Early Childhood Education for All: A Wise Investment

Posted on | Tuesday, March 29, 2011 | No Comments

In a time of scarce public resources, the care and education of young children will continue to fall to the bottom of the priority list until there is a shift in public understanding about the economics of raising the next generation. High-quality early childhood education is too vital to be brushed aside as a social services expenditure for only a few families or as too expensive to consider in tight budgetary times.

Early education is important for all children. And study after study shows that it is not too expensive. Quite the contrary.

Investments in quality child care and early childhood education do more than pay significant returns to children—our future citizens. They also benefit taxpayers and enhance economic  vitality. Economic research—by Nobel Prize-winners and Federal Reserve economists, in economic studies in dozens of states and counties, and in longitudinal studies spanning 40 years—demonstrate that the return on public investment in high quality childhood education is substantial.

On December 9 and 10, 2004, Legal Momentum and the MIT Workplace Center at the Sloan School of Management sponsored a conference, “The Economic Impacts of Child Care and Early Education: Financing Solutions for the Future,” that led to this report. It brought together some 80 scholars, experts and activists from around the country to examine the economics of early childhood education and to determine how to effectively present this new investment understanding to policymakers and voters. The partners in this effort were Legal Momentum’s Family Initiative and the MIT Workplace Center; co-sponsors were The National Economic Development and Law Center, The Early Care and Education Collaborative and The Center for Policy Alternatives.

Until now, a considerable “blind spot” has blocked the public from seeing the field of early childhood education in economic terms or thinking about creative ways to finance, strengthen and enhance its growth. While virtually every state has maintained economic development funding at high levels in order to aid job growth, state after state has made cutbacks in child care, preschool and afterschool programs.

This approach is short-sighted. The research presented in this report—a compilation of impressive work done by experts across the country—shows that high quality early childhood education is a wise investment.
The evidence is in: quality early education benefits children of all social and economic groups.

There are both short- and long-term economic benefits to taxpayers and the community if early education that meets high standards is available to all children, starting with those who are most disadvantaged. Indeed, universally available quality early education would benefit everyone and be the most cost-effective economic investment.

• High-quality early childhood education helps prepare young children to succeed in school and become better citizens; they earn more, pay more taxes, and commit fewer crimes.
• Every dollar invested in quality early care and education saves taxpayers up to $13.00 in future costs.
• The early care and education industry is economically important—often much larger in terms of employees and revenues than other industries that receive considerable government attention and investment.
• Failing to invest sufficiently in quality early care and education shortchanges taxpayers because the return on investment is greater than many other economic development options.
• Access to available and affordable choices of early childhood learning programs helps working parents fulfill their responsibilities.
• Quality early education is as essential for a productive 21st century workforce as roads or the internet; investing in it grows the economy.

The conference that forms the backbone of this report focused on solutions. Chapter II takes a look
at both short-term economic benefits that fuel the economy and the positive long-term impact on
tomorrow’s citizens and tomorrow’s economy. Chapter III looks at financing for a public investment
that yields high public returns. Today, public investments in early childhood education have
grown slowly or are stalled, and current revenue streams are limited. Parents are fulfilling their
responsibilities—and paying close to 60 percent of the cost. But the price of quality early education

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