AT THE beginning of MSNBC’s weeklong Education Nation summit, educators deliberated the state of American education and the many challenges affecting the nation’s schools.

There was lots of hand-clapping and plenty of “Amen” moments as the teachers, gathered from schools across the country, stepped to the microphones, offering insights into our classrooms and proposing solutions reforming the way we educate our children.

But amid the talk of greater teacher accountability, charter schools and teachers unions, the meeting’s biggest wave of applause was provoked by a comment from Art Costa, a Connecticut middle-school teacher who suggested that President Obama “flood the country with early-childhood education money.”

Even if they’ve never seen the statistics touting its benefits, America’s teachers understand the value and importance of high-quality early-childhood education programs – they live the results every school day.

Research confirms the benefits of children attending these programs. Upon entering kindergarten, they have better language, reading, math and social skills.

They also have higher scores on standardized tests and higher graduation rates, and fewer grade retentions and less remediation.

Early-childhood education helps parents, too.

Access to high-quality child care translates into higher earnings and more job stability for employees, both single- and two-parent working families. And common sense tells us that a parent who is worried about his or her child during the workday is going to be distracted and experience higher rates of absenteeism.

In the five-county Philadelphia region, just 17 percent (1 in 6) of 3- and 4-year olds were enrolled in publicly funded pre-kindergarten in 2009.

Only 2 percent of children from birth to age 5 in this region have access to high-quality child care, according to the state’s Keystone STARS system for rating quality child care.

Lyndon Johnson, the only 20th century president who was a teacher, recognized the importance of education before embarking on a career in politics.

Haunted by the “first lessons in poverty” he saw in his native Texas, Johnson created the Head Start program.

WHEN HE returned to that same elementary school some 38 years later, extolling the new reading, health and child-nutrition programs ushered in as a result of the legislation he championed, Johnson told the students, “If your education falters or fails, everything else that we attempt as a nation will fail. If you fail, America will fail.”

From Johnson’s vision in 1965 to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s foresight in appointing a business commission that supported early-childhood education in the 1990s, we’ve come a long way.

State budgets are strained across the country, which is why tax money must be spent judiciously if Pennsylvania is to compete in today’s global economy that demands a skilled workforce. There are few areas better than early-childhood education to prepare our kids for this challenge. That’s why I’m participating in First Steps PA, a nonpartisan statewide effort to encourage voters to support candidates who will make high quality early-childhood education a priority.

As voters go to the polls next month to choose the next governor, I hope they’ll join this effort by voting for candidates who place the future of our kids at the top of their agendas.

Like Art Costa, President Johnson would be the first to tell him – and us – that we cannot neglect the education of our nation’s children.

Christie Balka is director of child-care and budget policy for Public Citizens for Children and Youth (www.childrenfirstpa.org).

Philadelphia Daily News – October 13, 2010 – Read article online.