundation Salina Team. "The one objection I hear about our bridge is that it's too expensive to build the best, the sturdiest, the highest-quality bridge possible; that it's just too expensive to do what all the great research tells us to do.
"And to that argument I say this: It is expensive, if you do it right, but especially if you do it wrong. And for decades, we've done it wrong by investing too little too late too often."
Burke then read a quote from Susie Buffet, the daughter of mega billionaire Warren Buffet and creator of the Buffet Early Childhood Fund: "People say early child care is expensive. Well, what else is expensive? Teen pregnancies, prisons, foster care. It's a lot more expensive to fix on the back end, and sometimes you can't fix it at all."
Buffet's devotion to early childhood education grew out of a quest she started in 1999 to determine the "smartest possible investment in education," Burke said. She determined that, of the public money spent on education, the lowest priority is the first five years of a child's life, which scientists say are the most important in forming a person.
Misplaced priorities
Burke emphasized that point with graph that had two lines: one representing a child's age, and the other the amount of public money spent on that child's education. Most of the money was spent in the later years.
"The hole between those arcing lines represents a massive failure in public policy, public investment and public will," Burke said. "No businessman would build a business that way; no bridge builder would build a bridge this way -- with a hole in one end."
The equation becomes even more disproportionate when you consider that the formative years occur "when poor children are their poorest, because as parents age, their incomes generally rise," Burke said. In America, 43 percent of children younger than 10 live in low-income families, he said, which represents more than 10 million children.
"This one-two punch of this poverty this early in life is just devastating," Burke said. "Quite often, the corrosive effects of poverty during such a critical developmental phase means young children are more at risk during the period of most substantial brain growth in their lives. You know what this means for your future work force? It's not pretty."
Building Educare Centers
To help level the playing field, as Burke put it, the Buffet fund is working to establish state-of-the-art Educare Centers across the country for low-income families. Five are now up and running, including one in the Buffet family's hometown of Omaha, Neb., and five more are in development, Burke said. The goal is to create a network of 12 to 15 centers in 10 to 12 states.
"That will give us a national research sample of about 2,000 children and families," Burke said, "which is a fairly robust number and should give us something dramatic to say to policy-makers in state capitals and Washington, D.C., about what it really takes to shift the odds, to narrow the student-achievement gap."
The centers cost up to $9 million each and are privately funded, Burke said. Operating costs come from public and private sources, he said.
Centers are staffed with a supervising teacher with a master's degree, lead teachers in each classroom with a bachelor's degree and a total of three teachers in each classroom, including aides. Class sizes are limited to three teachers for every eight infants or toddlers and three teachers for every 17 preschoolers. Families also have access to specialists as needed, such as those in the mental health and speech therapy fields.
Sebelius gets it
Burke praised efforts in Kansas to improve early childhood education. The Legislature earlier this month voted to restore $11.1 million to expand preschool opportunities for low-income children after the House Appropriations Committee had diverted the money to the state's welfare budget. Last month, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius urged legislators to set aside much of the $16 million Kansas received in tobacco-settlement money for preschool education.
"You are blessed in Kansas with a governor who gets it when it comes to the importance of early childhood education," Burke said. "You are blessed with many lawmakers from both parties who get it. You are blessed with business leaders, philanthropists, early childhood providers, school folks, lots of folks who get it. In fact, your state is set to take some really dramatic steps in expanding investments in the first five years."
Burke encouraged those at Wednesday's gathering to talk to their legislators and to contribute to an early childhood fund at the Greater Salina Community Foundation -- and to find other ways to support early childhood education.
The foundation can be called at 823-1800 or e-mailed at communityfoundation@gscf.org. The foundation's Web site is www.gscf.org.
"My aim is to describe the 'what' rather than to prescribe the 'how' for you," he said, "mostly because, quite frankly, we're still figuring out much of this ourselves. I by no means come bearing the enlightened answer from Omaha."
n Reporter Darrin Stineman can be reached at 822¬-1416 or by e-mail at dstineman@salina.com.
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