Boulder County's getting smoked on the achievement gap

Every other year, The Community Foundation publishes a report on the changing demographics of the Boulder County community. "Trends" points out where we stand in terms of education, the environment, civic engagement, health care access, arts and culture. Our Civic Forum Director, Morgan Rogers, is pounding out this year's installment, to be published this Fall. She recruited several of us to help write various sections. I was in charge of writing about our new Early Childhood Initiative. What follows is a sneak peak of what I came up with:

Help The Community Foundation bridge the achievement gap through school readiness

Boulder County is home to some of Colorado’s brightest students. Yet, the achievement gap in the Boulder Valley School District between Latino and non-Hispanic white students is the state’s second-widest. A similar disparity persists in the St. Vrain Valley School District, as well as county-wide, between low-income and middle- and upper-income students.

The gap separates before children enter kindergarten, and it only widens as they go through school. Many factors contribute to this, including class size and curriculum rigor; a child’s health; and whether a parent participates in their child’s early education by reading to them and turning off the television. But the dramatically shifting demographics of our county are also making a huge impact:

- Boulder County’s Latino population has doubled since 1990
- A greater percentage of Latino children live in poverty than non-Latinos
- The poverty rate for children in Boulder County is increasing about twice as fast as the general population

The Community Foundation has tracked these demographic Trends for more than a decade. Year after year, the achievement gap persists as one of the most stubborn issues in our community.

That’s why we have decided to challenge the community to convene around this important issue. Specifically, we are asking for donations to our unrestricted grant-making fund, The Community Trust. If the community rises to this four-year, $4 million challenge, we will not only immediately and permanently double our annual grant-making to local nonprofits. We have also embarked on the most informed, passionate and funded undertaking the Community Foundation has ever launched.

Its working title is the Early Childhood Initiative. Its goal is to help make every child in Boulder County ready to learn by the time they enter school.

We chose to focus on improving the state of early childhood education in Boulder County as a way of closing the achievement gap after close consultation with local and national thought leaders. Time and again, those experts told us that investing in early care and education pays huge dividends to society down the road. Various studies have determined that every $1 invested in quality early childhood programs can save taxpayers $4 to $17. These savings come from:

- Reduced need for special education and grade repetition
- Less crime and lower incarceration rates
- Fewer people on public assistance
- Increased employment, wages and taxes paid
- Fewer teen pregnancies and less smoking

The grassroots funding the community can bring to the table is just the beginning. Through collaboration, advocacy, research and outreach, we believe we can leverage our influence. We seek to help connect and amplify the expertise and wisdom already present in this community to make Boulder County the best place to raise a child.

The Early Childhood Council of Boulder County is developing a comprehensive early childhood education framework that addresses the whole child, gets parents the resources they need, gets kids health screenings and puts kids into quality childcare on a sliding fee scale that truly prepares them for lifelong learning.

Finance experts are exploring costs and ways to fund this exciting endeavor. Early estimates are sobering. A group hired to give a ballpark figure said the program would cost $21 million. That’s quadruple the $5.2 million in public funding currently spent on childcare and early learning in Boulder County.

Current public spending on school readiness amounts to $276 per Boulder County child under age 6. Compare that to the $6,500 per pupil annually spent in BVSD, and you can see there is no comprehensive childcare and early education system in Boulder County. It’s the kind of system experts say is needed to turn Boulder County’s achievement gap around.

At The Community Foundation, we seek to raise awareness for this important community need.

Please join us, because research tells us that all children thrive when the whole class shows up ready to learn; because the community indicators we track show us that the achievement gap in Boulder County between successful and failing students continues to grow; because the most preventative way to close that gap is to keep it from opening to begin with.

The information, passion and funding we need exists in this community already.

We are excited to take this journey with you.

***

Success Story:
Alberto, Sonia and Providers Advancing School Outcomes

Alberto Pantoja works long days as a landscaper in Longmont. His wife, Sonia De la Tore, works at McDonalds from 4:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The couple, originally from Juarez, Mexico, has three children, all of whom were born here: A 15-year-old daughter; a 12-year-old son and a 5-year-old girl.

Alberto and Sonia both speak far more fluently in their native Spanish than English. Their older kids struggle fiercely in school, with their middle son only recently improving his scores on the Colorado Student Achievement Program (CSAP) tests to the 50th percentile.

Yet, Alberto and Sonia are evangelists for school readiness.

“Early education is the best thing that can happen,” Alberto said. “It’s the soul of a child’s education.”

Alberto and Sonia didn’t always feel this way. Looking back, they say they didn’t pay attention to early learning with their first two children. That’s partly because of a cultural difference between Boulder County and Mexico. In Mexico, parents don’t generally view the early years as a time for education, they said. That’s for the schools to take care of, starting in first grade. And those schools are much more strict, requiring uniforms.

Alberto and Sonia didn’t know it at the time, but when they put their youngest daughter into daycare, their provider was undergoing training by Providers Advancing School Outcomes, or PASO. PASO’s goal is to promote school readiness and reduce the achievement gap between well-prepared children and unprepared children living in poverty, before they enter kindergarten. The nonprofit currently does this by providing professional development to Latino Family Friend & Neighbor providers to enhance language and literacy development for Latino children in poverty, birth through five years of age.

The parents noticed immediately that their daughter was learning things that their older children weren’t introduced to prior to entering school. She was coming home with art work, and her parents soon learned that her provider was conducting each day with a structured lesson plan.

 “I personally think that I was lucky to have a PASO-trained person take care of my 5-year-old daughter,” Sonia said. “Why? Because I see that she likes being with her. I feel secure and am happy to leave my daughter in her hands. And my daughter is really happy. My daughter knows her colors, she knows how to read, she knows everything.”

Sonia switched her 14-year-old son into a charter school and became much more strict about making him do his homework. The result is that his CSAP scores rose from the 17th percentile to the 50th percentile. Both parents now express confidence that their five-year-old daughter is eventually headed for college.

Sonia and Alberto’s lives were changed by the PASO program’s influence on their child’s daycare provider. They were lucky. Most parents in similar situations to them are falling through the cracks. When that happens, their kids fall through the cracks also, and the achievement gap widens.

“There is a wise saying: It doesn’t matter how much time you spend with your child, but rather, the quality of time you spend with your child,” Sonia said.

The Community Foundation applauds the progress made so far by PASO, and also supports its work financially. The Foundation in 2009 awarded PASO $90,000.00 – the largest unrestricted grant ever approved by our Board of Trustees. The grant was made because PASO is effectively helping to close Boulder County’s achievement gap by training those who care for some of the county’s most at-risk children.

Asked if he would mind sharing his story publicly, Alberto responded: "It is our duty to contribute in any way we can to support families, children and programs so that educational opportunities become more available to our community."