Minnesota has an enviable problem – how to spend a $9.25 billion fortune, the latest and greatest in a decade-long series of state budget surpluses.
While the governor, a Democratic House and a Republican Senate dicker and bicker over what to do with that windfall, 80 percent of preschool children living in poverty have yet to become even a footnote in state education spending.
That neglect must end. Now.
The $70 million in state money earmarked for early childhood scholarships hasn’t changed in four years. Neither has the grim outlook for 31,000 disadvantaged kids left behind by a state initiative too ill-funded to help every child in need.
It’s time for the state to double-down on early childhood education this year and, after measurable results show what that spending can accomplish, double spending on disadvantage kids again in the next biennial budget.
Study after study show that children, from birth to age 4, enrolled in quality early education are less likely to later drop out of school or run afoul of the law and more likely to be healthier and end up as reliable taxpayers with stable families.
If the governor and legislator can’t agree on a surplus spending plan by midnight, May 22, the state will be failing tens of thousands of kids who can’t wait another year to get a head start in education – and in life.
Investing in those kids is the best long-term investment the state can make, an estimated 16 percent rate of return – far higher than competing claims on public money.
The improved school outcomes for early ed for kids, age 3 and 4, are sustainable and well-established.
But preparing disadvantaged children for school – to learn how to learn – must begin even earlier, with pre-natal visits and recruiting parents to engage with their children from birth to their earliest years.
The latest research, published earlier this year, indicates an enriched environment literally can spark to life key regions of developing brains.
I recently moderated a panel that illustrated the promise stimulating even the youngest of minds. The session was sponsored by the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute at the University of Minnesota, a think tank dedicated to transforming research into tools of public policy.
Money can be a key element in changing the fortunes of the youngest living in poverty. An experiment, which already has spent $5 million raised from foundations and private donors, has yielding fascinating evidence of how infant brain maturity is affected by family income.
Using electronic imaging of the brain activity of 435 healthy one-year-olds born to low-income parents in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Omaha, New York City and New Orleans, the study is in its fourth year.
In a random lottery, the mostly Black and Latina mothers with incomes averaging about $20,000, were divided into two groups. One receives a monthly cash gift of $333. The other a token $20 a month.
The experiment, begun in June 2019, will continue with unconditional payments to mothers until the children are four years, four months old.
The study started with a simple premise, according to Katherine Magnuson, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Bill Kelley[/image_credit][image_caption]Art Rolnick[/image_caption]
The results visibly verified that idea.
Electronic scans, interpreted by neuroscientist, showed the brains of children literally lit up in regions associated with cognition. That is, if their mothers had received a 20 percent increase in family income from the $333 monthly checks.
Meanwhile, the electrical activity of the same areas of the brain were muted for kids in the families receiving only $20 a month.
In effect, children whose families got an economic boost also got a lift in brain development, Magnuson said.
“It’s the idea that even before you can really reliably assess cognitive development from figuring out how many numbers or words they know, what colors they understand, you can look at their brain activity and potentially get a glimpse of what’s to come,” she said.
Let’s awaken the brain waves of Minnesota’s political leaders with a call to action.
Improving the future of kids living in poverty is doable. Let’s do it.
Art Rolnick is a board member of the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute and retired director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
You have a child, you need to take care of that child. Taxpayers did not encourage you to have a child, taxpayers should not pay for that child. This entitlement attitude that you (taxpayers) must pay for my child comes from somewhere, not sure where? Personal responsibility has to kick in at some point and this have Government (taxpayers) pay for everything has to stop.
Joe, I am sorry for your pain. Do you not have anything you enjoy? Not even children? When you see a tree, do you need to cut it down? Do you run over squirrels on purpose?
“You have a child, you need to take care of that child. Taxpayers did not encourage you to have a child…”
Interesting, given that Republican taxpayers are in the process of forcing women (especially poor women) to have children. But that’s a different argument.
As a community, not only is it morally the right thing to do, but it makes financial sense to help give all young children the best start possible to encourage them to be successful citizens later in life. They are our future. The greatest amount of learning in a person’s lifetime takes place in the first 5 years. If you’re concerned about crime, helping provide children a more stable, safe, and nurturing environment leads to better self regulation and decision-making skills.
As stated in the article: “Study after study show that children, from birth to age 4, enrolled in quality early education are less likely to later drop out of school or run afoul of the law and more likely to be healthier and end up as reliable taxpayers with stable families…Investing in those kids is the best long-term investment the state can make, an estimated 16 percent rate of return – far higher than competing claims on public money.”
Personally, I’d much rather invest in children’s quality of life now rather than dumping more money into the system to fix bigger problems later.
Thanks Joe, even if you are a bot.
Unfortunately for you or your operating system, there are a lot of people that do care about children. And super unfortunately for you or your operating system if you are in fact a bot, they happen to be taxpayers. And this is what they want to spend their tax money on.
Well, no, the taxpayers obviously don’t care about the children given the current underfunding of schools. And are moderators even reading these comments?
Do you think that applies only to women who do the heavy lifting to raise children? How many pregnancies result from men who will do anything to have sex, including lie or commit a crime, with no intention of financially or emotionally supporting the mother and child. Some men actually pretend to wear condoms and secretly remove them to enhance their pleasure. That needs to be added to the list if sex crimes men commit against women.
Are you pro-life? You are certainly not pro-child. People other than your parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of their time to get you to adulthood. You think you shouldn’t have to return the favor because you want to have more money to spend on yourself? The suggestion that parents should raise their children assumes kids have more than one.
See the world as it is.
“Some men actually pretend to wear condoms and secretly remove them to enhance their pleasure.”
Cites please. This I absolutely have to see.
Are you over 18, and do you have a major credit card?
Dude, it’s a really big problem, and is considered sexual assault. It’s not hard to look things up. Unfortunately, since I can’t paste links into the chat box, you’ll have to do this on your own. The practice is called “steal thing” and there was a large study published about it in 2017. NPR, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Vice,The Week, HuffPo and The Independent have all written articles about it, and the challenges that new laws have to combat it. Honestly it baffles me how lazy people are when it comes to looking things up
Dude, it’s a really big problem, and is considered sexual assault. It’s not hard to look things up. Unfortunately, since I can’t paste links into the chat box, you’ll have to do this on your own. The practice is called “steal thing” and there was a large study published about it in 2017. NPR, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Vice,The Week, HuffPo and The Independent have all written articles about it, and the challenges that new laws have to combat it. Honestly it baffles me how lazy people are when it comes to looking things up.
We have known about the enormous value of early childhood education for some time now, a value to both the kids and society. It helps remedy deficiencies of the childhood learning environment and lack of learning opportunity in many homes. Mr. Rolnick brings forward an additional remedy: direct financial aid to disadvantaged families combined with motivation of parents for their children’s learning.
This is such an important subject. Look at all the troubles we’re experiencing in our American society: crime, shortage of employable workers, lack of civic engagement and loss of trust in government. Obviously we can no longer count on mere personal responsibility to deal with such matters. Undertaking public responsibility for early childhood education and fostering a family environment for child learning is the means to progress beyond these issues.
I am all for early childhood education. But this takes it to a new level. Paying a woman to have a child, starting at birth. This is called cradle to grave, and Europe is getting rid of it.
It is not societies responsibility to raise your child. If you can’t raise your child don’t have one. Years ago we had orphanages. Why can’t we resurrect that concept, but obviously upgrade substantially. Many people are waiting to adopt. If you have a baby and can not afford to raise it, that is an option.
This is a far left Democratic concept. The centrist Democrats ( of which I am one) will not support this. And neither will Independents
I can’t even fathom the idiocy of your comment. Do you have any idea how many unwanted children never get adopted? Do you actually know how many kids actually AGE OUT of the foster care system because no one wanted them? Perhaps you should go watch some documentaries on orphanages and educate yourself on all the abuse of children that happened in them.
Society functions better when we all support children, from birth to adulthood. That includes early childhood education and healthcare, making sure young kids are properly engaged and socializing with their peers. I don’t care how amazing a parent a person may be, he or she does not raise their children alone. It takes a village – parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, teachers, friends/parents of friends, coaches, tutors, etc.
By the way – centrist Democrats are the biggest problem in our party today – get out of the way and let the progressives lead.
Nobody “waits” to adopt, they choose to not adopt older children, in favor of a desired infant. Orphanages are nothing more than private child prisons, allowing a greedy few to profit off the misfortune of innocent children, I daresay there aren’t many of your fellow “centrists” interested in that look either.
Having the Government (taxpayers) be responsible for children from birth on is a recipe for disaster. They can’t figure out basic economic issues, or how to keep baby formula on shelves. This would be another boondoggle with the promise of great results, that ain’t happening!!
Children are your responsibility, not the taxpayers. This idiotic idea that Big Brother Big Government will make everything ok is not popular (a few Lefties like it), let’s hope it stays that way.
“They can’t figure out basic economic issues, or how to keep baby formula on shelves.”
Seems to me that the hallowed private sector has some agency in that regard.
This article leaves out some important info–those gains tend to fall off by the 4th grade. They have found the parent/caregiver element is huge to help sustain children’s learning. Simply putting in early childhood education is not the answer. Surely expanding kindergarten and having a universal starting at age 4 program would help. But you need strong parenting.
“Study after study show that children, from birth to age 4”
I must agree that about 25-50% of our population produces children that they can’t afford. The government would be wise to take these children until age 4, when they will enter the school system until age 18 under the present “parental” system. “Orphanage” has a negative stereotype but some other name will do as long as the children are in a government system becoming all that they can be.
You may have that backwards. If 25-50% of adults ages 18-40 can’t afford to have children it qualifies as a massive failure of our society. Rather than blaming adults for being poor maybe we can figure out why a plurality of adults receive such substandard wages that they cannot support a family.
Don’t confuse them with the paradox of the economic system they favor requiring a low wage labor pool vs them not wanting that low wage labor pool to reproduce. Don’t you know they want those poor folks to stay poor, they just demand that they acknowledge that they deserve it.
Education begins at birth, 5 minutes prior to birth its just a product of conception.
Makes perfect.sense
Speaking of kid’s health, is that picture meant to be an oblique statement about the futility, absurdity and pointlessness of making kids wear masks (not to mention vaccinating them?)