Anchor Lead:
What children learn from birth to five is vital to their success in life. Tomorrow, voters in Seattle will decide if they want to pass a $.10 tax on espresso drinks to fund early learning programs for the poor. There is a large debate over whether this is the right solution to the critical problem of providing quality preschool and daycare for all children. In the latest installment of our ongoing series "The Learning Curve" KPLU education reporter Jennifer Wing looks at the state of early learning in Seattle, and at what's being done to ensure young children are getting the most of their first few years of life.

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Informative weblinks:

Jose Marti Child Development Center

Center for Mind Brain and Learning at the University of Washington

Child Care Resources

National Childcare Information Center

Talaris Institute: advancing knowledge of early brain development

Jennifer Wing(JW):

Early Learning

A baby. Just looking at one rouses ooohhs and aahhs from most adults. Doctor Patricia Kuhl, is a scientist who heads up the center for Mind, Brain and learning at the University of Washington along with her husband Dr. Andy Meltzoff. When they look at a baby, they see much more than a soft, sweet innocence.

PK:There’s a computer whirring away up there making fancy calculations as the experience the world. What ‘weve learned in the last ten years about infant learning is just short of astounding and it’s changing everyone’s view of when learning occurs and what’s it’s like.

Research has shown infants are able to imitate simple body gestures made by adults, like sticking out a tongue, just hours after being born. And by eight and nine months Dr. Kuhl says babies are “citizens of the world” meaning they’re able to learn languages easily. In one experiment Dr. Kuhl had Chinese graduate students speak Manderine to American infants for just a total of five hours spread out over several weeks. The results of these brief interactions had a powerful impact.

PK:They’re statistically equivalent to the kids in Taiwan who’ve been listening to Chinese for ten months of their life.

Dr. Kuhl says the best food for a young brain is being read to and having access to books. Sounds simple, but vast numbers of children aren’t getting this experience. Researchers from the University of Kansas found that low income preschoolers don’t receive as much verbal stimulation as their middle class peers. Even though they were able to teach low income children new words, they could not speed up the rate of learning, leaving them to conclude the gap that exists at ages three and four is permanent. While the case for early learning programs is undeniably strong, the challenge is money. A point John Bancroft made during a recent debate over the proposed espresso tax. Bancroft oversees Federal Head Start programs throughout the Seattle area. He says the cost of private daycare is next to impossible for families just above the poverty line.

JB:It is so expensinve, 800 dollars a month for three and four year old children, way above a thousand a month for infants and toddlers… when you get to kindergarten it’s free whether you’re the poorest person in the city or Bill Gates, but for zero to five…the families are on their own financially.

Critics of the espresso tax empathize with Bancroft. However people such as local businessman Garry Gataway, argue such an important service should not be funded by lattes and mochas…but from a more stable, wider tax base.

GG:If it’s a public good why do you pick on the latte guys. You’re talking about a tax that could go up and down. You’re talking about a very administratively burdensome approach, and if it’s a public good, shouldn’t we as a public fund it in a substantial, significant and predictable way?

Gattaway considers the renewal of Seattle’s Family and Education Levy next year to be a more viable source of money. If the espresso tax initiative passes, the bulk of the revenue would be spent on preschool programs for low-income 3-5 year olds. Money would also go towards training child care providers. Billy Young, manages child development programs for the city’s human services department. As a city employee, she can’t take a position on the proposed espresso tax, but her office would benefit if it passed.

BY:We’re beginning to see schools can’t do it alone, they need help, they need help before kids get to their door. Long term studies have shown that children who have quality early education have higher incomes, they are less likely to be unemployed and welfare dependent and less likely to need special education once they get to school.

In Seattle, there are more than 2000 low-income children waiting to access the federally funded Head Start program. And another 500 children are on a waiting list for city-subsidized daycare. Single mom Kim Jones has had her three children on the city’s waiting list since January. Even though she has a full time job at the University of Washington, more than half of her wages are spent on childcare.

KJ:I work to pay for daycare, that’s where the majority of my money goes. And after paying daycare and rent, what ever left is what I use towards the bills, as far as food, what ever I have left that’s what we use for food. So it’s basically pay period to pay period.

Jones, who is looking for a second job right now to keep her debt from growing, is number eight on the list. She calls the city every week to check her status. Across town, in the basement of a former public school building is the Jose Marti Child Development Center in Seattle’s Beacon Hill Neighborhood. It’s an example of what can be accomplished with extra money. More than 50 percent of the children come from low-income families, most of whom speak Spanish. With the help of scholarships and grants, director Hilda Magania has worked hard to get herself AND her staff training in early childhood development.

HM:It’s not babysitting it’s a school. We even don’t like to call ourselves a daycare. We like to call ourselves early childhood center, because they’re learning. The teachers need to prepare themselves, they need to prepare activities.

While Magania would like to see the Seattle Espresso tax pass, she’s not counting on it. She has another source of funding. Over the next three years, Jose Marti, along with four other childcare centers in Seattle, will be the recipient of a three million dollar federal grant called Early Reading First.

HM:We have more support from the speech pathologist consultant. We’ll have a person to replace the teachers so they can attend the trainings. That is enhancing more individual learning for the kids.

The long term goal is to develop new training programs for preschool teachers. Work will also be done to create a model on how to help preschoolers make the transition to kindergarten…a grade that use to be thought of as a launching pad into one’s scholastic career… but is actually a stepping stone in the middle of a well worn path.

Jennifer Wing KPLU News, Seattle