More research shows that pre-school funding is a wise investment for Michigan

Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn’t expected to unveil her proposed state budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal  year until next month. But meanwhile, an effort to remind the governor and state legislators of the extreme value of early childhood education is gearing up to help keep the budget ax as far away as possible from the state’s pre-school program. And some advocates even hold out hope that Lansing policy-makers might modestly increase the size of the state’s present investment of about $90 million per year.

At least some of that hope can now be traced to an announcement earlier today by State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan regarding the result of a new major study of the state’s pre-school efforts over the past quarter century. The predictable but still significant conclusion of the study conducted by the Minnesota-based Wilder Foundation is that the public investment over the past 25 years saved the state more than $1 billion in 2009.

The savings stem from kids who reap the benefit of quality pre-school and are then much less likely to repeat grades, in addition to spending less on kids entering the juvenile justice system or, later on, adult prisons, according to the Wilder Foundation study.

That’s a blockbuster return on the taxpayers’ investment, especially when you consider that the state’s future is wrapped up in those numbers.

According to the Detroit News’ account of the morning press conference, Flanagan argues that due to basic neurological development, the younger the child when the state makes its investment, the better: 

“We spend about a billion dollars a grade, and we don’t spend it where you get the biggest bang for the buck and the greatest brain development for the kids,” Flanagan said at this morning’s press conference. “There is an economic cost for failing to prepare kids for school.”

The study’s conclusion also spells out the dire consequences of “discontinued or reduced” public investment in the state Early Childhood Investment Corp., a public nonprofit that coordinates the state’s pre-school programs:

Michigan has made substantial investments in school readiness over the past 25 years and, accordingly, has reaped the benefits of adequately preparing many children for school success, resulting in more than a billion dollars in annual savings and revenues. If the state’s current investments in school readiness were discontinued or reduced, these annual savings and revenues would subsequently erode, causing a significant negative impact on the State of Michigan’s future annual budgets and overall economy. Conversely, those benefits will rise if the state sustains its current level of investment and will increase exponentially as a result of increased investment in the Great Start Readiness Program, Great Start system, and other high-quality and comprehensive programs that promote early educational preparation.

According to a telling quote from Andy Heller, the ECIC spokesman, published in today’s Grand Rapids Press, Granholm and state lawmakers are clearly the main target of the new research:

“Tax dollars are increasingly scarce…  [and] Lansing needs data to set spending priorities, and research shows that early childhood programs are a sound investment.”