Joint Education Committee of the House and Senate
February 16, 2001

I wish to thank the members of the committee for their interest in children and for the fact that they serve on what is an extremely important, if not the most important committee in the Legislature. This committee is important because it deals with our most vital and precious resource - our children, our human resource. Your charge is difficult because the matters you deal with affect the future. The results of the decisions you make are often not quickly realized. In fact, they may not be recognized for years to come, and this flies in the face of and in conflict with the tenor of the times. Our society likes immediate results. We demand instant gratification, and education just does not lend itself to that.

Yet today, we are talking about early intervention; we are talking about a program that is designed to help four year old children. Things we do for a four year old child today will not be recognized until all of you have left legislative office. Term limits of twelve years will not provide adequate time to see the lasting results of creating better beginnings for our children today. So, what we are doing really is sowing some seeds and hoping for a crop that we individually may never partake, but it still has to be done. I do not think that this is an adventure into the unknown. Senator Jones has already pointed out the facts that warrant our investment in early intervention. Later you will hear a very thorough and elegant presentation from Dr. Craig Ramey concerning the value of creating better beginnings for our children. This is not an area unknown or untested.

Research has shown that if you get in early with children, you change the beginnings of their lives, which, in turn, will change their future. What we do know is that we must move away from the poor beginnings in education that never lead to good endings. Our purpose today is to create better beginnings for all our children, and particularly, those that are "at risk." One-third of our children, one out of three are termed "at risk". At risk of what? At risk of making it; at risk of getting through the third grade; at risk of getting through the eighth grade; at risk of making it to a viable position in life where they can be productive for their own benefit, as well as that of society. I think that most of us will agree that if one-third C one in three of anything is "at risk," we are all "at-risk".

This is not just an issue of compassion; although, I think we are compassionate people and we ought to be concerned about all of our children. In the Council for a Better Louisiana's research publication, "Fighting Poverty", an effort was made to paint the face of the child and to let people know of this child who lives in circumstances and conditions that are not fit and are not conducive to their well-being, their education, their success or success in life. The child that lives in a mobile home where the only electricity to that home comes from an extension cord from the mobile home next door, the child that lives in a home where there are no books, the child that lives in a home where there has been no education for generations and where there is no education today. This is the child we must be concerned about. So, we ought to be compassionate; but we have to also be practical. Aren't we all "at risk" when we have reports such as census data showing that we have the slowest growth rate in the south; when we are forty percent of the national average; when the economic report shows that we are just not getting it done and people are moving away and jobs are being lost and new jobs are not being created? The only new jobs we have are low paying jobs that keep people in poverty. Aren't we "at risk" when we read the "Kids Count" report showing how many children live in poverty, how many live with a single parent, how many drop out of school, how many go to jail and the cost that is associated with all of these failures?

We are at great risk in this State. Your child is "at risk", as well as your grandchildren. I was talking to someone as I was walking down the hall, and they were commenting on how they had read to their children since they were babies. When they rocked them to sleep, they read them stories. You probably have done that with your children, and many of us now have done it with our grandchildren. That is not the case in too many of our homes. When that child who from the date of birth has been nurtured, talked to, and cared for is blended at age six with the child who has never seen a book, never sat down and had someone talk to them, never gotten in line, never responded to any kind of order or discipline; what do you think your child or grandchild is going to experience? I will tell you what is going to happen. The teacher is going to be driven in so many cases to teaching to the lowest common denominator and not the highest possibility. So, we are all "at risk". It is not just about those kids; it is about our kids. It is about all kids, and it's about all of our futures.

Well, we can sit around and point fingers and try to find fault. I will tell you who is not at fault, and that is a baby born today or a baby that was born last week. The kids are not at fault. We can talk about responsibility, and we can talk about a parent who has abandoned that responsibility, but the bottom line is that if we are going to break the vicious cycle that is alluded to by the figures that Senator Jones gave and the points made by the chairman, if we are going to break that vicious cycle, we have got to get in early with kids. That is what this meeting is about today. It will be difficult, expensive and will require change - and God knows how we don't like change. This is what we must do.

All easy ground on this issue has been plowed. There is nothing left but the difficult to do, and yet, it must be done. It must be done! We have spent a great deal of money, as Commissioner Stalder will tell you later, trying in a futile way to correct the results, rather than provide prevention. We have been too prone to throw money at an expensive cure without setting aside money for prevention, and we must do that. Quite simply, we have just fed people fish, and small ones at that, rather than teach them how to fish. This has got to change. There are a lot of things we have got to do, but this is one thing we can do. We can get in early and start trying to mold that young mind in a positive way with good attitudes towards education. We can help that child be receptive to education and enable them to be successful as they move through school and through life. This will benefit the individual and society.

I really think that to not properly prepare our children for education is very similar to deciding that we are not going to immunize them against disease. In fact, if we were having as many children dropping through the cracks as the result of some disease or epidemic as are dropping through the cracks because of illiteracy and a lack of opportunity, I believe that we would be in a state of emergency. Maybe that is the way we ought to go about his. This is not an issue; it is an emergency. This is not an issue; this is a value. If we get in early and create some better beginnings, then we will all enjoy better endings.

Questions and comments may be directed to websen@legis.la.gov.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.