TKW Consulting

Off to an early start
Quality preschool gets our children ready for the future
By RICARDO DIAZ

As families hustle to get all these essential items ready for the first day of class, community leaders should take a moment to reflect on what supplies and tools we are providing to those same children to help them succeed not just in school but in life.

Our children may have the right supplies in their backpacks, but is our community supplying them with the right programs and activities to ensure they can succeed? And
are we starting them off on the right path early enough? Society relies on an educational structure that can produce young people ready to take leadership in the community.

In Milwaukee, less than 20% of the current adult population has a college degree. If we stay at that low percentage, our students will not be prepared to fill the highly skilled jobs needed to keep greater Milwaukee's economy flourishing in the future.

A recent report by the Committee for Economic Development, a national business-led public policy group, demonstrates that our economy and society will greatly benefit from improved and expanded early childhood education. This early learning facilitates later learning and long-term academic success.

Our economy is relying on community leaders to find a formula today that will send more of our students to college or vocational education tomorrow so that our businesses have a pool of quality employees after that.

Last year, the United Community Center began a 3-year-old kindergarten program at the Bruce Guadalupe Community School, a charter school of the Milwaukee Public Schools.

While some parents were apprehensive to send their little ones to school all day, they quickly embraced the program after seeing the social, cognitive and motor skills development in their children.

This year, our program for 3-year-olds has a waiting list. And we are looking forward to moving into a renovated early childhood education center in the fall of 2007 so we can serve even more families. We are confident that working with students early on the fundamentals will help them achieve higher levels of success when they are older. For example, our 8th grade students last year outperformed state averages in four of the five testing categories. Many of these students had been with us since kindergarten. With an earlier start, these students will be even more likely to pursue college, have higher job earnings and become new contributors to society and the economy.

There are a few essential steps that must be taken to supply the community with the right programs:

•More federal and state funds need to be allocated to early childhood programs so that more children have access to them. Financial backing of early childhood education will show a strong return on investment and will better utilize funding now being allocated to remediation and crime.

We can prevent juvenile delinquency and teen pregnancy if we provide a strong academic foundation. While these problems need to be addressed today, more financial support of preventative measures, such as high-quality early childhood education and school readiness, will pay off in the end. With collaboration and coordinated support, both the businesses and foundations can help to ensure these programs are available for our young learners.

The funding of full-day kindergarten and other early childhood education programs should be a matter of good public policy. Early childhood education is an economic development issue.

If we do not start producing more high school, vocational school and college graduates, this city and our economy will certainly suffer.

Additionally, today's new generation of families consists of working parents, with children spending a lot of time in the care of other adults. Unfortunately, not all children under this care receive the stimulation, social and emotional development necessary to optimize later success.

We all love our kids and want to allow them to be kids, with days filled with carefree fun. However, with studies consistently demonstrating that the first few years are critical learning years, funding full-day 4-year-old kindergarten, and half-day 3-year-old kindergarten is a wise investment and appropriate use of public funds.

• Early childhood education needs a strong infrastructure and good facilities. With adequate funding, these programs can move out of basements and homes and into high quality facilities. They can be treated with the importance they hold in the lives of our children.

At Bruce Guadalupe Community School, we have found the need to dedicate increased and specialized space to serve our young students. These spaces allow for varied environments to provide room for drama, song, art, music and storytelling.

• Quality programs need quality teachers with advanced degrees, meeting rigorous accreditation standards. A good teacher is an essential element of a quality early childhood education program. With the current state of funding for these programs, it can be difficult for schools and early childhood centers to offer pay and benefits to attract quality staff.

However, in order for these programs to succeed, they need better teachers as well as stricter standards of accreditation. Teachers with bachelor's degrees are more capable of providing stronger early literacy experiences and often possess more in-depth knowledge of the cognitive and social needs of children and how to promote their academic growth.

• City and state entities need to coordinate licensing and zoning approvals for early childhood care centers. More coordination is needed between the state Department of Workforce Development, which provides approvals and licenses for such facilities, and the city, which oversees zoning of child care facilities.

A new process could help to insure that education is used as the main criterion for approval, rather than the use of the facilities for child care. With the start of school just days away, we must realize that the education our children receive today, even at the earliest age, is essential not only to their personal well-being and success in life, but also to the vitality of our communities and our city.

Business, government and philanthropic leaders must join together to help support early childhood education programs. This worthwhile investment is not only essential to our area's economic growth but is also vitally important to the future of each and every child in this community.

Ricardo Diaz is executive director of the United Community Center in Milwaukee.