Minnesota Council on Foundations Blog – Philanthropy Potluck

In recent years, I’ve heard a lot about efforts to close the achievement gap, a national embarrassment that is especially evident in Minnesota.

Last week I attended “Window of Opportunity: Babies Can’t Wait, The 4th Annual Nancy Latimer Convening for Children and Youth” co-sponsored by the Minnesota Early Childhood Funders Network and the Minnesota Council on Foundations. Evidence presented there was clear – poor children (and their families) need services and intervention, long before the children enter school, to ensure an achievement gap doesn’t start.

Dr. Richard Chase of Wilder Research puts it this way, “We have to stop talking about how to close the achievement gap. We have to think about how to prevent the achievement gap.”

Chase talked about the necessity of multiple, coordinated services to achieve this and defined three essentials that very young children need to thrive:

• A caring and responsive caregiver
• A language-rich environment
• Opportunities to safely explore

In our state, 15 to 20 percent of our babies are vulnerable. Their families live in poverty, increasing the risk that they simply won’t get what they need to succeed. In 2008, 60 percent of American Indian babies in Minnesota were born into poverty, 42 percent of African American, 33 percent of Hispanic, 10 percent of Asian, and 8 percent of white babies. Low-income children of color make up a growing portion of Minnesota’s babies today and of Minnesota’s students and workforce tomorrow. Their success matters.

Dr. Megan Gunnar, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development also spoke. She introduced the theory of “serve and return,” a continual process of the child “serving something out” and how, in a responsive environment, their “serve is returned.”

This high stakes game doesn’t happen on a tennis court. Instead, imagine a baby smiling and cooing at mom and then waiting for a smile or encouraging word to come back. If she doesn’t get a response, she tries less and less often, and ultimately her brain development slows. An unresponsive environment just doesn’t provide what a child needs.

Why the lack of response? Caregivers in low-income families are depressed or emotionally stressed 15 to 20 percent of the time, rendering them ineffective at the all important “serve and return.” Lack of access to affordable mental health care and other services exacerbates the problem.

For both speakers, the answer is clear. Increase funding for the whole child, the whole family and the whole community and do it now.

Chase summarized, “Close the gap between what science is telling us and what we do. Investing in early childhood gives us the biggest bang for our buck. It’s certainly a better investment than stadiums or airlines.”

Awards Presented
This year’s “Nancy” awards, presented in honor of Nancy Latimer, went to Jane Kretzmann, senior program officer at the Minnesota Community Foundation (an MCF member) for her work promoting the healthy development of young children, including development of the Project for Babies, and Arthur J. Rolnick, economist, senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis for showing the link between early childhood education and healthy communities and economies.

- Susan Stehling, MCF

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 2:57 pm and is filed under awards, children, community foundations, economy, education, Minnesota Early Childhood Funders Network, research, youth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.