By Kristin

You don't have to have a lot of money to have a lot of sense about money.  Say your car is an older car.  If you have good financial sense, you take care of it.  You replace the brakes before you also need to replace the calipers because you know that will save you $500.  You take it into the shop at the first sign of malfunction, because you know that dealing with an early problem is cheaper than dealing with a big problem.  You make sure your tires have tread, because sliding on wet pavement and crashing is expensive.

People with poor money sense end up spending more because they're reluctant to spend.  They go from crisis to crisis, spending more than they can afford and more than they need to.  Our goverment at both the state and federal level is demonstrating a terrifying lack of money sense when it comes to early learning.

This article  in the Washington Post confirms what we already know – we're spending less on early learning now than we have in a long time.  The article points out that legislators are reluctant to spend because of inconsistent quality with the early learning providers and programs, but to me that is no reason to cut off or reduce funding so that pre-kindergarten children can have quality care.  To say, "Yeah, my brakes are weak but you can't trust mechanics these days," is an excuse more lazy than true.  Brakes are important because lives hang in the balance – education is no different, and it's worth finding trustworthy businesses.

It is very, very expensive to give a struggling student an extra two years of high school.  It happens all the time, and it doesn't result in adults who are career and college ready.  It results in high schools that are so busy managing twenty-year olds who can't read or compute that they struggle to take care of their students who are performing at or above grade level.  Students who arrive to high school below grade level place a huge burden on the system.  Like balding tires or weak brakes, they frequently prevent the car from reaching its destination.  As adults who are under-educated and feel failed by the system, they go on being a huge burden.  Why not spend more upfront and eliminate the reality that affluent children arrive at kindergarten six years ahead of children who live in poverty?

If we're going to get serious about graduating young adults who are ready for college and career, we need to start our efforts before a student enters kindergarten.

Obama's Early Learning Initiative is brilliant.  It's a little expensive, but it's investing money in the right place.  Eventually all qualifying 3-year olds would be enrolled in quality preschool.  Congress is balking because it is unwilling to fund low-quality pre-K programs.  I think there's a solution to that problem that doesn't involve flooding schools with under-prepared kindergarteners, don't you?

We can take care of things before they become big expensive problems, but only if we have some sense.