Erie Times: Op-ed: PA children, employers need quality pre-k
June 23, 2017 by Robin Scheppner
A lot has changed since 1931 when American Tinning & Galvanizing incorporated in Erie. Our company has been specializing in corrosion control of metal since then, but in 2004 we undertook the rigorous process of becoming certified by the National Aerospace Defense Contractors Accreditation Program. With NADCAP certification, ATG successfully competes for aerospace work outside the Erie region from companies such as Bell Helicopter and others.
ATG now has the credentials and customer base but still struggles to find quality workers. Public education does not offer courses or training in metal finishing (electroplating, anodizing and galvanizing). ATG, and other metal finishers in Erie, must recruit and train their workforces.
Expertise in this industry is a result of on-the-job training. For an employee to excel, he or she must be able to read! NADCAP requirements spell out detailed work guidelines that identify each step of production, from being checked in at the loading dock, assigned a job number, transferred to the proper department, processed according to stringent procedures, quality inspected, packed and checked out for shipping. Any worker, at any of these steps, must be able to read specific directions, comprehend them and be accountable for the signoff at completion.
How does this relate to prekindergarten education? Erie County employers, like ATG, require an educated, motivated workforce to be successful and competitive. There’s widespread recognition that workforce development starts with high quality pre-K that puts our children on the path to reading proficiency and success in school and life.
Pre-K matters because 90 percent of brain development occurs before age 5. Young children need the carefully crafted enrichment activities found in a quality pre-K setting that strengthen the brain’s neurological pathways and make a child kindergarten-ready. Quality early learning forms the foundation for future learning, critical thought, socialization and, in the long run, employability. Yet, too many children, especially those from lower-income families, never get that chance.
Fortunately, there is a solution. Investments in high-quality pre-K give all children a strong start and yield immediate, long-lasting returns to society.
High-quality pre-K reduces grade repetition and special education placements in later grades, saving resources that schools can spend elsewhere.
Children who benefit from high-quality pre-K are less likely to drop out of school and more likely to graduate and attend postsecondary education. This powerful combination boosts their employment opportunities, earning power and employability, while reducing the community’s costs for social services.
Every dollar spent in Pennsylvania on early learning generates an additional 79 cents in other sectors of the economy. Viewed from another perspective, every dollar invested in high-quality pre-K returns up to $17 in long-term savings and benefits.
A well-respected, independent cost-benefit analysis of almost 20 different studies of high-quality pre-K programs showed that pre-K can return, on average, a “profit” (economic benefits minus costs) to society of nearly $30,000 for every child served.
Despite the evidence, Pennsylvania’s investment in early learning is lagging. More than 112,900 eligible preschool children aren’t served by high-quality, publicly funded pre-K. That’s 64 percent of children ages 3 to 5 who probably aren’t getting the enrichment that boosts their prospects for lifetime success. Chances are, we will never benefit from their future contributions to our businesses and neighborhoods.
Throughout Pennsylvania, the unmet need is felt sharply in every community, whether rural, urban or suburban. In Erie County, more than 48 percent of all eligible children living in low-income families don’t have the opportunity to learn in a high-quality pre-K classroom. It’s very possible that this missed opportunity will change lifelong outcomes for those children.
Organizations like the United Way of Erie County are making strategic investments in early learning programs across our community, recognizing that access to quality pre-K is essential for all children. Erie’s Future Fund is another effort to address this unmet need by providing scholarships for quality pre-K programs for low-income 3- and 4-year-old children.
Yet, far too many children in Erie County, and across the state, lack access to publicly funded quality pre-K programs. To learn more about your school district, go to the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children’s recently released report, “A Path Forward,” at www.papartnerships.org/prekinpa.
For ATG and other employers across the commonwealth, our youngest citizens represent our future workforces and the community’s potential entrepreneurs. With high-quality pre-K, children will be better prepared to learn to read, and then better equipped for academic success. There can be more certainty that they will grow into self-sufficient adults who contribute to our workplaces and communities.
It’s time for Harrisburg to commit to public investments in quality pre-K that close the opportunity gap. Kids who are ready to learn become adults who are ready to earn at companies like ATG that want to stay and thrive in Pennsylvania.
Robin Scheppner is the owner and president of American Tinning & Galvanizing and a board member of the United Way of Erie County.
Read the full op-ed here.
York Daily Record: Pre-K funding increase would help York students
June 22, 2017
In the City of York, where many families struggle to overcome poverty, quality pre-kindergarten fills gaps in learning during those crucial developmental years before kindergarten. For instance, well-known studies show that children from low-income families hear far fewer words than their more affluent peers.
We’re looking to close the gaps when students come to us in terms of their ability levels, in terms of their exposure to colors, to the alphabet, to words they should be hearing by the time they enter kindergarten. Our students need that preparation, and we believe we can give it to them through pre-k.
Among quality pre-k offerings citywide, our district runs at least one pre-k in each of its K-8 buildings, and we want more, because we need to better prepare our students for school. Of our 13 pre-k classrooms, 11 are funded by Pre-K Counts, and two are district-funded. Even the district’s state-ordered recovery plan, approved in 2016, cites expanded pre-k access as a steppingstone toward improved literacy, better test scores and higher graduation rates.
We are already seeing positive results from high-quality pre-k.
In third- and fourth-grade PSSA results, students who experienced the district’s pre-k showed significantly higher average scores in reading and math than their peers who hadn’t been in the program. Until third grade, students have been learning to read. At third grade, they’re reading to learn. If you don’t learn to read and don’t have those skills to start with, you won’t see the same progress that you see with kids who may have had more opportunities when they were younger.
Quality pre-k is a valuable, valuable resource. Its value comes in providing extra assistance that puts at-risk children at the starting line with everyone else, so they can successfully compete in the race. What we’re seeing is kids who start a few yards behind the starting line, and they never catch up.
Teachers notice that children from quality pre-k know how the classroom works and the expectations. More importantly, they have the skills that the kids without pre-k don’t possess. They’re not as far behind. Quality pre-k even promotes active parent participation in the elementary years by instilling the importance of family in educational success.
I don’t know what we would do without our pre-k program. It is helping us and closing that achievement gap. If we were able to expand it even more, we would have a greater impact on those children coming to us as 4-year-olds. Whether we capture them or they go to some other quality program, the most important part is that all those kids gain the skills needed to enter kindergarten ready to learn.
That is why I support Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to increase funding for early childhood education and encourage legislators to make it a top budget priority.
In this year’s budget, the governor has proposed a $75 million increase for Pre-K Counts and Head Start programs; an increase that would allow 8,400 additional children the opportunity at a high-quality pre-k education. I encourage legislators in Harrisburg to make this increased investment in early education a priority.
Eric Holmes is superintendent of the School District of the City of York.
Read the column here.
Main Line Suburban Times: LTE: Pre-K for PA – Getting Bang for Your Tax Bucks
June 19, 2017
To the Editor:
“No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks!” Do you remember chanting this each June as I do? Well, for are most vulnerable pre-K students in Radnor, there may be no pencils, books, or teachers in their near future.
Would you believe that 139 Radnor 3- and 4-year who qualify for publicly funded, high-quality pre-K have not one single funded seat? In Delaware County, we need 231 more classrooms to serve every eligible child. According to the Pennsylvania Partnership for Children, nearly two-thirds of the children who qualify for pre-K education are shut out.
Why high-quality pre-K? It works! Early learning helps children to build the foundation for academics, social behavior, and emotional health. Because the brain develops most rapidly between birth and age 5, the right kind of environment makes a difference that lasts a lifetime. Children who have high-quality preschool are:
• More likely to advance grades in school and have improved social skills;
• Less likely to need special education placements;
• More likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college, amping up their employment possibilities and lifetime earning potential; and
• Less likely to commit crimes later in life.
By reducing needs through high quality pre-K learning, every dollar spent returns $17 in long-term savings and benefits. Educators spend less time, energy and tax dollars remediating needs that could have been mitigated by pre-K opportunities. Everyone reaps the rewards when all children, especially those who start life with disadvantages, are given a chance to succeed.
Data like this has prompted State legislators and policy makers to expand access for pre-K learning. Although Governor Wolf prioritized pre-K in his proposed budget, the recently passed House budget reduced new investments by two-thirds and cut childcare by $28 million. Now is the time to contact your Pennsylvania legislators and urge them to invest in our children and our future. Call for the additional funds to serve an additional 8400 eligible children and improve childcare with an additional $35 million. Our tax dollars reap lifelong benefits when spent for eligible pre-K students along with their pencils, their books and hopefully their teacher’s nurturing looks!
Roberta Winters
Rosemont
Read the letter to the editor here.
PennLive: Editorial: Legislature, Wolf should act responsibly on funding for pre-k programs
June 16, 2017
Pennsylvania lawmakers and the Wolf administration are now less than two weeks away from the statutory deadline to pass a new state budget.
As they run a fine-toothed comb through hundreds of line items in those laborious talks that will result in a final spending plan for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, we’d ask them to keep one worthy cause at the front of their minds.
And that’s state support for early childhood education, those critical programs that can have such an impact on a child’s future success or failure as a student.
In his budget proposal to lawmakers in February, Wolf, a Democrat, asked for a $75 million increase to two critical programs — Pre-K Counts and Head Start.
An alternative budget passed by the Republican-controlled House in April whittled that increase down to $25 million.
That spending plan is now before the state Senate, where the Republican chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Sen. Pat Browne, of Lehigh County, has rightfully earned a reputation as a forceful advocate for those programs.
That $75 million increase would fund pre-kindergarten seats for 8,400 additional students, according to Pre-K for Pa., an advocacy group. Growing that investment by an additional $340 million by the 2020-21 budget year would serve every child in Pennsylvania who is eligible for those programs.
While the commonwealth now makes a significant investment in those programs, it does have ground to make up.
A recent study by National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University shows that 19 states and Washington D.C. each make a higher per-capital investment in high-quality preschool programs.
Pennsylvania invests $682.17 per child, the study found. Fifteen states invest more than $1,000 per child, including such economic competitors as New Jersey and New York, the study found.
“Sixty-four percent, two-thirds basically, of Pennsylvania 3- and 4-year-olds who are eligible for high-quality pre-k still don’t get the opportunity to attend. Why? Because we don’t invest enough state money,” Joan Benso, of the advocacy group Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, told PennLive’s Jan Murphy last month.
Yes, it’s true that the state faces a $3 billion deficit. And it’s true that lawmakers and Wolf will have to make some tough choices as they balance the books.
But among the many priorities that the two sides will attempt to fund, none is more important than education. And that investment, we’d add, is mandated by the Pennsylvania constitution.
Article III, Section 14 of the document holds that “the General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.”
There is no more efficient a delivery system for ensuring future success than a well-funded regime of early-childhood education programs.
Agreement on that truth goes beyond the partisan divide, it also stretches to officials who often deal with those who fail in school: prosecutors and the head of Pennsylvania’s state prison system.
Both Cumberland County District Attorney David J. Freed, who’s hardly soft on crime, and Corrections Secretary John E. Wetzel have spoken out on behalf of adequate funding.
Making sure kids get off to a good start in school will keep them in the classroom and out of trouble, they have said.
“Early learning programs are a ‘fork in the road’ opportunity to reduce the number of future criminals by placing more at-risk children on a secure path to school and life success,” Freed said in a 2016 interview.
An adequate statewide investment would also level the playing field between Pennsylvania school districts.
Right now, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Pennsylvania 3- and 4-year-olds do not have access to quality pre-kindergarten programs.
n House Majority Leader David Reed’s Indiana County-based district, for instance, nearly 4 in 10 eligible students do not have access to such programs. But in Rep. Greg Rothman’s Cumberland County-based 87th District, more than 9 in 10 children eligible children are also missing out.
There’s little doubt that these programs cost money – worthwhile investments rarely come cheap.
Still, in these our polarized times, it’s rare to find such bipartisan agreement on any budget-related item.
And given its implications for the state’s long-term economic and social welfare, it’s a topic that Wolf and lawmakers must seriously consider as they work to pass a final budget document.
See the editorial here.
Lehigh Valley Business: Report links workers’ reliability to preschool attendance
June 12, 2017 by Brenda Lange
It stands to reason that, at least in some professions, the most successful employees have the highest level of education.
It may surprise some to discover that in many cases, the most desirable employees have received the highest-quality preschool education.
Over several decades, through various studies and anecdotal evidence, it has been shown that the type of education a child receives before entering kindergarten gauges how well he or she will fare in the workplace later in life.
On the surface, the connection seems clear. A quality preschool education increases a child’s chances of succeeding in later schooling and in life. They are more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to become involved in criminal activities and are more likely to find a good job and earn more income.
Other studies, including several reported in a 2015 New York Times article, say that any gains made in pre-K programs disappear or even out by the third grade. The difference, according to the article by David L. Kirp, is the quality of the education, and, of course, the amount of money spent on the program.
LANDMARK STUDY
A seminal study in the mid-1960s involved 123 low-income, African-American children. Half received a quality preschool education and the control group received none.
By the time the children reached age 40, the differences were dramatic, according to a 2010 article in Wired citing the Perry Preschool Experiment.
“Adults assigned to the preschool program were 20 percent more likely to have graduated from high school and 19 percent less likely to have been arrested more than five times. They got much better grades, were more likely to remain married and were less dependent on welfare programs,” Jonah Lehrer wrote.
The study also showed that the adults who had been well-educated as 3- and 4-year olds didn’t maintain higher IQ scores. Instead, their education improved “performance on a variety of noncognitive abilities, such as self-control, persistence and grit.”
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL SKILLS
Area businesspeople and human resource professionals agreed.
“Developing positive social-emotional skills affect one’s success in the workplace, where daily interactions with others are unavoidable,” said Don Bernhard, retired director of community affairs at PPL Corp. and now the executive director of Downtown Allentown Community Development Initiative.
He also has been a member of the board of Community Services for Allentown for 22 years, where he serves on the Governor’s Early Learning Commission, which advocates for and engages other businesses to provide more funding for early childhood education.
“There is a cost-effectiveness to investing in early childhood education,” he said, “especially for children growing up in poverty and suffering the stress that goes along with that. There are studies that show that stress reactions of dealing with everyday life affects their learning.”
LAST FOR A LIFETIME
Bernhard conceded that quality programs for the youngest students are not cheap, but, he added, “compare that to what it costs to get someone back on track later in life.”
Through such education, 3- and 4-year-olds learn how to manage emotions and solve problems, develop flexibility, communication skills, teamwork, perseverance and empathy – a checklist of what it takes to make a good employee.
“There is compelling evidence that these high-quality, early childhood education programs help develop these skills and that they last for a lifetime,” Bernhard said. “They are highly relevant to people who are hiring.”
The Allentown Community Development Initiative coordinates the efforts of many larger companies in Allentown that want to ensure the newfound prosperity in the city’s business sector carries over into the surrounding areas.
EMPATHY TOPS THE LIST
Jon Conrad, vice president of human resources at Moravian College in Bethlehem, cited one quality that makes an overall desirable employee: empathy.
“An employee who is empathetic is a better employee than someone who only thinks about their own wellbeing,” Conrad said. “That’s just one trait, along with discipline and compassion, that is learned early by children who have good examples.”
He added that employers who exhibit the culture of positive emotional-social skills will often attract employees who fit into that culture.
“Such a supportive environment allows parent-employees to be more supportive of their children,” which creates a matching environment, Conrad said.
TEAM PLAYERS
Of course, a hiring manager has no way of knowing if an applicant was taught in a Head Start program, for example, which not only helps youngsters develop coping skills and personal and social development among other traits, but also measures results.
HR professionals are, however, well-versed in the STAR interview technique, which stands for “situation, task, action, result.” Interview questions are phrased to elicit information about a prospective employee’s character traits that tie back to social-emotional skills children learn when young.
Bernard agreed. A company’s success most often hinges not on “rock-star” employees, but rather on the development of a group of team players who know how to collaborate.
“Developing empathy, ethics, how to be a decent human being is easier when young, just like learning languages,” he said.
Read the article here.
