By jonetta rose barras D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said last week during a hearing on public schools that he wants to focus on education of children zero to 3 years old. But he’s a year late and thousands of dollars short.
“I am looking to redefine early-childhood learning and development. This effort [coincides] with the thinking that exposure early on enhances a child’s ability to be successful in later schools years,” Gray said.
Educating at birth isn’t jargon. Tons of studies indicate parents’ educational backgrounds, their interaction with their children, and a home environment that encourages learning are critical elements in subsequent academic achievement.
“If you have a child who is three months old, we know exactly what you ought to be doing with that child. When you kid is nine months old, we know that, too — no debate; we don’t need any more research; [and] we don’t need any more studies,” Geoffrey Canada, head of the nationally acclaimed Harlem’s Children Zone, said in “Whatever It Takes,” a book about his work written by Paul Tough. Canada has operated a nine-week course for expecting parents — married or unmarried — called Baby College.
A significant number of District parents either are high school dropouts, barely graduated and are considered functional illiterates, or don’t speak English. Those handicaps affect their ability to provide an early educational foundation for their children. Thus, those children face more hurdles than their peers from different backgrounds.
But District officials have allowed the territorial games of adults to hamper aid to those children and their families. In 2009, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration submitted a proposal to spend $800,000 for a “baby college” pilot program targeting at-risk families and pregnant mothers. The effort would have been conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development and the D.C. Department of Health, according to sources familiar with the effort who spoke on condition of anonymity.
About 200 families would have been enrolled — 100 in a Parent-Child Home Program operated by Georgetown and 100 in the Health Department’s Nurse/Family Program. Each effort involved staff making regular visits to the homes of enrollees. The Health Department deals mostly with prenatal care. But the Parent-Child Home Program model engages participants in behavior modeling, providing them with information and hands-on assistance in the selection and use of age-appropriate books, toys and other materials needed to create a stable learning environment for their children.
“It didn’t go anywhere because of politics,” one source told me, adding that some D.C. Council members wanted the Health Department to run the entire program.
“We’ve raised this as a possible area of investment in past conversations,” Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso acknowledged without answering questions about the alleged council-mayor conflict. “I’m glad there is renewed interest in 0-3.”
Gray’s renewed interest comes as the city faces a potential $650 million revenue shortfall in fiscal 2010. Translation: Expect lots of talk but no significant action from the local government.
Jonetta Rose Barras, hosts of WPFW’s “D.C. Politics with Jonetta,” can be reached at [email protected].
