A pionering system for early learning

To paraphrase Thoreau, lots of people hack at the branches of evil; few hit the roots.

That, in essence, is why the Pierce County Early Learning Consortium deserves generous and enthusiastic community support.

The branches are all too evident: appalling high school dropout rates, crime, unemployment, welfare-dependency, gangs – it’s a very long list. Most of these social problems could be dramatically reduced simply by giving our youngest children a good start in life.

The science is conclusive: A child’s brain development from birth through age 5 becomes the foundation for his or her ability to succeed in school and function successfully as an adult.

An early childhood rich in nurturing and intellectual stimulation physically structures the brain for success. An early childhood starved for love or traumatized by abuse or neglect creates a brain prone to chronic stress, insecurity, difficulties in focusing, anger and alienation from school. The battle can be won or lost by the time a child reaches kindergarten.

Giving more preschool children the right kind of rearing would mitigate a multitude of evils.

That’s the goal of the consortium, which has been organized over the past couple years by United Way of Pierce County. Many agencies and nonprofits in the county have been working with at-risk children and their families, but their efforts have been uncoordinated. As in nearly every other part of the United States, there has been no overarching system pulling everything together.

The Early Learning Consortium is now pioneering such a system with the help of local funds and grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other outside sources. The goal is $15 million over the next five years.

Money will not be spent reinventing wheels. The plan is to expand existing efforts or launch “best practices” developed elsewhere. These include such proven strategies as teaching parents in distressed homes how to better nurture their children, giving them scholarships to local parent-education courses, connecting disturbed children to mental health care and expanding training for day-care staffs and early-childhood teachers.

The initial efforts will focus on three school districts with high poverty rates – Tacoma, Bethel and Franklin-Pierce. Another district, Clover Park, may be added if the Lakewood City Council provides the local funding commitment required by the Gates foundation. The council should not pass up this opportunity lightly.

Thanks to United Way, the consortium has been created, the strategy is in place and the work has begun. Its success or failure now depends on the support of Pierce County’s communities and companies. Many corporations – such as the Russell Investment Group, Rainier Pacific Bank, and Tucci and Sons – have already made major commitments. So far, supporters have pledged a total of $1 million a year for the next five years.

The consortium needs – and deserves – another $2 million a year. Early learning isn’t merely a good cause. It’s the cause that will help every other good cause succeed.