11/4/2009 10:47:44 AM

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By Jeff Kiger

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

What is the best investment businesses and communities can make for the future with the greatest return?

	The best investment? How does investing in early childhood development improve the economic health of a community? Studies show that children who get early training are more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to commit a crime, more likely to be healthy and earn higher incomes. Is this being tried? Yes. It is being tried in Frogtown, St. Paul, with 500 parents. What's next? Results are expected in 2010.

That's the question that Art Rolnick, a senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank set out to answer before a crowd of about 150 local leaders at a luncheon Tuesday sponsored by the Rochester Area Foundation's First Steps early children development program..

Bidding or luring companies from other states or nearby cities to bring their jobs and money to your community is absolutely the wrong way to approach economic development, he said. That doesn't create anything.

"The right way to do it is to invest in human capital," Rolnick said.

Starting young

And that investment needs to start early, when people are young, from the womb to five years old.

An investment in quality early childhood education from the womb to five years old averages out an annual inflation-adjusted return of 16 percent, he said, pointing out that the only people promising returns like that lately have been involved with Ponzi scams.

"Most of that (16 percent) return is a public return," Rolnick said.

Rolnick began looking at that issue "through an economic lens."

What they saw was compelling. Studies show children in at-risk families who receive quality early childhood education to prepare for kindergarten are 50 percent less likely to commit a crime than their peers who did not receive that preparation. It also shows positive effects for the children's health and for spurring their parents to better themselves with education.

While those benefits are documented through multiple studies, 50 percent of Minnesota children fail a kindergarten readiness assessment.

Making it work

Rolnick's analysis determined for an investment in children and families preparing for kindergarten to be effective it needs to accomplish these things:

• Start with at-risk families.

• Engage parents.

• Offer high quality services.

• Start early.

• Make it measurable.

• Be able to bring it to scale.

Those ideas spurred the creation of the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation in 2005. It is a partnership of Twin City corporate and civic leaders that launched a full-scale program in St. Paul's Frogtown more than a year ago.

Targeting more than 500 parents of at-risk children, the foundation starting offers scholarships for children ages 3 and 4 to attend quality pre-school education.

It is paying $13,000 for all-day education or $7,000 for half-day programs for each child. It is offering food coupons to encourage engagement by the parents. Expectant mothers are being paired with life-long mentors to start training even before birth.

Rolnick calls the preliminary results encouraging.

Rochester's efforts

Rochester's own First Steps initiative, an offshoot of the Rochester Area Foundation, is also working toward the same goal. It has partnered with 33 local businesses. It's aim is to improve the quality of early childhood education and offers regular parenting workshops.

Rolnick calls the program is "a great first step."

Owner and founder of Custom Alarm, Leigh Johnson, says support of First Steps and its workshops fits his philosophy of "Find, keep and grow good people and the bottom line will take care of itself."

For Dave Oath, who works for RSM McGladrey in Rochester and is the co-chairman of the First Steps Business Alliance, the program does show immediate return to the bottom line.

He "connects the dots" to the seminars helping his employees improve their morale and reduce their stress.

"It is truly an economic payback," he told the audience.

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