Education: Our platform

Our position: All children should have access to quality pre-school programs and services and policies need to be established to support every youth’s completed education.

Facts to support our position:

• According to the High Scope Study, for every $1 spent on a child’s well-being in the first five years of life, $17 is saved in remedial/custodial costs later in life.

• The Search Institute has outlined 40 developmental assets critical to educational preparedness. Youth who develop 75 percent of them are six times more likely to succeed in school than those with 10 or fewer.

• Low reading levels are a problem throughout the tri-county. Nearly 8,000 third graders and 16,000 eighth graders did not meet MEAP standards in 2005.

Our strategy:

• Secure the passage of the Education Begins at Home Act at the federal level.

• Support the work of the Early Childhood Investment Corporation

• Support an increase in Head Start funding at the federal level

• Support State Drop-out prevention advocacy efforts

To learn more about all of United Way’s work in Education, visit www.uwsem.org.