The Economic Power of Early Childhood Education

Rob Grunewald and Don Bezruki:

Early childhood education is one of the most cost-effective and potent economic development tools available. Investment in young children supports economic development by boosting the long-run productivity of the labor force and reducing public costs. In the cold calculus of economic analysis, repeated studies have not only confirmed the long-term value of early childhood education, but its economic payback has been estimated as high as $16 for every $1. Early childhood education programs can provide high rates of return when:

They are of proven high quality.
They reach children in greatest need, such as children in poverty.
They reach children well before they start kindergarten.

The YoungStar program, launched in 2010, is Wisconsin's attempt to leverage existing state and federal funding for childcare subsidies for low-income families to improve the quality of the state's thousands of child care providers and to help parents make better-informed, quality-based decisions when they select a child care provider for their children.
In 2010, Wisconsin paid over $293 million to child care providers that enrolled children from low-income families through the Wisconsin Shares program. The Wisconsin Shares subsidies program began during Wisconsin's welfare reform in the 1990s to help parents on public assistance afford child care and join the work force.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 29, 2012 1:39 AM
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