Dave Lawrence, Jr., President, Early Childhood Initiative Foundation
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It is a privilege to speak before such a powerful audience. Powerful in the sense of the achievement of your careers and what you have done with your lives. Powerful in the sense that the first Henry Ford described when he said: “If you think you can do a thing, or think you can not do a thing, you are right.”
The power to make change for children is why I am here.
I come to a place of progress. A place of history and a willingness to learn from that history. I come here encouraged, most particularly by your statewide initiative called the New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership. I think back to the founding of Los Alamos back in the Forties when our country was recruiting scientists, mathematicians and engineers to what seemed then a way-out-of-the-way corner of the world. One of the first things the residents asked for were good kindergartens for their children. They knew the importance of quality for children.
I go on the website for the New Mexico Public Education Department, and I read the vision: “A world-class educational system in which all New Mexico students are prepared to succeed in a diverse and ever increasingly complex world.” And I know of the progress you are making, most particularly in teacher quality. The progress is impressive. But the work is only getting started, and where it must start is in the highest-quality basics for the early childhood years. Get those years right, and children will have momentum all their lives.
Listen to this quotation from a recent and important book called “Disrupting Class” by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen: “A rather stunning body of research is emerging that suggests that starting…reforms at kindergarten, let alone in elementary, middle or high school, is far too late. By some estimates, 98 percent of education spending occurs after the basic intellectual capacities of children have been mostly determined.”
You have before you an unreconstructed optimist. A lifelong idealist. Someone who believes that the joys of life are embedded in moments of higher purpose. (“We were born,” said Nelson Mandela, “to make manifest the glory of God within us.”) You have before you someone who is not embarrassed to be naïve about some things. You also have someone who believes in constructive outrage – indeed, someone who believes that society’s progress depends on such outrage.
You have a reader before you – at least a book a week, and most frequently biographies and history because I think there is so very much for each of us to learn from the past. History reminds me, for instance, that goodwill is not the central driver of progress, though people of goodwill are central to vision and problem-solving. But real progress – in New Mexico or Florida or anywhere – requires quite directed energy, even a bit of pushing and shoving when the urging and cajoling and coaxing are not good enough. For any of us who think that Social Security and women’s right to vote and Medicare and the civil rights and feminist movements came to be mostly because of goodwill, then I would suggest some deeper, more insightful reading.
You also have before you a journalist – someone who loved what he did so much that I never missed a day of work in 35 years as reporter, editor or publisher. (That, of course, is also the mark of a “somewhat” driven human being…and also someone who understands how little time we have on this earth to make a difference in other people’s lives.) I have led a blessed life in many ways, punctuated by the moments of pain that mark all our lives. My values are simple and straightforward – try to tell the truth, be fair, make a difference. I frequently say that “I am only as happy as my unhappiest child.” When you have five children, as I do, no one can expect a placid existence.
It was journalism that gave me the chance to meet and write about some very interesting people – ranging from Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton, from Pope John Paul II to the Queen of England. It was journalism that led me here this morning.
Just about a dozen years ago, when I was still a newspaper publisher, the then governor of Florida asked me to be a member of the Governor’s Commission on Education – a two-year effort to look at the future of education in the 21st century. Though my children were raised by what I have since learned were early education principles, back then I had no idea that there were “principles” of high-quality early development, care and education. What I came to learn made me realize the very future of my community and my country depends on what we are talking about today. That’s why a decade ago I decided to “retire” and devote most of my energies to this topic.
Like you, I care deeply about my community and my state. I come to Santa Fe realizing that you know far more than I about the 2 million people of New Mexico and the more than 25,000 babies born here each year. And I also understand the difficulties in generalizing about anyone’s home. But whether in Miami or New Mexico, the principles are the same…the people in many ways the same. You have, as we do in Miami, a place of considerable contrasts – poverty to power, economic and otherwise. I look at my own community – itself larger than 16 states, including your own – and compare it to New Mexico. Like you, we are on the very cutting edge of America in diversity: 60 percent Hispanic, 22 percent black or African American (not interchangeable as they would be most places). 18 percent non-Hispanic white, and just 15 percent of the 33,000 babies born where I live each year. Then I look at New Mexico where just about 45 percent of the residents are Hispanic, 42 percent white non-Hispanic, maybe 10 percent Native American, almost 3 percent black. Now, take a look at the percentage of foreign born. Where I live, 52 percent of the people were born in another country, the highest percentage of any urban area in the United States. Your comparable percentage is 9 percent. Thirty-six percent of New Mexicans speak a language other than English at home; the comparable figure in Miami is 62 percent. The good news I share here this day is that in Miami, despite all our challenges of culture and poverty and language, we have found a way to rally around children – all children. And so it can be in New Mexico. Indeed, it can be anywhere.
For all the growing-up pains and challenges of Greater Miami, I feel blessed to live and work in a special place – one with a world-important destiny in the 21st century. So, too, are you blessed in many ways. Yours is “the land of enchantment” – a place of mountains and mesas, deserts and forests and rivers -- with a history that can be traced back thousands of years, yet a statehood that goes back less than a century. Yours, like Florida’s, is a story of pain and progress and, at times, tragedy and treachery. You have built your future on oil and gas, trade and tourism and technology. Your military bases are among the most important in the country. And culture; does anyone know the importance of culture more intimately than New Mexico? Without the music, art, opera, dance, weaving, pottery and jewelry, New Mexico would be nowhere near as special as it is.. Moreover, any state that can produce the likes of John Denver and Sid Gutierrez and Kim Stanley and Mangas Coloradas and Bill Mauldin and Conrad Hilton and Demi Moore is a most interesting and, most often, a very blessed place.
So I tell you all this, and could tell you more that makes New Mexico special, but then, as the late Paul Harvey, would say: “Here is the rest of the story,” especially as it relates to children: Some examples: You do worse than the country as a whole in percentage of college graduates, and about the same as Florida…25 percent of your children grow up in the full and painful federal definition of poverty…you come close to leading this country in the teen birth rate, and the percentage of your children in single-parent families is toward the very bottom, too…way too few of your child care sites have any real evidence of brain-stimulating, early learning quality…almost exactly half of your fourth grade students fail to meet minimum standards of reading proficiency…30 percent of your mothers-to-be do not receive adequate prenatal care, with many of them receiving no prenatal care at all…at least 85,000 of your children have no health insurance…about 10,000 of your children each year are victims of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect…more than 20,000 young people move through this state through the juvenile justice system each year. My courteous self would be inclined to tell you, “Don’t take it personally.” But, in fact, you and I need to take such matters personally if we are ever to make the sort of progress that is necessary to build the best possible future for our children and our country. I am not letting myself or where I live off the hook, I promise you. (We in Greater Miami have our own full share of shortcomings in how we do by children.)
But…
But there are answers. And they are first to be found – best to be found – in the earliest years of a child’s life…the years that set the tone for all one’s life.
You and I cannot escape the realities and the statistics that underscore the critical nature of investing in high-quality early childhood basics. We know from the national research that if a hundred children leave first grade without really knowing how to read, 88 of those children will still be poor readers after the fourth grade. Surely this is a wakeup call for early investment.
It is not as though the only learning years of one’s life are to be found in the earliest years – people do learn all their lives -- but rather that there are windows wide open during those early years, and never again will so many windows be open quite so wide. These years are clearly the time to invest in quality basics, remembering that only quality leads to real and positive outcomes for children. The research tells us that if ever we were to invest a dollar wisely in the years before birth to age 5, we would have a return on investment of at least seven dollars that wouldn’t need to be spent on police, prosecution and prison. You in business know the power of investment, and so you should not be startled by the McKinsey & Co. study that told us that if the children of our country did as well, say, as students from nations such as Finland, our economic would be 9 to 16 percent bigger.
Clearly, an educated place is safer, more prosperous, more optimistic for everyone. Many business people who complain about the quality of graduates simply do not realize that the path to hiring the most capable, most qualified employees begins with a child’s earliest years – those years that furnish the optimum window for investment.
Public school is the real world for more than 90 percent of New Mexico’s children as it is for the country. The wisest path to genuine public education “reform” – in the words of the Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman – “is to improve students sent to (schools).” Should we achieve that, I promise you that the teachers in New Mexico’s 477 public elementary schools will be eternally grateful because you will have given them the ability to spend most of their time teaching and much less time managing and controlling and triaging.
Over the years since my so-called “retirement,” I have come to believe the tragedy of early childhood unpreparedness is preventable. Have come to believe that we must, community by community, build a movement for everyone’s child -- poor, rich and in-between. Believe that a movement for everyone’s child is basic American fairness. The poor need more help, of course, but the way to help them the most is to help everyone. Building a movement is never about those children, but always about our children. The American dream embraces all children because all children need all the basics. This is not the makings of a “nanny state,” but rather strategic wisdom and basic fairness.
So how might that be translated into the real world that you and I live in? Here are two quick examples of “building a movement”: No. 1: I come from a state not well known for investment in education. But, in fact, we did pass a constitutional amendment for “universal prekindergarten” in Florida because we made the case that this was about everyone’s child. This year 145,000 Florida 4 year olds are sitting in free-to-every-family pre-K seats. That constitutional amendment (still with much to fix to make it the “high quality” education that people voted for) would never have passed had we targeted only some children, regardless of how needy. But when Floridians saw it was about fairness and the future for everyone’s family, they passed it overwhelmingly. No. 2: Here’s a second example of the thinking-about-everyone approach: Florida has a law that lets voters in counties decide if they want to raise their property taxes to provide a dedicated funding source for children. My own community first tried to do this back in 1988. Good people led the campaign, arguing that the community ought to help the most needy. It failed, 2-1. In 2002, it was back on the ballot. This time we made the case that this would be about everyone’s child, while certainly acknowledging and understanding the obvious: That is, some children and families do need and should receive more help. We passed it, 2-1. This year we will spend more than $100 million on early intervention and prevention, costing the owner of a median-assessed-value home $57.93 a year, and administered by an independent board (called The Children’s Trust). For just one example, of many more, I note that just three school years ago we had only 19 nurses and 24 health clinics in our public school system. Today we have health teams in 135 schools. That means fewer absences from school, improved academic performance, a decreased dropout rate, children treated quickly, and a parent being able to stay at work (and, hence, increased productivity). Or I could tell you about the millions we are investing in higher-quality, brain-stimulating child care and still more millions for programs for children with special needs. All this, and much more, can happen when the community’s vision embraces all children.
But I have more recent, and even better, news: Back in 2002 we promised voters that we would sunset The Children’s Trust after five years of operation, and they could decide in 2008 if they wanted it to continue on…and on…and on. Remember that I live in a community that is a poster child for the housing crisis in this country…a community facing not only hurricanes, but stressed, as you are, about the economy. It would be awfully easy to vote against any taxes – and, make no mistake about it, The Children’s Trust is a tax.
But here’s what did – and can – happen: Just last year, even as the economy tumbled, the people of Miami-Dade voted to reauthorize The Children’s Trust in perpetuity – with an 85.4 percent favorable margin! It is proof positive of what can be done – if we have the vision and the will.
But that is not all we are doing. For instance, we have a major project – with great support form the W.K. Kellogg Foundation – in a major collaboration with the country’s fourth largest school system to align curriculum and professional development from pre-k to third grade in 230 elementary schools and K-8 centers. We have increased the number of higher-quality child care sites from 17 to more than 350…developed the best local early childhood website in the country, plus 24-hour phone lines for parents…deliver high-quality parent skill-building information plus babies’ first book to the parents of every child born each year…distribute more than 40,000 parent skill-building newsletters each month – and everything we do is in three languages.
Everything begins – or should – with parents who care, parents who know what’s best.
The case I make this morning is in the self-interest of the people of New Mexico. Because this place is special for so many, for some it will be too easy to overlook the pain and the poverty in which so many of your neighbors live every day. For the general community, for the leadership of this larger community to ignore any pain within your midst ultimately imperils the whole of New Mexico. All of you want to live and work in places where people feel safe, where people have a chance for a wonderful education and to enjoy a bright future. New Mexico has its best chance for its brightest future when everyone has a real chance to succeed.
My message today neither focuses on a public effort, nor a private effort. A truly good future for children will require a public and private effort, and that is exemplified in your Early Childhood Development Partnership whose mission is to create the public awareness and the political will for the financing and the future of early childhood education and care in this state. The children need all of us. This is work with great moral underpinnings, but I argue it in practical terms. The great American Frederick Douglass told us back in the 19th century: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
More than three-quarters of a century ago, President Herbert Hoover told the American people: “If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish. We would assure ourselves of healthier minds, in more vigorous bodies, to direct the energies of our nation to yet greater heights of achievement.”
I’d like to close with a small story to remind us that we have known for a very long time what we must do for our children. So I go back eight centuries to the wisdom of one of England’s greatest kings, Henry II. His obsequious attendants told him frequently that the very realm depended on him. One day he could take this line no more, and reminded them that “in my kingdom there is a town, and in the town there is a street, and on the street there is a house. In the house is a cradle with a child in it.” And on that child, Henry would say, all else depends. And so it is, and always will be.
So it is today in the New Mexico. Thank you, and God bless you all.