L.A. COUNTY TAKING LEAD IN EARLY EDUCATION.

Byline: Don Knabe 

KINDERGARTEN teachers will tell you that they know in the first hour of the first day whether a student has been to preschool.

According to experts, most of a child's brain development occurs by age 5. For this reason, quality early education gives children a chance to start school on the right foot. We're not talking about teaching babies trigonometry. What kids need are age-appropriate activities that prepare them for their formal educations - counting, letters, social and motor skills, color identification and other basic abilities that make all the difference for a child entering kindergarten.

Today, about 50 percent of the approximately 153,000 4-year-olds in Los Angeles County are enrolled in some form of preschool. Of those that are enrolled in programs, only a fraction receives quality, professional services. This means that thousands of families every year are denied an opportunity to give their children the best start in life.

That's about to change in a big way.

For the last year, an unprecedented coalition of community leaders brought together by First 5 LA has been building support for the most radical improvement in the last half century in how we educate our children: universal preschool.

Parents and child care providers - as well as representatives from education, philanthropy, business, government and research - all have weighed in on this plan to give every 4-year-old in L.A. County an opportunity to attend a quality preschool program. Former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg and child activist Nancy Daly Riordan served as co-chairmen to the advisory committee on universal preschool and helped bring the community to a consensus on this important issue. This diverse group is now unified in its dream to fix the critical flaw in our education system that allows students on the first day of school to fall behind their peers because they don't have the most basic abilities for the classroom.

Universal preschool has so much support in L.A. County because it makes sense. Research shows that students who have attended quality early learning programs are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to attend college. Moreover, when our students are able to make the most out of their education, they become better citizens and more productive workers, creating a foundation for the continued economic vitality of the region. Every $1 spent on early education can save as much as $10 later in government costs for crime, welfare and special education.

In 2002, First 5 LA's board of commissioners identified universal preschool as the community's best chance to make a dramatic improvement in our children's lives. In February, it unanimously approved the Universal Preschool 10-year Master Plan, which can be viewed at www.first5.org.

First 5 LA was created following the 1998 passage of Proposition 10, which created a vital revenue stream from the sales of cigarettes and tobacco products for programs benefiting our youngest children and their families. In the last five years, it has allocated more than $700 million to programs providing early education, child care, health insurance, child- abuse prevention and much more. It has committed $600 million over the next five years to get this new preschool system up and running.

This September, the new system will begin funding its first preschool programs.

To ensure that all children in Los Angeles County can be served as the system expands over the next 10 years, others in the community will need to weigh in with their resources, expertise and support. We will need local and state governments, the business sector and philanthropic organizations to join our efforts.

By taking the lead on universal preschool, Los Angeles County has placed itself at the forefront of a nationwide movement to integrate quality early education into the schooling that every child receives. Fourteen states - including New York, Illinois, Georgia and Florida - are at various stages of their own universal preschool efforts, but none are at anything near the scope or complexity of Los Angeles County's. The entire country is looking to us as a model - once this works in L.A., people will know it can work anywhere.

It's a testament to Los Angeles County's ambition and spirit of cooperativeness that we've come this far. With your help, we can take advantage of this chance to make good on America's promise that every child will have a chance to fulfill his or her potential.