Investments in early childhood education reap huge dividends for the children and society.

Last Thanksgiving, my guests brought salads, sweet potatoes and Michigan wine. None of it compared to what my daughter and her husband offered up after the dishes were cleared away. They announced they were giving us a grandchild.

Life changed in an instant. This tiny gift expands in a way that can’t quite be contained. The secret keeps bursting the seams of everyday life.

“Sorry, we can’t join you for that trip…we’re expecting a baby that week.”

“I’ve got you down for a meeting at 2:00…have I told you I’m expecting a grandchild next summer?”

My not-so-guarded secret probably also explains my preoccupation with the world as it appears to someone not quite 3 feet high. I notice things like business owners who put out toys for tiny customers. I fear the dangers lurking in secondhand smoke. It suddenly matters immensely that a decent car seat can cost some people half a week’s wages.

So what’s an almost-grandma to do? Stock a stash of children’s books and toys, for starters. We’re learning—again—to baby-proof our spaces. Plus, I plan to block off lots of time for talking and exploring together. But that will only touch one child. What about the thousands of others in whose hands we will place our future?

Families, like kids, come in all sorts of styles and face varying levels of challenges. Parenting, in the best of cases, is a tough job; it’s one made tougher when you’re out of work, out of energy or out of ideas.

A recent policy report by The Education Policy Center at Michigan State University offers up solid evidence that the experiences children have before the age of 5 make all the difference in how they turn out as adults.

Researchers figure about half of the achievement gap between rich and poor and white and minority students exists before they even walk into school for the first time. Low-income youngsters have fewer learning opportunities than their more affluent peers and suffer from poorer health care, nutrition, and childcare. As a result, they start school with a big disadvantage.

“Many Michigan children are growing up in conditions of toxic stress that put them at a huge initial disadvantage when they begin school,” said Lawrence J. Schweinhart, PhD, co-author of the report, “Investing in Michigan’s Future.” “The right early childhood care and education programs can help even the neediest children overcome these disadvantages.”

Studies show that programs in Chicago, North Carolina, and Michigan have yielded long-term positive effects that last well into adulthood. These effects translate to lower crime and special education rates down the road. In fact, one study estimates that every dollar spent on high-quality preschool saves the public $7 down the line.

“The most basic learning of all takes place in these programs,” Schweinhart says, “learning that is the foundation of all later learning and success in life.”

The good news, says Dr. Schweinhart, is that 60 percent of young children receive at least some form of early childhood care and education outside their immediate families.

The bad news is that early childhood programs vary widely in who runs them and what they know about early childhood education. And the poorer you are, the more likely it is that you will receive care in places that lack the features necessary to produce strong educational benefits.

Schweinhart adds that without a well-organized public investment in early childhood education, we will continue to see gaps in the outcomes, with higher costs down the road for special education, remedial training, and crime.

And the risk reaches further than just children living with poverty. Far too many families of modest means do not qualify for the subsidized preschool programs available to the poorest citizens; yet they are too poor to pay for preschool themselves.

“So we have, on the one hand, the great potential of young children to start their lives on the road to success and good citizenship,” says Schweinhart, who also serves on the executive committee of the state’s Early Childhood Investment Corporation. “On the other hand, Michigan offers a patchwork quilt of policies, programs and providers whose outcomes range from poor to modest for the most part.”

As Michigan’s leaders struggle with how to move Michigan forward and invest its limited resources for the largest gain, advocates like Schweinhart and his colleagues are making one more plea for early childhood investments.

Imagine, they ask, what might happen if we could weave a seamless system of high-quality support out of our current patchwork of services? The odds for success appear good if we spend our limited funds in the types of programs we know work and target resources toward the neediest children, whose lives and futures matter to all of us.

“Sure I’ll keep fighting for early childhood investments…very soon, I’ll touch the face of Michigan’s future.”

April is Month of the Young Child – Every April, Michigan’s communities celebrate this event, which focuses our attention on early childhood issues and highlights the needs of young children. Visit the group’s to see what you can do in your home or community to focus attention on young children and the care they receive.

If you can do only one thing, read the report “Investing in Michigan’s Future: Meeting the early childhood challenge,” by Lawrence J. Schweinhart and Rachel Fulcher-Dawson, Education Policy Center of Michigan State University (Oct. 2006). Learn how high-quality early childhood care and education programs are helping even the neediest children overcome disadvantages and thrive. Find it at www.epc.msu.edu.