Mayors Discuss How Early Childhood Programs Yield High Public Returns

More than 100 mayors, council-members, and appointed city officials discussed how early childhood programs can yield exceptionally high returns for communities as well as taxpayers last Thursday at LA County's first City Leaders Summit on Building Blocks for Cities' Economic Success: Investing in Early Childhood Development.

The half-day conference, hosted by the Los Angeles County Children's Planning Council through a grant from First 5 LA, was opened by LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina, First 5 LA chair and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

"Research has shown that government involvement in other types of economic development, such as subsidies to sports stadiums or businesses is, at best, a zero-sum game," said Robert Grunewald, economic analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, a keynote speaker who has published and lectured widely on the subject of child development as an economic growth tool.

"Studies have demonstrated that quality child development programs, such as preschool, bring a real public return of 12 percent and a real total return (public and private) of 16 percent," he added.

It's been well documented that children who received high quality early education are not only more likely to succeed in school, go to college and enjoy higher incomes, but also are less likely to become drug users, criminals, welfare recipients, and teenage parents.