TKW Consulting

Sunday, March 05, 2006
Follow Iowa

Few leaders argue today that the brain research supporting early childhood education initiatives is junk science. Or that socially disadvantaged children aren’t disproportionately affected, not because the poor don’t have the same cognitive abilities as their more affluent peers, but due to other destabilizing factors in their home environments. Or that government’s failure to devote meaningful resources in those crucial years between birth and age 3 hasn’t contributed to enormously expensive problems, such as crime, teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency. Or that at its core, a lack of emphasis on early childhood education isn’t a business issue with stunning implications.

When smart people from so many sectors – scientists, teachers, health-care professionals and child welfare advocates, certainly, but increasingly business leaders, economists and other bottom-line money people – recognize the problem, implementation of a solution should be a breeze, right?

Wrong.

Though vital, debate over whether to set state preschool standards or continue to honor Iowa’s tradition of local control, shift K-12 education dollars to preschool programs or identify new funding streams, mandate preschool or make it voluntary, and myriad other ponderous issues is having the undesired effect of crushing initiative and leadership. Legislators may worry that the choices they make may be so unpopular back home as to put their re-elections at risk, or they may think the issue isn’t going anywhere and there’s always next year.

As Principal Financial Group Chairman and CEO J. Barry Griswell remarked the other day at an Iowa Business Council Early Childhood Education Summit, there may never be a time when legislators can’t say, “This is too thorny to solve. This is too political.”

“We are going to piddle around, and then 10 years from now, we are going to be a state in great trouble unless we get to going,” an impassioned Griswell prodded. “Be bold. Let’s be the leader in the country. Let’s not model someone else.”

His clarion call is backed by the strength of the IBC, a consortium of Iowa’s largest employers. Legislators – and business leaders who have watched passively as this issue has unfolded – should consider they have received their marching orders: to get behind a plan that invests significantly in early childhood education. If crafted correctly, such legislation could not only promote core Iowa values of social justice and fairness, but also yield long-term returns in increased worker productivity and decreased social spending.

It’s not only the right thing, but the smart thing.