Closing The Achievement Gap

Cindy Watkins: North Carolina's made a tremendous investment in early childhood education. A stronger investment than any other state in the country and has been a national leader in this work for about twenty years. Across the state there are 77 local partnerships for children. Most of them receive most of their funding from the state of North Carolina. Gary Ander: We were working on issues related to older children who had serious emotional disturbance. Smart Start was a major player in having us re-focus on early childhood. During the first three years of life, 80 percent of your brain development happens. And if you're not in an environment that supports stability, it's very difficult for the brain to establish the neuropathways that actually develop this foundation for learning. Cindy: There are some kids that show up on the first day of kindergarten that are reading. And at the same time, there are kids that show up on the first day of kindergarten that have never seen a book. We call it now the achievement gap because there are children that start out so far behind their peers that this education gap often just grows with each passing year. So we notice a high drop-out rate. It's not surprising that these are the same children that struggled in third grade who weren't ready at kindergarten. Gary: These experiences of childhood have long-term effects on where people end up in both the educational system and the occupational system. And if we can do early childhood interventions we will be able to reduce dramatically needs for later interventions. Cindy: There's a social cost associated with how we care for or fail to care for our young children. We're wasting people's lives when we don't invest early enough and strongly enough in making sure that they have what they need at a foundational level to become very engaged and contributing members of society.