Researchers can flood policymakers with reports, but a single result of poor or no early learning can also effectively hit them in the face, such as the massive gap between urban and suburban high school graduation rates.
“…The average high school graduation rate in the nation's 50 largest cities stands at a devastatingly low 53 percent – an 18 percent gap. In some cities, including Indianapolis, Cleveland and Detroit, graduation rates are less than 40 percent.” – “Urban Drop-Out Rates at Catastrophic Levels,” Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, Afro, 5/5/09.
Morial takes a critical step, writing that top-quality early learning is one of the first steps toward closing that gap. The Urban League already made that link a key plank in its “Opportunity Compact,” which includes an eye-opening statistic: “At age 4, children who live below the poverty line are 18 months below what is normal for their group; by age 10 that gap is still present.”
A top policy priority for the Urban League is to “commit to mandatory early childhood education beginning at age 3 as well as guarantee access to college for all.”
The Urban League’s campaign connects key economic dots. A good start in child care can help lead all the way to a college degree, which may be the ultimate anti-poverty tool. Conversely, the lack of degrees among the poor is one of the nation’s more entrenched educational and economic challenges.
Unfortunately, over the last 30 years, students from poor families made little progress in earning four-year degrees.
In 1975, only 7.1 percent of the nation’s poorest young adults earned a bachelor’s degree, and in 2003 that number stood at 8.6 percent, according to the higher education research group Postsecondary Education Opportunity.
“… at a time when we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, along with increased competition in the global economy, it is more important than ever that we produce the most prepared and best educated workforce in the world.” Morial wrote. “That is why the ‘Opportunity to Thrive,’ with its focus on early childhood education and making college more affordable, is one of the cornerstones of the National Urban League's Opportunity Compact.”