League of Education Voters Foundation released a new report outlining the importance of pre-kindergarten education and how lawmakers in Olympia should ensure funding so all children in Washington are on an equal playing field before entering the school system.

“The research is clear — the education a child receives before the age of five is crucial to that child’s future academic success,” said Chris Korsmo, executive director of the League of Education Voters. “The more we invest in our children in those years before kindergarten, the more we are giving our children an advantage to compete during the rest of their school years and beyond.”

The report, “Adding Rigor and Coherence to Early Childhood Education: Washington’s Opportunities for the Early Learning Challenge Fund,” states that Washington must act now to help secure future federal dollars for early education. The fund, which could total up to $1 billion annually, will be distributed through competitive grants.

Washington State will be well positioned to compete for new federal Early Learning Challenge Fund dollars if our lawmakers take a few steps in the 2010 session, including:

• Protect early childhood education investments in these tough fiscal times.
• Build, refine, and expand the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), known as Seeds to Success, to ensure that a greater percentage of disadvantaged children from birth to age five participate in high-quality learning programs.
• Develop and build a coordinated continuum of evidence-based services and programs for families with infants and toddlers, including developmental screening and home visitation programs.
• Signal Washington’s long-term commitment to high-quality pre-kindergarten by including it in the state’s definition of Basic Education;
• Enhance accountability by accelerating the integration of early childhood education data into the K-12 longitudinal database.

Research shows that while 85 percent of the brain’s core structure (size, core, growth, and much of its hard wiring) is developed by age 4, less than 9 percent of public investments in education and development are made by that time (Early Learning Left Out: Closing the Investment Gap for American’s Youngest Children. 2005).

“If we take a few steps now to invest in our state early education program, we are poised to qualify for those federal dollars. That would be a historic opportunity for our state and our children,” said Korsmo. “We want to make sure all children in our state are afforded the same opportunities during the most critical time for brain development in their lives.”

Echoing the LEV Report recommendations is the just-released draft Early Learning Plan that was produced by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Department of Early Learning at Governor Gregoire’s request. This 10-year plan provides a clear road map for creating a quality early learning system statewide, including needed components for the Early Learning Challenge Fund grant requirements mentioned above. Korsmo said she applauds the new report, which solidifies the crucial need for pre-kindergarten education.