Poor and minority children in Maryland continue to lag behind their wealthier peers in measures of their readiness for kindergarten, partially due to a lack of adequate early-childhood health care.
Those statistics drew educators and health professionals together Wednesday in Annapolis to find solutions. State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick called poor health care “a critical barrier to education.”
“This is a very long journey that has limitless possibilities,” Grasmick said. “But our children will face a lifetime not of sickness but of fortified health.”
The number of students who met social, emotional and intellectual benchmarks for kindergarten has slowly but steadily risen since 2001, according to state statistics measuring students? readiness for school. For the 2005-2006 school year, 60 percent of kindergarten-age children met state targets. By 2007, 75 percent of 5-year-olds must be ready for school.
Louise Corwin, executive director of Ready at Five, said the meeting was designed to generate local initiatives.
“We like the idea of engaging the pediatricians ? of making sure the children are connected to a medical home,” Corwin said. Ready at Five is a public-private partnership based in Baltimore that works to educate parents, teachers and the public about ways to prepare children for school.
Corwin said she hoped to see the expansion of some programs, such as the Reach Out and Read program, which provides books to pediatricians to give to families with young children. There are currently 32 program sites in the Baltimore region.
Judith Romano, a pediatrician from Ohio and the morning?s keynote speaker, said national research has showed minorities and the poor continue to lack access to developmental screenings and well-child checkups. They are more likely to be exposed to dangerous lead levels and suffer from other mental and physical problems that have already been dramatically reduced among wealthier children.
