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It’s hard to tighten your belt when you are wearing diapers
Frances Varela
The most formative and crucial years for the development of children are from the womb to the kindergarten classroom. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis researchers identified that investing in early childhood development programs like high-quality early care and education, Pre-K, and home visitation programs produces an annual rate of return of 10-16 percent, of which 80 percent accrues to the general public.
According to New Mexico Voices For Children, New Mexico spends less than 1 percent of its state budget on these earliest years.
So why are the governor and the Legislature cutting programs targeted to promoting the wellbeing of New Mexico’s youngest children? Aren’t these children more precious to us than even our state permanent fund? Why aren’t cuts being proposed to the corrections budget?
According to Fight Crime: Invest in Kids – a New Mexico organization of law enforcement officials and others – in 2010 in New Mexico, there were over 16,000 incarcerated adults in jails and state prisons, with corrections costs exceeding $320 million every year. Attorney General King said New Mexico would save about $80 million in taxpayer dollars if it cut prison costs by a quarter by investing in early childhood development programs.
A year of state lock-up costs taxpayers $31,000 a year in New Mexico. With this amount we could support three little ones in high-quality early childhood development programs.
Attorney General Gary King says: “We have a choice: Either we pay now or we’ll pay much more down the road. I hope we can keep these investments in early education in place to avoid real budget busters 10 or 20 years from now.” So what is being cut?
Child-care assistance
The CYFD-run child-care assistance program provides child-care subsidies to low-income working families. The proposed child care assistance budget is 2 percent less than last year and 19 percent less than two years ago. Under this proposal, there would be:
- A waiting list for families over 100 percent of the poverty level.
- A 4 percent reduction in provider rates.
- A 10 percent increase in co-pays for parents.
- Grandfathering-in of current participants who are above 100 percent of the poverty level – but the LFC budget cuts off the 900 families who are between 150 percent and 200 percent of poverty. $3 million is needed to keep these families enrolled (as included in the proposed executive budget).
An estimated $17 million is needed to serve the 4,435 children on the waiting list.
If we don’t support families with child-care subsidies
Families who can’t afford child care but have to work will be forced to place their children in unsafe home environments that contribute nothing to their child’s development or to school readiness.
Little kids will be sat in front of TV sets. They will come to kindergarten not knowing their shapes, colors, and numbers; unable to use basic learning tools like pencils, pens, crayons, and markers; their vocabularies will be far behind those children who have had high quality early care and education experiences.
Some of the environments young children will be placed in are down right unsafe. Children have died in New Mexico because of substandard child care – like the little toddler whose mother suddenly had her child-care subsidy cut off because she got a small raise. She left her 3 year old with her 11 year old in desperation. The 3 year old went outside and drowned in the little swimming pool in the backyard.
Some families will have to leave their jobs and be forced back into poverty or on welfare. Families will be spending a third of their income per child and will have to make choices between food, housing and child care.
With lower provider rates and cuts to the state budget, child-care centers are starting to close their doors. In a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort said, “We are losing (private) centers even as we speak. We have lost three centers in Las Cruces in the last few weeks and will lose two in Albuquerque soon.”
If we don’t support and expand Pre-K
The Pre-K program in New Mexico is slated for a 16 percent cut in the executive budget and 4 percent cut in the LFC budget. These proposed cuts are on top of last year’s 23 percent reduction for a program that a recent evaluation demonstrates has improved literacy and math skills.
A majority of New Mexico’s 4 year olds will not have the opportunity to get ready for school and to learn the critical social, emotional and cognitive skills that will prepare them for school success. Research shows that if young children are behind in their development at age six, it is very difficult for them to ever catch up and succeed in school by age 18.
Home visitation
New Mexico home visitation at this time maintains a very minimal investment and serves few of New Mexico’s new families. Without it, families will not have the critical support at the birth of their infant to learn crucial parenting practices and skills.
It’s raining today
We need to create the foundation for school and future economic success by investing in high-quality early childhood development programs, and we need to invest in our children now.
Our youngest children don’t vote, don’t have high-priced lobbyists contributing to campaigns, and can’t wine and dine legislators and other policy-makers – so they have no voice. It is raining today. We need to consider taking more of the interest from our permanent fund to assure that our babies, toddlers and preschoolers have all the opportunities – no matter where they live – to succeed and become contributing members of our New Mexico community.
Frances Varela is a small business owner in Albuquerque.
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Mr MacQuigg:
Is it just me, or did Mr. Molitor just tell us to get ourselves bitten? This does beg the question; are we also discouraged from calling poison control afterwards?
Mr. Molitor:
On that same note, just because a person’s job is taxpayer-funded doesn’t make them the wrong person to call when they’re the expert in a given field. I feel much safer with APD patrolling our streets than Wackenhut.
(And let me assure you, “I feel safer with APD…” was a statement I never thought I would make in my life, so congratulations there).
While Mr. MacQuigg and I almost certainly disagree on the specifics, I feel safe in saying that our general opinion of the suggestions made by yourself and Mr. Cummins are the same: taking money away from our schools is absolutely the wrong solution, and the problem isn’t how much we’re spending on education, it’s how we’re spending it.
Depending on parents and churches first has any number of problems: as I’ve stated before, further taking control of education out of the hands of the voters flies in the face of nearly two-and-a-half centuries of progress. Furthermore (and along the same lines), your suggestion (like most of your ideas, really) almost guarantees a permanently bifurcated society. While some exceptionally lucky individuals will manage to move themselves from the labor strata and into the rather small unofficial aristocracy such a system historically creates, most Americans would find their lives defined entirely by the neighborhood they grow up in. You’ll pardon me if I don’t jump for joy at the prospect.
This is all to say nothing of the horrifying (and delightfully contrary to the American system) prospect of putting religion anywhere in that equation, never mind above the people’s government.
TM, you represent the same ole, same ole Republican (and Catholic) mantra– force people to have children they can’t afford to take care of by cutting birth control and abortion programs, then sneer at them because they don’t turn out to be excellent parents. It’s all about self-interest with you. Try this self-interest approach– the children you want to let fall by the wayside are the ones who will grow up to break into your house and rob you.
And don’t start spouting about not having sex if you can’t afford to raise the children. You know that doesn’t work.
IP and Ched:
Both of you are investing the state with too much responsibility to solve problems. Problems such as Frances describes can be best addressed by (1) family first, followed by (2) charity (churches have a non-profit status (pardon the pun) for god’s sake), and only thirdly by tax-payers money. The government is not the solution; it is the problem. For example, if you opened your dresser drawer and there was a snake in it, your first impulse would be to call animal control. Remove the snake yourselves!
Regarding the funding of the govt schools — I have heard the argument for the past 40 years — pay now or pay more later.
So, each year WE pay more and get less.
Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is no longer insanity it is madness.
Is it not interesting that progressive mind-sets suggest that WE need to invest in OUR children’s future?
Is it not interesting that many conservatives seem to be unable to understand that progressives are including ourselves when we correctly use the pronoun “we”?
Ched: No, it is not true that most of the gains are lost by third grade. Several long-term studies have proven that high-quality early care and education programs improve fourth grade reading scores and high school graduation rates. That said, any early care and education program needs to be aligned with K-3 curriculum so there is a smooth transition between pre-k and kindergarten.
Joseph: We can assign blame all we want but that won’t ever solve the problem. And the problem affects everyone. We are simply not graduating enough kids from high school with the skill sets necessary to go on to college and become the next generation of doctors, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. This is an economic problem (and the US is falling behind other wealthy nations in this regard). This is a national security problem (we cannot sustain quality armed forces without people who can read and understand highly technical weapons manuals). This is a quality of life problem (our jails and prisons are filled with people who cannot read or write well enough to hold down a job). So it’s your choice: we either pay now and build a strong future for everyone, or we pay later and watch the US fall further behind Europe in all things technical and economic, watch as our military relies more and more on incompetent soldiers, and continue to pay far more money to lock up people after they have victimized us than we would have spent to put them on the path for success in the first place. I vote for option one because I believe that making smart investments in human capital is the best way to spend my tax money.
If it is true that most if not all of the gains by pre-K education are erased by the third grade because of the inherent weakness of K through 2 to sustain the growth, mightn’t we be better off using our resources to fix K – 2 instead?
The fundamental model for education; group think, is not going to work any better by starting it earlier. One is still doing exactly the same thing over and over only younger, and expecting different results.
Is it not interesting that progressive mind-sets suggest that WE need to invest in OUR children’s future?
I thinks it is admirable that hard working parents pay for their own desires. Likewise, it is admirable for those who want to dig into their pockets and help those who for whatever reason cannot pay for their pleasures, wants and desires.
Having said this — why should those who do not want to work harder and harder be FORCED to invest (taxed) for other people’s responsibilities?
Stealing (forced taxation) from those who do not want to participate in taking care of other people’s irresponsibility’s is the same thing as saying because you have a MacMasion you ought to work harder and give me one too.
Two wrongs have never made a righ, but I admit that MIGHT often makes RIGHT.