The Challenge
Why Early Childhood?
Oak Park is a model-integrated community, embracing the diversity of its residents. It prides itself on striving to provide every resident with an equal opportunity for success, especially its children. Despite this commitment, Oak Park continues to struggle with a stubborn achievement gap between students from more and less advantaged backgrounds. While significant energy and resources have been devoted to narrowing the achievement gap in elementary, middle and high school, far less attention and resources have been devoted to addressing this issue at its origins – in the early childhood years (see graph 1).
Learning begins in infancy, long before formal schooling, and is cumulative. Early cognitive and socio-emotional skills form the base from which more complex skills are developed. Family and other care environments are critical to engendering early learning and skill development. As a result of the differences in early childhood environments and experiences, researchers estimate that approximately two-thirds of gaps in achievement develop before children walk through the kindergarten door.
Consider the following:
- 85% of brain development occurs by age five
- Forty years of research have shown that high-quality early learning environments coupled with support for at-risk families lead to:
- Lower rates of participation in special education
- Lower rates of involvement with the criminal justice system
- Higher rates of high school graduation
- Higher incomes and rates of home ownership
- Investment in high-quality early childhood produces aggregated rates of return of at least 7-10%.
Why Create a System?
There are 4,800 children under kindergarten age, an increase of 11% since 2000 and close to the number of children enrolled in District 97. Of this population, 16% or approximately 800 children are at risk due to family income status, developmental delays, or stressed family situations. These children represent a population larger than Oak Park’s biggest elementary school, larger than a single grade level across all of Oak Park’s elementary schools, and almost 25% of the high school population.
Many Oak Park families report feelings of isolation and stress when trying to locate early childhood services. Disadvantaged families face the greatest challenges to accessing services and programs for their children and have fewer resources to invest in effective early development.
Supporting all of Oak Park’s children, especially those at risk, requires a coordinated approach. Currently, there are many services available to families. However, there is not a coherent system that fosters quality services, ensures that families have the information and resources needed to access the services, and promotes interaction and integration of resources amongst programs.
In an era of scarcity and stress on governmental and non-profit budgets, it is essential to assure maximum leveraging and efficient use of resources. Aspects of the challenge affect all public bodies and much of the private sector. And, all stand to benefit if the challenge is successfully met.
