Issue Paper #1: Early Childhood Development

Invest in Kids: Fight Crime And Make our Cities, State and Nation Stronger 1
January 17, 2014

As a national expert and leader on the safety and wellbeing of children, George Sheldon understands that a dollar invested in the youngest children today will pay huge dividends down the road. If we want to improve economic opportunities for people, improve our global competitiveness, strengthen our national defense, and make our communities safer, there is no better place to start than by improving the development children under the age of 5. More and more evidence proves that actions to bolster a childs development as early as infancy are the critical foundation for the childs future success. Kindergarten scores are the highest predictor of later success as measured by college attendance, home ownership, income, and retirement savings. Its not kindergarten itself that makes the difference, though; its all that happens with a child BEFORE age 5.2 Dollars spent on a child before age 5 produce a higher economic benefit, and occur at a more optimal time of brain development, than if the same amount were spent when the child is older. 3 Support for high quality early childhood services comes from our military leaders and from business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as from educators and health professionals and scientists. We have many programs in Florida at the state and local level, but this challenge needs to be a top priority of this state.

The windows of learning are open the widest in the first years of life, says David Lawrence, chairman of the Childrens Movement of Florida, formerly publisher of the Miami Herald, and a strong advocate for children in our state. Scientists tell us that 85 per cent of brain development happens before a child is 3 years old, and a childs relationships and experiences are a big part of that development. Evidence clearly shows that the earlier a child receives help the better his chances of going on to lead a productive life. Waiting until a child starts pre-kindergarten or kindergarten is simply too late. Yet, as the chart indicates, most of our public expenditures on children lag well behind childrens brain development. Many children, especially poor children, are left behind by kindergarten. Children living in poverty average 15 IQ points below their higher income peers. It is not because they were born that way, but because of the lack of enriching experiences books and conversations, for example. The amount of reading and language at age three predicts academic success at age 10. In one study, researchers went into homes and counted the words spoken between parents and children and found an astounding 30 million word gap by age 4 between parents and children in high-income homes vs. homes of families on welfare. 4 This helps explain the lag in IQ at kindergarten. The gap widens in elementary school. Although the majority of adults who experienced neglect as children do not engage in delinquent, criminal, or violent behavior, 5 the odds are significantly greater that they will be arrested for violent crimes and have diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder compared with adults who were not maltreated as children. 6 Researchers have found an important linkage between what they termed "adverse childhood experiences" and social problems like domestic violence, mental illness, academic failure, divorce, substance abuse, delinquency, crime, unintended pregnancies, teenage paternity, sexually transmitted diseases, and lifelong health problems. 7 Children with four or more of those adverse factors in their lives are 18 times more likely to attempt suicide, 8 times more likely to consider themselves alcoholics, more than 4 times more likely to use illicit drugs, almost 3 times more likely to smoke, and roughly twice as likely to be obese, become a teenage parent, and or have heart disease. In 2013, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) studied the presence of these adverse circumstances in the backgrounds of a sample of 64,329 youth in DJJ. More than 97% reported at least one of such circumstance in childhood. More than twothirds reported a combination of three: household dysfunction, parental separation/divorce, and household member incarceration. The cost to society from these early experiences is staggering. To take just one example, career criminals who are high school dropouts cost society more than $2.5 million apiece, on average. Governments spend about $2,383 to fund a pre-kindergarten spot, but about $51,000 to incarcerate a juvenile, not including associated medical and mental health costs. For the cost of keeping one juvenile in detention, we could provide
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pre-kindergarten to 20 children. If we save just one of those children from delinquency, the state has saved money. In 2011 Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus and North Miami Beach Police Chief Rafael Hernandez visited the Center for Excellence in Early Education at the United Way of Miami-Dade to read to young children and talk about the importance of investing in early education. They are featured in a national campaign that includes many law-enforcement leaders urging, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. 8 The need is not just in education but in treatment of mental illness, substance abuse, and the effects of abuse and neglect. After I arrived at DCF, George Sheldon has remarked, Jim McDonough, the head of Floridas prison system, told me, If you could solve the problems of substance abuse and mental illness, I could close 80% of these prison cells. The movie Healing Neen told the story of Tonier Neen Cain, who lived on the streets for 19 years and had 66 criminal convictions before treatment for her abuse and drug addiction turned into a nationally known speaker and educator as well as a wonderful mom. Thats 66 criminal acts that might have been prevented by intervening early with a single person. With treatment, she has turned the tragedy of her early life into a lesson for our society and our policymakers. Improving the education and wellbeing of children under 5 is not just some social program. This is a critical issue to our economy, to public safety, to Americas competitiveness in the world, even to our national security.

National security

A report signed by dozens of present and former military leaders, from generals and admirals to the sergeant major of the Army and the Marine Corps, reveals that fully three-fourths of young adults ages 17 to 24 who seek to join the military thats 26 million young adults, 1.4 million of them in Florida alone are unable to meet the standards for enlistment. 9 The most common reasons are the failure to graduate from high school, a criminal record, and failure to meet fitness standards because of obesity. Think about it: Three-fourths of those who want to serve in our military do not qualify to do so. These military leaders say that the best investment our society can make to fix that problem is to invest in high-quality early education: A strong commitment today to high-quality early education will keep America strong and safe tomorrow.

One of the signers of the report, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, notes that the men and women of the American military are the best in the world, but will need to be even better qualified as the military and its technology
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become increasingly sophisticated. One out of four of military applicants lacks a high school diploma, and a G.E.D. is normally not sufficient.

Business and Economic Growth

Early childhood development is also need to secure Americas economic competitiveness in the world. As chairman of the Federal Reserve System, perhaps the most important banker in the world, Ben Bernanke focused on this issue in a speech in March 2011. 10 Some of his comments: No economy can succeed without a high-quality workforce, particularly in an age of globalization and technical change. . . . For instance, preschool programs for disadvantaged children have been shown to increase high school graduation rates. Because high school graduates have higher earnings, pay more taxes, and are less likely to use public health programs, investing in such programs can pay off even from the narrow perspective of state budgets. Of course, the returns to the overall economy and to the individuals themselves are much greater. When children become successful, productive adults, we all benefit. Our communities are safer, because educated, productive people are less likely to commit crimes of theft or violence. Our economy is stronger, because they qualify for better jobs with better incomes and are less likely to need government benefits. Our taxes are lower, because we do not spend as much money on law enforcements and courts and prisons. And perhaps most important of all, our entire social fabric is stronger when people feel successful and have hope rather than feeling beaten down by despair about overcoming their poor start in life. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2010 called early childhood education a critical issue for many Chamber members.11 Every dollar invested in early childhood programs saves from $2.50 to $17 in the years ahead, the Chamber said. High-quality early childhood education programs should promote the whole child, paying equal attention to his or her cognitive (academic), social, and emotional development.

Florida Needs to Do More

The good news is that Floridians have shown their belief in early childhood education. In 2002, Floridas voters approved a constitutional amendment that required the Legislature to give every 4-year-old child access to a high quality pre-kindergarten
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program. The bad news is that Floridas Pre-K meets only two of the seven benchmarks of quality established by the National Institute of Early Education Research, and Florida spends $1,000 less per child than 25 years ago. Many preschoolers are left way behind. This is not the high quality program voters specified in the Florida Constitution. But waiting to intervene in childrens lives until the children start kindergarten is far too late. The neural networks of the brain and cognitive abilities are largely in place by the time a person reaches the age of 3. Children less than three years old who have been neglected are at significantly higher risk of later experiencing developmental problems. Studies show that as early as 16 to 18 months, a childs word learning is significantly affected by his economic background. The gaps widen over the early years of elementary school. Before they even start school, 30% of children are way behind their peers. Research shows that if 100 children leave first grade unable to read, at the end of fourth grade, 88 of them remain poor readers. Childrens academic success at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the language and conversation they hear from birth to age three. Our failure to invest adequately in early education programs imposes substantial costs on our taxpayers and our society, including higher rates of high school drop-outs and higher rates of public assistance and crime. High school dropouts make up over 50% of the state prison inmate population. 12 Once children have fallen behind in infancy and toddlerhood, it is increasingly difficult for them to ever catch up.

George Sheldon: Get tough on the causes of crime

We need to get tough on the causes of crime, says George Sheldon. By the time someone is in the Juvenile Justice system or the prison system, it is much more difficult and expensive to change their patterns of behavior and rehabilitate them before they have served their sentences and return to society. Long sentences also put a huge burden on taxpayers. We have to interrupt the cycles of mistreatment of children, mental illness, and substance abuse. The most cost-effective way to do that is to put more of our children on the right track at an early age. The Attorney General of Florida has a large number of specific daily responsibilities. But as attorney general, Sheldon also will be a leader in this critical need of our state to reduce crime and make our communities better by investing in the wellbeing of young children. When programs already in place are not reaching their potential, the leaders of those programs need to be challenged to improve. George Sheldon as attorney general will launch a coordinated effort to achieve significantly better outcomes for vulnerable young children before they start falling behind. He will be a consistent advocate high-quality early childhood programs and research-based interventions to deal with the adverse circumstances that are holding children back.
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We are not talking about a lot of big new programs, but rather utilizing more effectively the array of programs we already have. A system of Early Learning Coalitions is coordinated by the Department of Education. Florida provides services through the Department of Children and Families to young children found to be abused or neglected by their caregivers. Case plans for these children ages 3 to 5 need to include not just daycare but early education. Florida has an agency that serves children with disabilities, and programs in the Department of Health. Various other agencies, community services, and universities focus on crime prevention, education, health, substance abuse and mental illness. These programs do not get enough attention and often have to fight for funding or even endure budget cuts. The time has come for a coordinated effort address the emotional, physical and educational needs of young children. As attorney general, Sheldon will help enlist private businesses, private non-profits, local communities and local school systems in promoting early childhood development. He will urge the Cabinet, of which he will be a member, as well as the governor and heads of state agencies to elevate early childhood wellbeing to a prominent place in every state agency that shares in this responsibility. Floridas future depends on it. We need to be smarter about our intervention with the children and families who need help, Sheldon said. We need to spend our money more effectively. You can make the same investment for a child at age 10 and not get nearly the bang for the buck that youd get with a smaller small investment at age two. The return on investment can be enormous. George Sheldon is no newcomer to this issue. As secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families (August 2008 January 2011), he directed that every foster child age 5 and under be placed in a foster home and not in group homes with revolving shifts of caregivers. A lack of consistent care-giving and the absence of secure relationships with primary caregivers retard infant and toddler development. Because Secretary Sheldon made it a priority, the local community-based care agencies throughout our state moved quickly to make this change happen. During Sheldons tenure as Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in Washington, the agency worked with the Department of Education to create a Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge as part of the federal governments grant program to states and local schools. Unfortunately, Florida did not even apply for the last round of grants, and thus lost a potential $50 million dollars that could have enhanced early childhood services in the state. Under Sheldons direction the agency established higher standards for Head Start programs, and shut down lower performing Head Start programs, so that every child could maximize their potential and no child was left behind. The agency also joined with a federal health program to providing nurses and social workers to help expectant families have a healthy baby and to be nurturing
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parents. These home visiting programs have a strong track record in reducing low birth weight deliveries, preventing child abuse, reducing child accidents and emergency room visits, and improving parents knowledge and skills. Again, Floridas governor and Republican Legislature rejected more than $30 million dollars for this effort. Eventually, the highly acclaimed program was awarded to Floridas Healthy Start Association, by-passing state government. The most effective early childhood programs can combine the best features of early education efforts with child welfare systems. Again, George Sheldon took action as secretary of DCF. He observed, for example, that a high percentage of young people in foster care had a G.E.D. as their educational goal. He told community-based care organizations they need to set their sights higher for foster kids. One challenge, of course, was the limited educational attainment of the older youths. Once again, these teenagers were paying the price for a lack of adequate early education. Sheldon said, By starting earlier in the earliest years of a childs life we can make our communities safer, make our economy more vibrant, make our nation safer, and give greater success and happier lives to more of our citizens.

Sources quoted in this paper are for reference and research purposes and are not intended to imply endorsement of George Sheldons candidacy.
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Tennessees STAR experiment by Harvard researchers examined linked school scores to income tax records. (Chetty, Friedman, Hilger, Saez, Schanzenback & Yagan, 2011). Heckman, J. J. (2007, August). The economics, technology, and neuroscience of human capability formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(3), 1325013255.
4 Betty Hart & Todd R. Risley. An account of this study at the Rice University website is part of a compilation of studies of the effects of literacy and cultural experiences on children. http://centerforeducation.rice.edu/slc/LS/30MillionWordGap.html. 5 6 3

Widom, C. S. (1989). The cycle of violence. Science, 244(4901), 160-166.

Luntz, B. K., & Widom, C. (1994). Antisocial personality disorder in abused and neglected children grown up. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 151(5), 670-674. Maxfield, M. G., & Widom, C. S. (1996). The cycle of violence: Revisited six years later. Archives of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine, 150(4), 390395.
7 Anda, R.F., Dong, M., Brown, D.W., Felitti, V.J., Giles, W.H., Perry, G.S., Valerie, E.J., & Dube, S.R. (2009). The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to a history of premature death of family members. BioMed Central Public Health, 106(9). See also "The Health and Social Impact of Growing Up With Alcohol Abuse and Related Adverse Childhood Experiences: The Human and Economic Costs of the Status Quo," Anda, Robert. 8

Miami News Conference on Preventing http://www.fightcrime.org/state/florida/miami-video.

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Crimes Report by

Through Mission

Early

Education, Military

June Leaders

29, for

2011. Kids.

Ready, Willing, and Unable to Serve: http://www.missionreadiness.org/2009/ready_willing/

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Readiness:

Ben A. Bernanke, Challenges for State and Local Governments, Remarks to Annual Awards Dinner of the Citizens Budget Commission, New York City, March 2, 2011. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20110302a.htm. See excerpt, Chairman of the Fed Weighs in on Early Childhood Education at http://www.walearning.com/articles/chairman-of-the-fedweighs-in-on-early-childhood-education/. See also remarks to the Childrens Defense Fund annual conference, July 24, 2012, http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20120724a.htm.
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Institute for a Competitive Workforce, Why Business Should Support http://education.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/ICW_EarlyChildhoodReport_2010.pdf.

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Early

Childhood

Education,

Education and the Economy: Boosting the Nation's Economy by Improving High School Graduation Rates," Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington, D.C. 2011.