Pre-K pays us back. It’s the 700% solution to one of our nation’s biggest shortfalls

For nearly 40 years, I have advocated for universal early childhood education, including with many essays in these very pages. If passed, President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan would guarantee all 3- and 4-year-old American children, rich or poor, a quality education at no cost to their parents. It’s a simple, ideal solution — some would say long overdue — to myriad social and economic problems.

In this season of thanks and giving, we must not only acknowledge this important milestone, but also work to ensure we make this program permanent and strengthen it even more. No voice in the wilderness have I been these 40 years. Educators and policymakers have long been aware of the enormous transformative power of universal early childhood education. We all know it could conquer illiteracy in one generation and transform the cradle-to-prison pipeline into a cradle-to-career highway.

But like the long-known deadly effects of tobacco, opioids, guns and sugar, corporate special interests often prevent Americans from doing what’s best for people — putting profits for corporations ahead of saving lives. Let’s be brutally honest: There’s a lot of money invested in this dying system of criminality and corruption. It has destroyed millions of lives, crushed thousands of communities and robbed many of their ability to fulfill their constitutionally guaranteed rights as American citizens.

My dear friend and mentor Marian Wright Edelman has spent her entire career and every ounce of energy to save the millions of children left so senselessly behind. She coined the phrase “cradle-to-prison pipeline,” connecting this horrific system designed to neglect the education of all American children for the sole sake of profit.

She is not alone. Virtually every other industrialized nation in the world — socialist, capitalist and every other system in between — has proudly invested in its youngest children and parents for generations, and the results are clear. We trail almost all other advanced nations in education, literacy, science and mathematics, in a world becoming increasingly dependent on developing these skills early in life. Only America has ignored this universal wisdom for so long, despite the benefits and research. Why?

While proposing universal pre-K, President Barack Obama explained 12 years ago the basic, indisputable socioeconomic rationale: “Every dollar we invest in high quality early education can save more than $7 later on — by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime.” We called that the 700% solution. Who would turn down such a deal, especially since the alternative is to dump billions of dollars into prison construction, child criminalization, cops, courts and cuffs?

Perhaps answering these obvious questions may lead to more political discord or discomfort, but we must nonetheless rethink the backward ideology advocated by the “law and order, police-first” crowd. It never worked and never will. Honestly, it is a remnant of this nation’s racially repressive history — or is that too honest an assessment for today’s un-woke world?

So let’s agree to move on past recrimination toward collaboration. The “Build Back Better” plan would be like landing on the moon. Now we must make this a permanent structure of American society. We need to ensure this sensible investment is permanently funded, because ultimately, it pays for itself and puts money back into the pockets of all American families and businesses.

Universal pre-K would be one important step toward creating a more perfect union in our nation. Let’s continue in that direction and remain true to that ultimate goal for all Americans.