MERRILLVILLE | Local leaders and early childhood education experts made a pitch to support investing in early childhood education as an economic tool.
Leaders said businesses in Indiana and across the nation need employees who are job-ready, team-capable and well-prepared to build the nation's future workforce and that has to start well before kindergarten.
The session was part of a One Region event to make regional businesses, educators and agencies aware of the pilot preschool program Lake County will operate in 2015 along with four other counties across the state.
Dennis Rittenmeyer, executive director of One Region, the agency that spearheaded the grant application, said the pilot project will serve 400 at-risk youngsters. He said he expects Lake County to receive about $2.4 million of the $10 million total and will have to raise 10 percent, or $240,000, in matching funds.
Rittenmeyer and officials from ReadyNation focused on strengthening business through effective investment in early childhood education.
Phillip Peterson, co-chairman of ReadyNation and a partner at Aon Hewitt in Pennsylvania, said almost every state in the United States has a business roundtable talking about the importance of early childhood education initiatives.
"Business knows the single most important factor in the workforce is human capital," he said. "U.S. worker capabilities are declining, and more workers are coming from other countries. Many of those workers are also going to school in the United States. The best option for Indiana and for the U.S. is to invest in people, young children and families."
Mary Jane Eisenhauer, a Purdue University North Central early childhood education professor, said the human brain begins to develop even before birth, and a skill gap is apparent at 18 months old. She said some of the risk factors include poverty and maternal health.
"It's important to have high-quality programs for young children, including language and vocabulary, and health and safety and nutrition," Eisenhauer said. "Children whose parents have a college education know about 1,200 words by 3 years old."
Robert Grunewald, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, focused on the economic case for an investment in young children. He said investment dollars have the highest return when those dollars are spent on early childhood education. He said barriers to social mobility emerge at a very young age and achievement gaps start in the early years.
Grunewald noted studies that emphasize the importance of investing in early childhood education and show it creates higher education, higher earnings, higher productivity, and those people are more likely to save. A study called the HighScope Perry Preschool Study indicated that for every $1 invested in early education, there was a $16 rate of return.
State Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, suggested there be workshops tied in with prenatal education for parents to teach them about the importance of early education for children.
Local contractor Joe Coar, who is vice president of Michigan City-based Tonn and Blank, said many people in his industry will be retiring and there will be difficulty in filling jobs. "There will be companies coming into Indiana, and we are struggling not just in Indiana but across the country," he said.