Arizona's Risk: The Early Education Challenges

Research shows that from 0 to age 6 is the most important time in a child’s development.    If care and feeding of the child’s development does not occur, then children are at a higher risk for needing remedial reading and delinquent behavior.  The potential future ramifications will be a burden on all citizens of Arizona. Studies have shown that the future issues can cost Arizona taxpayers and impact our economic future.  For every $1 invested in early childhood education, Arizona will save $6 - $17 in future costs. 

Currently Arizona ranks 36^th in overall child well being out of 50 states (Source: Children’s Action Alliance). Arizona kindergarten teachers report that 48% of all children entering school do not have essential skills to succeed (Source: Children’s Action Alliance).  What are the gaps? 

Lack of affordable & accessible healthcare

Currently there are 250,000 children who are uninsured living in Arizona.  Arizona has the highest rate of uninsured children (source: Children’s Action Alliance).  The Pew Charitable Trust notes that it is important for care to begin in the womb.  Prenatal care plus early health care implemented in conjunction with pre-k programs is essential for successfully development of young brains.

Lack of high quality early education opportunities

Only 17% of child care centers in Arizona are NAEYC accredited (Source: AZ Early Education Funds).  This means that high-quality early education opportunities aren’t widely accessible.  In addition, there is limited access to state funded pre-school programs.  Arizona only has 1-9% of four year old children in state funded school programs (Source: Pew Charitable Trust).  Adding to the low availability of high-quality early education is the growing challenge associated with the ability to draw and retain early education teachers and staff that have a strong educational and training background.  Arizona’s early education industry provides little incentive for teachers to remain in the field.  Successfully early education programs adhere to high standards of quality (i.e. accreditation) and employee teachers with bachelor’s degrees with training in early education.

Low levels of Family Literacy

Quality early education and development requires that children are exposed to extensive vocabularies, reading, writing and counting.  This is severely limited if within the family unit, there are low levels of literacy.  In Maricopa County’s Community Vital Signs Report it was highlighted that in particular, Latino children at a higher disadvantage.  Latino children in the greater metropolitan area have a high percentage of parents who have not completed more than 9^th grade and English is not the primary language. Avondale, Buckeye, El Mirage, Gila Bend, Guadalupe, Phoenix, Queen Creek and the Gila River & Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian communities are the most at risk communities. 

What the Junior League of Phoenix is doing

The Junior League of Phoenix has adopted Early Childhood Education as our new focus area.  We are working with community leaders to solidfy program areas we would like to invest within.  In future posts I will be outlining where the Junior League will make an impact.  I would love to hear your thoughts in the state of Early Childhood Education and what can be done to make a difference.  The jlp website has more information too.

Comments

[Tiffany Sargent]

This is a fantastic focus area for the JLP and great information. I look forward to hearing more and becoming more educated about Early Childhood Education through future Junior League meetings and publications.