For economic growth in Fort Worth, focus on birth to age 5

The future success of Fort Worth depends on a skilled workforce and a healthy, safe and productive community. Providing quality education and development opportunities for all of our children from birth to age 5 is the single most effective action we can take to promote a strong economy and ensure a thriving community.

As noted by Lyn Lucas in an earlier op-ed (“Earlier is important: The years before pre-K matter even more,” April 23), 90 percent of a human’s brain develops by age 5.

And as the brain develops, so does a child’s roadmap for the future. Children with healthy development and quality learning during these early years are more likely to graduate high school, be socially, emotionally and physically healthy and have a higher earning potential in their later years.

Conversely, children who lack quality development from birth to age five are at a higher risk of negative outcomes such as incarceration, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school and suffering a multitude of health problems.

Mayor Betsy Price has named an Education Advisory Committee composed of businesses, foundations and community advocates focused on education in Fort Worth. As the mayor states, “earlier is better” when it comes to providing a solid educational foundation for our children.

We hope to elevate the early education discussion to encompass not only families with young children, but every engaged citizen who is a stakeholder in Fort Worth’s success.

The family environment plays a key role in how children gain this learning and development. In a groundbreaking study, researchers found that by age 3, children from low-income families are exposed to 30 million fewer words than their high-income counterparts, which translates to long-term performance discrepancies.

Quality early childhood education — whether administered at home or in a formal child care setting — has proven to help prevent this achievement gap in a manner that is much more effective and cost-efficient than trying to close it later on.

Research from Nobel Prize winner and University of Chicago economics professor James Heckman and others shows that more than any other later-stage interventions — including reduced pupil-teacher ratios, remedial education and job-training initiatives — quality early childhood education programs for disadvantaged children offer the most value and provide the highest return on investment.

The latest reports from the renowned Perry Preschool Study show that investments in quality early childhood programs can return over $16 for every dollar invested, in the form of increased school and job success and saved costs related to healthcare, incarceration and criminal expenditures and remedial education.

Heckman’s research also underscores the premise that we must develop a wide range of skills — both cognitive and social — in order to become productive members of society.

Although there is an increased emphasis on measuring cognitive ability, particularly in the school setting, critical character skills such as attentiveness, motivation, persistence, self-control and sociability are undeniably linked to success in the classroom, relationships and the workplace.

Quality early childhood education couples cognitive and socioemotional skill building, developing the “whole child” in order to drive future learning and life success.

Creating a quality early childhood environment also requires acknowledging parents’ pivotal influence and role as primary teacher in their children’s lives. This means offering support not only to children ages 0-5, but families as well, by making parent coaching, education and training resources available and accessible.

As we adopt a cross-sector approach to promoting economic prosperity in Fort Worth, we need to equip all of our children and families with resources that facilitate quality early development and educational attainment, which, in turn, lays the foundation for a productive career, healthy adulthood and thriving community.

Investment in early childhood isn’t just about education. It’s about our local economy. Let’s work together to shape a brighter future for our children and our city.

Grant Coates is president and CEO of The Miles Foundation.

This story was originally published July 14, 2015 at 5:42 PM with the headline "For economic growth in Fort Worth, focus on birth to age 5."