Published the week of 10/3/04

It's time for a careful review, going beyond the rhetoric, of what Minnesota gets for the $50 million a year we put into early childhood education programs. Susan, Sam and Sari - all people I've interviewed - had children in one of these programs. But their experiences were quite different, in part because the programs vary dramatically.

Some early childhood advocates, citing research by Art Rolnick of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, insist, "For every dollar invested in early childhood education, there is a $16 return." Wrong. Rolnick doesn't believe that.

Along with a number of other people who have studied this issue, Rolnick concludes that the biggest returns are from intensive, high quality programs that target students from low-income families. To get the returns he believes are possible, Rolnick writes that Minnesota must invest enough "to reach the level of model program status¿since this is the level at which high returns have been demonstrated." As Minnesota thinks about how to spend limited tax funds, those are very important conditions.

Susan Neuman, former US Dept of Education Assistant Secretary, points out that the programs having the most impact have several common characteristics

• Considerable time - they are full day, full year
• Extensive work with students and their families.
• Well trained teachers,
• Small student-teacher curriculum that focuses on developing "the critical knowledge, skills and dispositions that children need to be successful

How many of Minnesota's early childhood programs have all these characteristics? We don't know for sure, which is why Wendy Savakes and Ann Schuetz, two recent Humphrey Institute graduates, with whom I've worked, have urged a careful examination of how our state's early childhood programs operate. They've also suggested intensive study of results from various early childhood programs.

Some Minnesota Early Childhood/Family Education programs meet only once a week, for 2-3 hours. They don't have the intensive, ongoing assistance to families that some Head Start programs offer. ECFE may well be valuable. When I've talked with folks, including a couple mentioned above who participated in ECFE, they recalled getting valuable ideas about how to help their children prepare for school.

But is working with young children for 2-3 hours a week, for part of the year, as many ECFE programs do, like working with children daily, most of the day, for much of the year? Researchers and common sense agree: No, it's not.

Minnesota's legislatures may decide the state should continue to fund a variety of programs. But we should be making these decisions much more on the basis of research and evidence, not on rhetoric.