Lynchburg Business

Smart Beginnings Coalition, Part II: The Importance of Early Education

Issue: June 2010 by Daniel T. Richardson in Education

“All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.” -Maria Montessori

When we look at education, we ask ourselves what is important. We start to look at the many disparate elements that make a child’s education successful. The first stage in many children’s educational journey is preschool. The Smart Beginnings Coalition is an organization that seeks to level the playing field for children entering the school system through an immersion in a quality preschool program.

“The purpose of Smart Beginnings is to ensure school readiness for all Virginians. Children who enter school healthy and ready to learn are far more likely to be successful in school and later in life,” Eddie Williams, Director of Marketing and Communication for the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF), said. “Conversely, children who begin school ill-prepared to learn are not at all likely to do well and tend to have a much higher risk of dropping out, becoming teen parents and/or committing criminal acts.”

However beneficial it may be, preschool is not a panacea. It is one element in a child’s success, according to Williams.

“Many may not realize that early childhood education is but a component, albeit a very large one, of overall early childhood development,” he said. “Social, emotional and medical needs also play huge roles in the development of a child. Preschools—even those that are very high in quality—can only do so much. There must also be adequate parental involvement with each and every young child. Parents need to be aware that they are their child’s first teacher.”

So what does the Smart Beginnings coalition do for the Lynchburg region? Previous articles have discussed the Virginia Star Rating Initiative which, according to Dora Butler, the Southwest Program Officer for VECF, is a “Quality Rating Improvement System (which) defines standards and creates a framework for accountability, sets an early childhood program on a quality improvement path, establishes a network of support and outreach for early childhood professionals, provides incentives linked to achieving and maintaining quality standards and acts as a consumer education tool to improve information to families seeking childcare.”

This initiative currently works with 14 preschool centers in the City of Lynchburg, and serves to improve the overall quality of the pre-school programs above and beyond what state accreditation calls for. In addition, the Smart Beginnings Coalition shows it supports for the Lynchburg area by bringing together community stakeholders to improve preschool options.

“Smart Beginnings Central Virginia (SBCV) convened a Leadership Council of community decision makers and business leaders in January 2010 to support and advise a local early childhood initiative made up of representatives from diverse community stakeholders in early childhood development. SBCV developed and has initiated a community strategic plan to support school readiness for children in Lynchburg and the surrounding counties,” Butler said.

One of the ways that this initiative is trying to implement this is through the use of the “Gus Bus.” The “Gus Bus” is a mobile reading literacy program that travels throughout communities, providing story times and book checkout services to children. Through a Smart Beginnings partnership, “Gus Bus” teachers are able to travel throughout Lynchburg, conducting home visits and assisting with the reading literacy development of preschoolers. Part of these home visits utilize a learning kit that is tailored to the specific readiness level of the children being worked with, and over the past three years, has reached dozens of children.

“In 2008 and 2009, 87 children, ages birth to three years, were provided literacy services through Gus Bus,” Butler said.

So is the work of the Smart Beginnings Coalition making a difference in the lives of Lynchburg preschoolers? The Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) is a diagnostic tool first developed at the University of Virginia in 1997 that measures the basic components of reading literacy. In Lynchburg City, the PALS kindergarten scores have been improving over the past few years.

“In 2006, PALS K scores showed 18.7 percent of children entering Lynchburg City kindergartens were in need of additional remediation to assure readiness to succeed in school,” Butler explained. “In 2008, the number of Lynchburg children in need of additional support dropped to 14 percent.”

While these numbers do not necessarily look at the many nebulous factors that can affect early childhood success, it is nonetheless a promising statistic.

In 2009, the average costs to educate one child in Virginia was $8,725, making Virginia the 37^th out of the 51 states, including the District of Columbia, looked at. In addition, retention cost for unprepared kindergarten students are staggering.

“Virginia estimates the additional cost for each year of retention at $7,624 per child,” Butler said. “During the 2005-2006 school year, 9,000 Virginia students, from kindergarten to 3^rd grade, were repeating a year of their education. This resulted in an estimated additional cost of $80 million for education.”

With budget cuts affecting every facet of Virginia education, some may wonder whether a solid preschool program is worth the financial investment. While the negative effects of a missing preschool program will likely not be felt until the child is much further along in his or her education, there is research that supports the importance of preparing our children before they enter the mainstream educational system.

In an economic climate as difficult as this one, there are many complicated choices that need to be made by local governing bodies. Taxes and local educational funding issues are always tense subjects. With the high-stakes testing that takes place in school systems today, there is an unfortunate tendency to overlook the programs which provided that initial “leg-up” to many of our children. However, it is for this very reason that programs like Smart Beginnings Coalition exist—to provide support for, and to increase the effectiveness of, preschool initiatives. But this program also relies on local support.

“Local citizens can support Smart Beginnings by contacting their local Smart Beginnings initiative and volunteering their time,” Williams said. “Also, donations to the VECF (which supports the Smart Beginnings initiatives) are always welcome and are tax-deductible. Also, contact legislators and let them know the needs of Virginia’s youngest citizen are paramount to the future of the Commonwealth. By urging their representatives to support and fund the work of Smart Beginnings, they are doing much to ensure a prosperous, secure future not only for our children, but all citizens of Virginia.”

When we look at education, it’s important that we not look for a quick fix. Rather, it’s imperative to look at it as a long-term investment. Like any investment, there will be ups and downs, but the net result is so much more than students simply achieving high-test scores or getting good grades. It is the creation of an educated class of citizens capable of creating a better tomorrow for us all.