Early Childhood Education by the Numbers

In this time of state budget crisis, it’s all to easy to just look at the spending column. Most certainly, funding early childhood education costs the state money. However, a true understanding of the value of this expense broadens the picture … and might cause penny pinchers to think twice.

Connecticut Voices for Children recently released a policy brief that helps reframe the conversation. It stacks short-term budget savings against the long-term impact on the economy of high-quality, sustained education for preschool children.

Liberty Bank Foundation is proud to be a member of the Connecticut Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, which funded this policy brief.   The report uses Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman’s figure of $7.30 generated for every dollar spent to early education as a jumping off point, and concludes that short-sightedness could add up to a long-term economic loss for the state of $10 billion.

As our public servants struggle to assemble a budget that works for everyone, we hope they’ll keep our littlest citizens in mind.

read the report