The Importance of Investing in Literacy
by Linda Katz
Executive Director, CLI

Despite higher unemployment still in the United States, many good job slots go unfilled, especially in urban areas. Our high school graduates do not qualify for many entry level positions, or for further training and education. Given this peculiar dynamic, we have both the need and the opportunity to bring historically underemployed people into the job market. Our success really depends, however, on the quality of education those new workers have received. Therefore, the question that arises is whether or not we are willing to take time to consider, in the words of Jonathan Kozol, those "undervalued urban children of our nation." Are we willing to invest in their potential, and, in turn, see the value added to our common future?

As Professor Theodore Hershberg of the University of Pennsylvania has said, "The human-capital-development challenge is not one among many. It is the greatest challenge facing America."

There are proven ways to make economically sound human capital investments in populations that have high school drop-out rates and low college attendance rates. Research has consistently shown that well-trained, talented teachers, classrooms with many quality books, and a high-standard, time-on-task curriculum comprise a tide that can raise even flooded boats ("at-risk" students). As Dr. Deanna Burney has said, there are really no "at risk" children, just risky environments that we adults bring into being.

We have made this type of investment before, when, in the early 1900's, government recognized the need for high quality medical professionals. To ensure the future health of Americans, national standards were established for medical school curriculums and teaching hospitals; passing rigorous boards became a requisite to continuing the path of study; doctors were required to intern at accredited teaching institutions; and the government subsidized medical school costs while it funded research. The ensuing high levels of respect for physicians reflect the value Americans have come to place on this profession.

The biggest conundrum we face today is getting the government, corporations, foundations and taxpayers to want to make investments in human capital again, and to address today's core problem as they once did the medical profession: our teachers must be trained to be effective.

Perhaps we need to mobilize decision-makers to visit the (all too few) exemplary classrooms that already exist in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. In these classrooms, policy makers and opinion leaders could regain the American faith that children, when offered opportunities to learn, will achieve at high levels. Success builds its own culture, the culture that makes investments in children.

Effective teaching must begin at the earliest ages with effective literacy practices. First children must learn to read. By third grade, they should be reading to learn.

The good news is that children who attend quality preschool programs are less likely to require expensive, remedial education programs, and, later on, children will be less likely to have low test scores, the need to repeat grades or drop out, and are less likely to require costly welfare or imprisonment.

We will get high quality teachers for all students when we really and truly want to educate America's youngsters. We will invest in creating genuine learning environments for all students when we are truly ready. It's a question of commitment to making the right investments. CLI, with it professional development for current teachers, its creation of model effective practices classrooms for student interns, and its endowment of quality books for students at home and in school, is such an investment.

CLI's sense of urgency comes from knowing what we can do and how to proceed, and a desire to improve the welfare of America's most needy children immediately. For after all, in the words of the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral,

"Many things we need can wait, the child cannot,
Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed, To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today."

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	The evidence is strong that young people who are not fluent readers and writers by the end of third grade may never catch up to their peers. Dr. Connie Juel (Univ. of Va.) found that first graders who were not on grade level by the end of the year had only a 1 in 10 chance of ever achieving grade level reading proficiency.
	During the critical early years of cognitive development, many impoverished children lack opportunities to build their literacy skills. They generally hear 30 million fewer words by age three than their more privileged peers do (due to a limited experience of being spoken or read aloud to). When these disadvantaged children start kindergarten, they are already well behind their more affluent peers in terms of vocabulary knowledge. Without effective intervention, this “literacy gap” grows wider as years pass. (Hart, B. and Risley, T., The 30 Million Word Gap. American Educator, Spring 2003.)
	Dr. Lesley Morrow (Rutgers Univ.) has gathered and conducted research showing that literacy learning begins in infancy, and parents and caregivers need to provide a rich literacy environment to help children acquire literacy skills.
	Studies show that children entering Kindergarten may have as much of a vocabulary gap as eight years - even before they begin school. That is because a child who has not been read aloud to may have the limited vocabulary of a 2-year-old, while a child who has been read aloud to every day may have the vocabulary of a 10-year-old. The average middle income child has 1200 hours of being read aloud to, compared to 25 hours for low income children.
	Dr. Marie Clay (Reading Recovery, New Zealand) has determined that many children are adrift in early reading instruction because they do not understand print conventions. These include concepts such as reading left to right, reading the left page before the right page, understanding punctuation and capitalization, and knowing that the printed text and not the picture is being decoded. The first-grade instruction, "Let's look at the first word in this sentence," directed to a child who is weak about print concepts, is incomprehensible if the difference between a word, a sentence and what is "first" is not understood.
	In Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (National Research Council), the researchers state that "there is abundant empirical and observational evidence that the children who are particularly likely to have difficulty with learning to read in the primary grades are those who begin school with less prior knowledge and skill in certain domains, most notably, general verbal abilities, phonological sensitivity, familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading, and letter knowledge. It is clear from the research on emergent literacy that important experiences related to reading begin very early in life. Primary prevention steps designed to reduce the number of children with inadequate literacy-related knowledge (e.g., concepts of print, phonemic awareness, receptive vocabulary) at the onset of formal schooling would considerably reduce the number of children with reading difficulties and thereby, the magnitude of the problem currently facing schools."

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Reprinted with permission from The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 14, 1999.

Here's an investment proposition: For every dollar you put down now, you'll get seven back over the next several decades.

Interested? If you're a smart and patient investor, you are.

But today's topic isn't some hot Internet stock. It's quality preschool programs. Unfortunately, many (not all, but many) political leaders get so skittish when they tote up the first costs of quality preschool - for certified teachers, aides, small classes, parental involvement, facilities, health and nutrition support - that they can't see the long-term payoff.

But it's there, insists W. Steven Barnett, economics professor and director of the Center for Early Education at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who offers the $7 for $1 estimate.

Recent studies concerning brain development among very young children have largely confirmed what educators have believed for years, according to Barbara T. Bowman, president of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, an authority on early childhood education and the education of at-risk, minority children.

The first five years of life offer "windows of opportunities" she says, when a child can develop vital learning skills far more easily than later in childhood.

Graduates of good preschool programs are much less likely to require expensive special-education programs for slow learners, and nearly all pre-schoolers are more likely to walk into kindergarten "ready to learn." And that makes them less likely down the road to have low test scores, to repeat grades, to drop out, or to cost society welfare and prison dollars as adults.

That is the calculus Pennsylvania legislators should remember when they swallow hard at the hefty $700 million price tag to cover universal, voluntary preschool across the state.

That cost could be cut if middle-class districts provide some matching funds, and at the federal level, if the White House would support Vice President Gore's call for a federal preschool program.

In the broader, universal preschool program, some of that money might go to middle-class people who already do or could afford preschool, but much would go to lower-middle-class and working parents who can't afford a quality program with the assets listed above. (Remember, much of the middle class also receives federal tax subsidies for such program through the child-care credit and flexible spending accounts.)

Legislators in Harrisburg are now scrambling for all manner of education proposals in return for the votes Gov. Ridge so ardently seeks for his school-voucher plans.

The two best new initiatives would be improving preschool opportunities, then consolidation the gains by reducing class sizes in grades K through 3. At the very least, Harrisburg could initiate a pilot project of preschool and reduced class size for the eight urban school districts targeted by the governor's voucher recovery program at a more modest $264 million.

The state could ramp up slowly to a broader preschool program such as those offered in Georgia, Connecticut, Arizona, Texas and other states. It could begin in urban and rural districts where many working parents are hard-pressed to find preschool they can afford, and many poor children otherwise will start the race of life several laps behind.

Studies have shown dramatic deficits in the school readiness of kindergarten pupils from poor, at-risk situations. They are often 6 to 18 months behind their middle-class peers. Quality preschool can close that gap. This has been known for many years.

The famous High/Scope Perry Preschool Study in Michigan demonstrated that. It charted the benefits for low-income, 3-and 4-year -old African American children of teacher-rich, small preschool groups, with health, nutrition and parent support programs. Later studies confirmed the impact.

In the Michigan study, children who got such help were (as they were followed through age 27) more likely to graduate, required fewer social services, were less likely to commit crimes and notably more likely to earn higher incomes and be productive taxpayers.

The study helped make the case for the successful federal Head Start program, which unfortunately, reaches less than half the eligible poor children in America. Head Start is not available to many low-and moderate-income children who could use it.

That's why states such as Georgia have offered support for preschool to all families who want it. Of course, parents who don't think preschool is right for their children are free to pursue their approach without interference.

But parents who yearn for what preschool could bring their children would be empowered to make that choice.

In New Jersey, where there has been some court-enforced progress on reducing class size, the Whitman administration continues to balk at a state Supreme Court order to offer more than basic "child care" to children in the 30 urban school districts the court has identified as at-risk.

They include Camden, Burlington City, Vineland, Millville, Bridgeton, Gloucester City, Pleasantville and Trenton.

Persuaded by studies and testimony from such academic early education experts as Professor Barnett, the Supreme Court ordered the state to provide "a well-planned, high-quality" early education program to make 47,000 children, ages 3 and 4, "education ready" for kindergarten by September.

Pennsylvania shouldn't wait for a court order to act on this issue. Other states with similar or fewer resources haven't waited. They've acted.

It's time.

Copyright 1999 PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS INC.

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