CINCINNATI
(October 18, 2010) A recent blog post
by 4C for Children
President/CEO Sallie Westheimer asks "Do we have the
collective will to elect people who will fund what we
know really works for the young children of our
community?" Here is the complete blog post.
"When will we act on what we
know to be true?" Those were the opening words of John
Pepper, retired Chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble
at a United Way luncheon for Southwest Ohio elected
officials and candidates. The point of the event was to
educate these decision-makers that "the most important
thing you will do during your time in the legislature is
to find, allocate and reallocate funding to early
childhood development."
Neither Mr. Pepper, nor the
other three CEOs who spoke at the gathering (Julie
Janson, Duke Energy; Kay Geiger, PNC Bank; James
Zimmerman, retired, Macy's) are fuzzy-headed social
service types. They insist on hard data when they make
decisions in their businesses, and they demand even more
precise data when it comes to identifying what works in
preparing people for success in school and life. Mr.
Zimmerman said, "As a business person who has made major
decisions based on less good data, I guarantee you, we
know what works--and that is quality early
childhood education and quality home visitation." The
data is indisputable.
Since 2006, based on specific
local strategies, there has been a 20 percent increase
in the percentage of children in Cincinnati achieving
target reading skills as they enter kindergarten.
Children who have been in a quality early childhood
education program for two or three years instead of one
are even more "ready" than those with just one year's
experience.
We also know that for children
who participate in quality home visitation, over 90
percent are on track developmentally, and over 70
percent of their mothers have returned to school or
gained a job.
Yet less than half of all young
children from low-income families are in early childhood
education programs and only about 18 percent of those
are in quality-rated programs. Less than 30 percent of
eligible at-risk families receive high-quality home
visitation services.
Our challenge in trying to
obtain adequate funding is that the payoff takes a long
time to show up in the data, and our collective
attention span is too short. Stockholders want a return
on investment by the next quarter. Voters want to turn
around a major problem before the next
election.
So here is the question: Do our
elected officials have the will to do what will really
matters for our society? Do we have the collective will
to elect people who will fund what we know really works
for the young children of our community?
