By: Jacob Mittelstaedt, Tanner Tatarek and Jason Leadley

Community Engaged Learning Right now it is hard for us to really make a solid connection. From my training I’ve learned a couple things. Literacy through many methods Multiple homework supports Having a relationship We cannot say much more than this.

Introduction to the Issue We looked at the how inequalities affect early childhood education and the following effects. We also looked at the economic effects of a quality early childhood education. We took a look at how politics are currently at play in the discussion of early childhood education. Finally, we looked at how it connected to other issues we have been talking about in class. We looked at possible solutions with the Head Start Program

James Heckman Prevent the achievement gap Improve health outcomes Boost earnings Makes dollars and sense Investing in underprivileged youths learning and developmental programs can help improve the workforce, national economy, and strengthen the middle class. Early childhood development and education can help achieve this in four ways Prevent the achievement gap- the gap starts early in education, this takes a proactive approach. More economically efficient. It can improve health outcomes- students at lower risk for cardiovascular and metabolic disease (health care costs) It can boost earnings- Earnings in adulthood can be boosted by up to 25% It makes dollars and sense- There is an economic return of about 7-10% (reduced crime)

Politics Education as a whole is usually a big talking point in politics Early Childhood education and Head Start programs have been growing more relevant

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the broadest quantitative measure of a nation's total economic activity. This measure represents the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a nation over a specified period of time. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a group of 34 member countries that discuss and develop economic and social policy. These members are democratic countries that support free market economies similar to the United States.

Obama’s Plan His law proposal Calls on Congress to expand access to high-quality preschool for every child in America Wants significant investment in early head start-child care partnership Expand voluntary home visiting Zip code should never predetermine the quality of any child’s educational opportunities His plan to the country was to improve quality and expand access to preschool through a cost sharing partnership with all 50 states. Expanding federal funds to grow the high-quality public preschools across the country by reaching all lower incoming four-years olds that are below poverty lines. It also will encourage states to expand the availability of full- day kindergarten. Calls for significant investment in early head start-child care partnership He also is calling for expanding voluntary home visiting by professionals that connect families to different services and educational support to improve a child’s well being, development and ability to learn He feels that zip codes should never predetermine the quality of any child’s educational opportunities President Obama has made historic investments in the Head Start and Early Head Start programs that reach children all across the country He has put in place benchmarks for these programs by rewarding states that have agreed to raise the bar on the quality of their early childhood education programs. These include raising standards across programs that impact health, nutrition, mental health and family support

The Campaign: Childcare and Early Childhood education Clinton’s Plan Child Care No Family should Spend more than 10% Wants to boost federal spending Early Childhood Education Make preschool universal for all 4-year olds Trump’s Plan Child Care Reduce cost of child care by allowing parents to deduct the average cost of child-care from taxes Early Childhood Education Not Discussed this topic yet Child Care: Trump said in august that he would reduce the cost of childcare by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child-care spending from their taxes. As a tax deduction, rather than a tax credit, trump’s plan would primarily help more affluent households. Early Childhood Education: Not discussed this topic yet to the public Trump in the debate talked about youth in the inner city and the disadvantages that they have, and the poor living coditions they have been exposed to. Child Care: Hillary proposed that no family should spend more than 10 percent of the family income on child care. To do this she wants to boost federal spending on childcare and provide “tax relief for the cost of childcare to working families. Has not offered many details about the specifics yet Early Childhood Education: She wants to make preschool available for all 4-year-olds. She also wants to double the number of children enrolled in Early Head Start (Program that provides early education services to low-income families). Not described yet how she would pay for these efforts

Oklahoma's Early Education Model “A wealth of research has shown the effort has improved these students’ academic, cognitive and emotional abilities, which researchers attribute to a strongly supported programs with higher standards.” The bill in place in 1998 gave more funding to schools that enrolled 4 year olds and allowed school districts to collaborate with federally-funded Head Start programs, churches and other outside organizations to share resources. Research shows that this program is working as kids who have enrolled in this program have out performed those who don’t, on racial and class lines This program that is put in place is very surprising because it is a very conservative state, but this idea is very liberal. This program took a lot of time to get off the ground This law also made sure the teachers were certified to teach and had a college education and got paid as much as K-12 teachers Even with all of this we have to take funding into consideration throughout the entire process. (where it comes from and how much)

Head Start Programs

Head Start Program United States Department of Human Services Early childhood education, health, nutrition and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families. 80% of kids involved in the program are from ages 3-4. Evolving program with language translation as population of US changes. Found that kids develop both cognitively and with social capital skills. Kids are more likely to attend school and less likely be chronically absent.

Findings on Head Start Papers: The Currie and Thomas paper & Garces et al paper both did studies on poor pre-school aged children. They found: head start programs do result in higher test scores for students who attended regardless of race. However, for long term effect on test scores it was found this effect “fades out more quickly for black children than white children” Why is this? The studied showed that black children who attended head start go on to attend worse quality schools. Whites children w/ head start: “higher chance to complete high school, attend college, and higher earnings in early twenties” Black children w/ head start: “less likely to be booked or charged with a crime when compared to siblings, overall higher chance to attend college”

Facts on attending head start program: Higher chance of graduating high school, attending college, and receiving post- secondary degree More ready for school/kindergarten Head start kids have higher math test scores in 8th grade Better social-emotional, language, and cognitive development than control group 5th grade students in head start had high mean scores in 5th grade than control group on all academic and executive function outcome Head start programs make the difference.

T.E.A.C.H. Program T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Mission Statement: “Implements and sustains programs and strategies that result in a well educating, fairly compensated, and stable early childhood workforce to ensure long term success of our nation’s children in school and life.” What does this mean? Benefitting the teachers, benefits the students Solving high turnover rates, < 8% Keeping teachers in school “For every $1.00 invested in high quality early childhood education, you save $17.00 down the road.”

Questions Hearing about the different strategies for Early Childhood education that the candidates proposed, what things did you like? What did you dislike? What things were missed? Thoughts on the findings of the head start studies?

TED Talk The speaker is Timothy Bartik. He is an economist with many similar ideas to Heckman https://www.ted.com/talks/timothy_bartik_the_economic_case_for_preschool#t-354353

TED Talk question Are we willing to pay more taxes now to improve our communities long term future?