Investing in Learning Begins at Birth
When my son was born, I was fascinated by how quickly a baby’s brain develops. My little guy was like a sponge, imitating my facial expressions and learning how to respond to the words I read and sang to him. And if he wasn’t learning from me, I knew that he was with my husband or the qualified caregivers we fortunately had the resources to engage.
Now that I’m helping Connie and Steve Ballmer allocate their giving across all stages of a child’s life, I’m learning about the research that supports my intuition – birth to age three is a critical time to optimize brain development. My colleague Dr. Raychael Jensen has taught me that children make more than one million new neural connections per second (!) during their first few years of life, which helps set the foundation for their future learning, behavior, and health.
I’m also challenged to think about where philanthropic dollars can make the most significant impact on economic mobility. Quality early childhood education is a great investment, as it can help prevent a host of other issues. For example, when vulnerable kids do not get quality early childhood experiences, they are more likely to drop out of school, more likely to become teen parents, and less likely to attend college – all of which affects their future economic mobility. New research shows that such investments for disadvantaged kids produce gains even across multiple generations.
Given the data, it’s baffling why our nation underinvests in our little ones. The return on investment for early childhood care and education is higher than any other stage of development, yet public spending is lowest for children under the age of three. Access to quality experiences is disproportionate - less than half of children experiencing poverty have access to high-quality early childhood programs.
At Ballmer Group, we use our philanthropy and civic activism to enable systems to evolve and better meet the needs of people experiencing poverty. As Connie and Steve point out, we know that philanthropy alone can’t solve this issue. We need to inspire significant public investment. That’s why one of our strategies is to invest in strong state advocacy to stimulate policy changes that can broaden opportunities for young children.
Even with the privileges I experienced, I remember vividly how difficult it felt to be a working mom with a young child. I am in awe of what parents experiencing poverty do every day – juggle several jobs, commute long distances, sacrifice their own needs – with the intention of giving their kids a shot at moving up. We want to meet that determination with the support that sets up our youngest children – and their parents – for success. We can and must do better for our nation’s kids during their earliest years, so that the American Dream can truly be in reach for all.
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5 年Dear Ms. Ludwig, Thank you for your excellent article, Investing in learning begins at birth. Your message embedded a powerful call to action: to disrupt the early divide, we cannot rely on public funding. It won’t happen, at least not in the foreseeable future! To crack this societal challenge, the private sector needs to lean in en masse. Thanks to your leadership, the Ballmer Group is stepping up to the plate with a deep commitment to early investment in high-need communities. I hope that, as a prominent role model, your decision inspires more philanthropists to start investing in the birth-three sector – in all regions of the country. In Illinois, for example, we urgently need a critical mass of investors to scale a best-in-class solution we have on our doorstep: VOCEL’s 10-month family skills accelerator. Serving Chicago’s most at-risk communities, this stellar non-profit is resetting over 80% of infant and toddler trajectories to national norms – at 33% lower cost per child than center-based models. Cutting-edge from every angle, VOCEL’s two-generation program tackles poverty barriers from classroom to home, comprehensively and compassionately. Layering sophisticated parent-child coaching with a continuous stream of text cues and home activities, VOCEL’s program masterfully incubates parents as daily home teachers. Multichannel support mobilizes a surge in interactive play, intentional language development and robust early learning, boosting young children’s social-emotional, communication and cognitive skills to preschool-ready levels – the pivotal equalizer. For the first time in history, we have the potential to break the cycle of poverty and crime… Given VOCEL’s extraordinary track record and stellar ROI for all stakeholders, its free, high quality family program should be expanding citywide. Not so. On the positive side, VOCEL’s budding reputation has spawned a network of partnerships with Harvard, school principals, donors and foundations – all of which are helping scale its reach and impact in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. With bold plans to expand from eight to fifteen zip codes by 2021, VOCEL’s next wave of growth will benefit approximately 600 parents and children, while lowering its cost-per-child to 50% of center-based programs. However, even with this game-changing model – that is transforming children’s futures with extraordinary economics – VOCEL cannot generate the scale of investment necessary to disrupt Chicago’s early divide at scale. Nowhere close. Like many other parts of the country, early education still flies under the radar in Chicago. Many potential investors are still in the dark: unaware of early investment’s value proposition, the scope and scale of the crisis and the investment gap that needs their urgent support. That’s why I hope organizations like the Ballmer Group will continue to leverage their status and story to attract a broader spectrum of philanthropists, corporations and private equity investors – new champions who will dive into this complex, societal challenge and help America scale preschool-readiness as a national staple. I hope this note is the first of many; I’m eager to hear your thoughts and share ideas. I should add that an ardent VOCEL supporter, Anne Wedner – Anita Rosenberg’s close friend – convinced me to reach out, believing that our collective experiences might elevate this critical centerpiece of America’s future. With excitement, I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Lindy Hirschsohn BCG partner alum; VOCEL board member; TFA advisor and fundraiser
Apoderado en consorcio Oasis de Asia
5 年si se puede siempre pinzando que la economía es una plata forma para desarrollar un proyecto...felicidades...? ?
Painter, producer, writer
5 年Have you heard about the amazing work Vocel is doing?