Rob Krupicka, Alexandria Virginia City Council Member's Blog

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

A Bold Step, and STRONG START for Virginia

I am proud to share this news with you. Tim Kaine unveiled his universal pre-school initiative today. I had the opportunity to provide input to this and believe strongly that this is a great step for our state. By making early childhood education a cornerstone of his campaign for Governor, Kaine is laying the foundation for a strong future for our State.

---------------- Here is the press release--------

Henrico County -- Saying that it's time to "move Virginia's schools forward from a focus on competence to a focus on excellence," Lt. Governor and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tim Kaine today unveiled his education agenda to "Demand Excellence for our Children."

"Over the last three years we have seen marked improvements in our schools and our children's performance," Kaine said. "The standards we have set have helped us offer high-quality public education throughout the state. But now it's time to take our schools to the next level. Virginia has spent the last decade trying to define the floor. The next decade has to be about raising the ceiling."

The centerpiece of Kaine's plan is the creation of "Start Strong," an initiative to make high-quality prekindergarten available to all Virginia four-year-olds whose parents choose to enroll them. Recognizing the distinctiveness of each community, Kaine will create Start Strong advisory councils in each locality. Thes advisory councils will be made up of parents, educators, business leaders, local elected officials, school superintendents, private day care providers, children's advocates, and community leaders, and will be charged with creating a plan for providing universally available pre-kindergarten that fits the needs and resources of its community.

"Ninety percent of a child's brain growth is complete by the age of five," Kaine noted. "Therefore, the foundation of a child's academic and economic success must be built very early. Every child deserves the opportunity to fulfill their full potential. Our Start Strong initiative will provide all Virginia four-year-olds the opportunity to attend high-quality pre-kindergarten, and enter school ready to read and ready to succeed."

Kaine also outlined his plan to raise Virginia teachers' salaries to the national average and provide teachers with regular, meaningful evaluations and continuing professional development.

"The greatest impact we can have on the quality of our children's education is by giving them the best teachers," he said. "Demanding excellence from our teachers means better educational opportunity for our children."

Kaine also pledged to continue making full funding of public education his number-one budget priority, "because these resources mean better books, more computers and smaller class sizes for our children."

Education has long been a priority for Kaine. During his time as a City Councilman and Mayor of Richmond, Kaine fought to build the first new Richmond city schools in a generation. Under his leadership, drop-out rates fell by 37%, teachers' pay increased by 25%, helping Richmond attract the best teachers for their schools, and SOL reading and math pass rates went up at every grade level by an average of 84%.

As Lt. Governor, Kaine made education his top priority, working with Governor Mark Warner for the historic investment in public education made through budget reform, fighting for a new four-year state college in Southside, and pledging to visit schools in all of Virginia's 134 cities and counties. Thus far, Kaine has visited schools in 118 of those districts, witnessing firsthand the challenges that lie ahead for Virginia’s public school system.

8:29:14 PM

More Strong Early Childhood Research

Another study that demonstrates early education and support improves the lives of children and their future successes.

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Child early intervention programs make for healthier adults
06 Jul 2005

Program participants report better physical and mental health -

A 25-year follow-up study of a comprehensive early health and education intervention program begun in the early 1970s shows that inner-city children who participated not only did better educationally, but had better physical and mental health in adulthood. The findings, published in the July Pediatrics, add to evidence that programs like Early Head Start, which was modeled on this intervention, provide good value to society.

While several have shown that early intervention programs lead to better academic outcomes during the school years, this study, led by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Boston College, is one of the first to look at long-term effects on health and health behaviors.

"This study supports what many in the medical community have long suspected to be true, that quality early intervention programs directly affect health outcomes when those children reach adulthood," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "From its inception, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been committed to improving the health and health care of all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable among us. Foundations like ours are uniquely positioned to support long-term studies that help build the evidence base over time and demonstrate that quality preventive programs improve health outcomes, reduce disparities, and have substantial economic and social value."

The Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP), a community-based child health and development program was initiated by the Brookline Public Schools and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and ran from 1972-1979. Enrollment was open to all families in suburban Brookline, Mass., and to some urban families in neighboring Boston. The program provided health, educational and social services to parents, aimed at having children enter kindergarten healthy and ready to learn. Interventions included home visits, parent groups, toy and book libraries, pre-kindergarten programs, and health and developmental monitoring. Families enrolled three months before the child's birth and participated until the child reached kindergarten age.

Of 282 children initially enrolled in BEEP, the investigators were able to survey 120 as young adults, and compared them with non-participants from the same school systems. "There were significant impacts in the lower income, high risk groups," says Judith Palfrey, MD, Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Boston and the study's first author. "We were excited to find a protective factor for health and mental health. While there had been demonstrable program effects at second grade for both urban and suburban participants, we did not detect a significant long term effect for the suburban participants compared to other young people from Brookline. We were thrilled that the program seemed to wipe out the health disparities that are found between urban and suburban youth under most current circumstances."

Overall, residents of suburban Brookline had higher educational levels, higher rates of private insurance, and better health than the urban Boston residents, with little difference between the BEEP and non-BEEP groups; Palfrey speculates that this was because Brookline offers many programs and supports for families. However, within the urban group, there were significant differences: BEEP participants had, on average, completed more than one year of additional schooling; were less likely to report incomes below $20,000 than non-participants (28% vs. 72%); were more likely to report very good or excellent health (64% vs. 42%); and had higher rates of private insurance (68% vs. 42%). They also reported healthier lifestyles, more competence in taking care of their health, and less depression.

Urban BEEP participants who received the most services tended to have higher incomes and better health outcomes than those receiving the fewest services, but due to small sample size, the differences did not reach statistical significance. However, the investigators believe that home visits were an important component of BEEP.

"BEEP started out as an educational program," says Palfrey, who began studying BEEP soon after its inception. "But program visitors would go to a home and see the mother crying, or that the family was isolated, or that it was an immigrant family that didn't have birth certificates for their babies. There was more social service intervention than anticipated. If you really want to meet the needs of high-risk families, you have to go out to them."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 30 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org/.

Founded in 1869 as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is the nation's leading pediatric medical center, the largest provider of health care to Massachusetts children, and the primary pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. In addition to 325 pediatric and adolescent inpatient beds and comprehensive outpatient programs, Children's houses the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries benefit both children and adults. More than 500 scientists, including eight members of the National Academy of Sciences, nine members of the Institute of Medicine and 10 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. For more information about the hospital visit: http://www.childrenshospital.org/.

1:35:41 PM

American Dream Slipping Away

It should come as no surprise that the rise in housing prices have made it harder and harder for middle and low income workers to own a home. Teachers, nurses, police, firefighters, child care workers are being left out of the opportunity for home ownership. This is not just an Alexandria problem, it is a national problem.

The State of Virginia gives us few tools to address this issue. We can't require development to include a certain percentage of affordable housing as they do in Maryland and other states. We do get cash contributions from developers to help pay for some affordable housing, but the quantity of housing is very small. We have the ability to give a developer additional building density in exchange for more affordable housing, but we don't always make use of that tool. We have downpayment assistance and loan programs for low and middle income residents, but those programs have not kept up with rising home costs.

We need some more tools, or we will exasperate a housing class separation that will forever alter the make-up of our communities, on our traffic congestion (as people have to drive further to get to housing they can afford) and will make the American dream impossible for many hard working Americans.

The legislature in Richmond needs to see this as the serious issue that it is. Putting our heads in the sand will not cut it.

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The Associated Press

Updated: 9:54 a.m. ET Aug. 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - Housing prices are far outstripping salary increases for low- and moderate-income jobs, putting the American dream of owning a home beyond the reach of teachers, firefighters and other community workers in many cities, said a study being released Tuesday.

The report, by a coalition advocating affordable housing, found that even cities once considered affordable, such as Tulsa, Okla., are rapidly becoming too pricey for lower-income workers such as janitors and retail sales employees.

The study found the median price of a home in the United States rose 20 percent in just 18 months, to $225,000. During the same period, wages for teachers, firefighters and nurses in most cities remained flat or increased slightly, but still fell far short of the annual salary needed to buy a home, the report from the Center for Housing Policy said.

Complete Story

The Center for Housing Policy

10:32:46 AM