By Wendy Olivares
Summer 2022 EMERGE Intern, Center for Health and Biosciences
With the pandemic affecting not only the amount of time that K-12 students were able to be in school but also the quality of education received in recent academic years, it is now more important than ever to invest in early childhood education. Countless studies have shown that there is a strong connection between early childhood education and both future educational achievements and health outcomes. Typically, adults who have attained higher levels of education lead longer and healthier lives. Moreover, brain development is at its peak from birth to age 5. During this critical developmental period, early education programs are crucial in helping children to become more socially aware and reach developmental milestones, including language development and cognition. Early childhood education programs or centers can also provide children with opportunities to receive attention and guidance that could otherwise be inaccessible due to the busy work schedules of their parents and guardians. They also give children the preparation they need for academic readiness and assist them with emotional self-regulation.
Some differences have been observed in the cognitive development of children from low-income families compared to those from wealthier households during the early development period. Prekindergarten programs help to reduce this gap; academic improvement is more noticeable in children who come from lower-income households and children whose first language is not English. This highlights the importance of accessible and quality public education for every family, regardless of socioeconomic standing. With pre-K enrollment rates dropping in Fort Bend, Harris and Montgomery counties, the learning loss that may result can have a strong impact on the future academic readiness and development of students that come from low-income families.
A program’s quality of education, access to resources and number of students are dependent on the public funding that it receives. In the United States, although 44 states offer public funding for pre-K programs, only five states have access to sufficient public funding to sustain high-quality full-day education. Texas House Bill 3, which was signed into law in 2019, set the expectation for pre-K programs to operate on a full-day basis as well as meet specific standards for higher-quality education. House Bill 3 is reported to have provided around $835 million in the 2019-2020 school year. Although this may sound like a lot, it should be noted that the state of Texas spends around 32% less on school funding than the national average. To put this into context, for the 2022 school year, Texas reported spending $9,871 per student, while Washington, D.C, the state of New York and Connecticut have spent $22,832, $24,881 and $21,146, respectively.
While the pandemic has made it very difficult to measure the direct impact of House Bill 3, it is of utmost importance for social scientists to collect measurements and data on the impact of the funding increase on students’ academic readiness, as well as the effectiveness of creating longer school days for pre-K students. The resources and funding that are being pumped into schools and centers to sustain full-day programs could be reallocated into hiring, so that although days are shorter, an adequate number of staff and teachers can provide for the students, and high student-to-teacher ratios can be avoided. There is not necessarily a correlation between longer school days and greater student learning, which means that shorter days could actually be just as beneficial, if not more so, since they can be more cost-effective and allow students to participate in more activities outside of the classroom.
Investing in high-quality early childhood education programs is beneficial for everyone. Greater access to education creates more opportunities to sustain employment and generate earnings. People from impoverished communities have shorter life expectancies, are at a higher risk of chronic diseases, and can experience more adverse health outcomes than individuals from communities with a higher socioeconomic standing. With economic stability, people become less reliant on federally funded programs for healthy foods, housing and medical support. Multiple studies have demonstrated that there is a link between wealth and greater access to higher education and the health resources that can support longer and healthier life spans with lower rates of chronic disease.
Social determinants of health are the social and economic factors that play a major role in the health outcomes of certain groups of people and communities at large. Some of these factors include income, level of education, employment, housing, food insecurity, access to health services and social inclusion. Early education in particular can have a major impact on future educational outcomes, job security and health disparities. These strong connections, which affect all communities, should serve as a motivator for continuing the influx of funding for public early childhood education and improvements in studies to measure the effects of additional funding, such as that provided through House Bill 3.