Karen Heller: An early start, a big step ahead

Early-childhood education is among the best investments a society can make for the future. Students enrolled in pre-K programs, a time when the mind is especially responsive to learning, perform demonstrably better in school later on.

Economists argue that educating children in these vital years is also a superb development initiative, producing more high school and college graduates with a potential for higher earnings, while reducing the demands for remedial education, repeating grades, crime prevention, and prisons down the road.

"Dollar for dollar, it's the best community-development strategy," says Sharon Easterling, director of the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children. "It's $16 returned in public money for every dollar invested."

Here, I am thrilled to report, Pennsylvania has made exceptional strides since 2002. New Jersey is faring even better. And yet, there is much more to be done.

Once in the bottom tier of states, Pennsylvania has increased funding, coordinated services through Pre-K Counts, and established Keystone STARS, a statewide standard to rate early-childhood programs. Educators universally praise Gov. Rendell for spearheading these initiatives, while hoping his successor, as well as other legislators in Harrisburg, continues the efforts.

In the last seven years, the Philadelphia School District has doubled the number of children enrolled in pre-K programs. Still, this fall there was a waiting list of 1,900 families and 900 more for Head Start, which serves the neediest families. These programs teach letters, numbers, colors, and shapes to children, many of whom come from homes with few books or even crayons.

"We see in our kindergarten classes that children who have had quality pre-K programs are substantially ahead of the children who have had none," says Donna Piekarski, the district's director of early education, "and it's very hard to close the gap."

Among Philadelphia kindergartners who benefit from early education, almost three-quarters reach prescribed benchmarks, a new study shows, while fewer than half do so among those with no preparation.

"We have about 40,000 publicly funded child-care slots from 0 to 5 in Philadelphia for a population of 113,000," says Public Citizens for Children and Youth's Christie Balka. "Statewide, only 18 percent of our children ages 0 to 3 are in child care." The divide in quality is substantial. In Philadelphia, 10 percent of students are enrolled in programs with a rating of three or four stars, the highest standard; in the region, it's only 22 percent.

For all its importance, teaching the very young remains punitively undervalued as an occupation. "Any industry that loses 40 percent of its workforce every year is in turmoil," Easterling says. And what's essential to young children? Consistent relationships. "The average annual income is $20,000 to $22,000 - and that's with a bachelor's degree. It's amazing that anyone works in the field." STARS rewards thriving programs with additional funding, but assistants, who have less education, make little more than the minimum wage. They've been known to quit for McDonald's.

The city and district, through a mayoral advisory committee, are working hard to coordinate services and eliminate redundancy. The district is trying to help parents navigate a maze of choices. The United Way created a task force of business leaders devising solutions for awareness and funding. But more spaces are crucially needed. Rendell attempted to increase the budget only to see it remain at last year's level, which, Easterling says, "we consider a victory of sorts."

"We've come a long way," says the district's Piekarski. "But we've got a long way to go. Our fear is we've sort of stagnated, and that's another group left behind." As Easterling says in language so simple and direct a young child could understand: "We need better and we need more."