new mexico early childhood development partnership | nmecdp

15 Jan 10
Achievement Gap Begins Early, Fed Economist Says
New Mexico Business Weekly - Megan Kamerick, NMBW Staff

It’s the place where children are above average, according to Garrison Keillor.

So Minnesota business leaders were shocked to learn that half the children in their state were unprepared for kindergarten.

Is it a big deal if a kid is lagging at such a young age? Yes, said Rob Grunewald, because so much development happens so early in children’s brains that they might never catch up if they fall behind. Grunewald, associate economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, is the co-author of several papers linking early childhood investment to effective economic development.

Grunewald was in Albuquerque recently to address the coordinators of the New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership. The partnership, funded by a $400,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, targets top business leaders to advocate for investments in early childhood development here. The event was presented by NMECDP and the New Mexico Business Roundtable for Educational Excellence.

The partnership is housed in the United Way of Santa Fe County and has the backing of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. Its goal is to build support for early childhood education programs in New Mexico.

Katherine Freeman, executive director of the United Way of Santa Fe County, said the partnership held the meeting featuring Grunewald to protect the investments the state has already made in early childhood education in the coming legislative session. The state has five home visiting programs in which social workers or other professionals help families with information on parenting skills, health care and other services. The Children, Youth and Families Department has $2.7 million in recurring appropriations for its home visiting program. A voluntary pre-K program launched in 2005, operated by CYFD and the Public Education Department, has about 5,000 4-year-olds enrolled. The estimated appropriation for 2009-10 is $19.8 million.

Grunewald and his co-author, Fed colleague Art Rolnick, got involved in examining early childhood investment because Rolnick was on the board of a school readiness advocacy group, Grunewald said. Rolnick suspected there was a good economic argument for early childhood investment. He had also decided traditional economic development, with municipalities using tax incentives to engage in bidding wars for companies, wasn’t benefiting Minnesota. After efforts to deflate tax incentives at the federal level failed in the late 1990s, Rolnick decided to look more broadly at the question of human capital.

So he and Grunewald compiled data on early childhood education and brain development, and reviewed four longitudinal studies that showed extraordinary returns on investment for early childhood programs. These included lower public costs due to decreased expenses for welfare and incarceration, and increased social mobility and higher wages.

The two authored a paper in 2008 exploring how to most effectively invest in early childhood development. Leaders from top companies in the Twin Cities, including Cargill, Best Buy and General Mills, came together on the issue, forming Minnesota Business for Early Learning. They helped launch the nonprofit Minnesota Early Learning Foundation and raised $20 million for a five-year pilot project in two low-income neighborhoods. Scholarships were awarded to parents, allowing them to send children to high-quality preschool programs. The program will be evaluated on the preparedness of these children to enter kindergarten, as well as the market for early childhood programs and whether the quality of those improved because of the project. The evaluation will include an analysis of the parents’ level of empowerment in their children’s education.

So far, one private early childhood center opened a new branch because of the scholarship program, Grunewald said.

Chuck Wellborn will head the effort to raise funds for the partnership to grow the early childhood efforts here. The group will hold regional meetings around the state later this year, and plans to bring in officials from other states, including Arkansas and Maine, to learn about their early childhood programs. Business people are heavily engaged already in finding ways to improve education, Wellborn said, but they’re not always certain how to do it effectively.

"I just see this as an opportunity to make a difference and I think it’s the best, most sensible idea we’ve had along these lines in my lifetime," he said.

New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis research on early childhood development