That was a bad business move, said Robert Dugger, managing partner of the Hanover Investment Group LLC. Dugger advises very large investors, such as the Saudi Monetary Authority and the Singapore Investment Bank.

"I’d have to ask them ‘Do you think it’s a good idea to invest your financial capital where those people are not investing in their own human capital?’ The answer is always no," he said. "This is exactly where New Mexico is."

Dugger was one of a slew of speakers who addressed the 2009 New Mexico Economic Summit on Early Childhood Investment on Nov. 5 in Santa Fe. The meeting was the first public gathering of the Partnership, which is being funded by a $400,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and it specifically targeted top business leaders in the state.

The 180 attendees at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center heard presentations on early brain development, early childhood programs under way in other states and the significant economic and social returns on investment that many programs have demonstrated.

"We’re here to take the temperature of New Mexico’s business leaders," said Lillian Montoya Rael, project manager for the Partnership.

Dugger is part of a national effort called Partnership for America’s Economic Success, a coalition of business people sponsoring similar meetings around the country. New Mexico has an extraordinary history of innovation, he said. But if it does not start investing more in its youngest citizens, the effects will continue to hurt the state.

"External capital will be less interested in investing in New Mexico, and talented young adults will want to move out," he said.

Mounting evidence indicates that early childhood experiences impact success for the rest of a person’s life, he added.

"If a child is having his head pounded against a radiator at age 3, he’s laying down thousands of connections saying ‘You must be fearful, people can explode,’" Dugger said. "That kid, at 14, is not going to be one who gets along with other people."

The Partnership is housed in United Way of Santa Fe County and has the backing of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. It’s a multi-year effort to build support for early childhood education programs in New Mexico.

Katherine Freeman, executive director of United Way, called early childhood education and development the "great civil rights issue of our time." She asked the assembled business leaders to get involved.

"We won’t ask you to do anything we can’t substantiate," she said. "There will be funding to help you do this in your communities."

No request will be made for business involvement that is not consistent with the Telluride Principles for Investing in Young Children, Dugger said. They were developed two years ago at a gathering of more than 150 business and civic leaders in Telluride, Colo. They include: maximizing the success of every child; including parents in the process; using best practices to improve child outcomes; focusing on programs with sound performance evaluations; and using private and public incentives to replicate successful programs.

Don Chalmers, president of Don Chalmers Ford, said investment in early childhood development consistently shows that these efforts generate cost-benefit ratios of about 3 to 1.

"Any future economic development initiative should have this at the top," he said, referencing a Federal Reserve study on the issue that found more consistent returns on such investments than on traditional public subsidy programs for economic development.

Chalmers encouraged attendees to commit themselves and to make their voices heard.

"You have to understand how influential and important you are to your community," he said. "Become a business champion of this effort."

Among the speakers was Dave Lawrence, president of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation. He outlined the steps Miami•Dade County has taken in this area. It has not been cheap.

"We spend $360 million more dollars than we were spending before," he said.

Yet his county is faced with many of the same issues of poverty and academic underachievement as New Mexico, he added.

"Business leaders who complain about graduates don’t realize that the path to hiring the most capable qualified employees begins with a child’s earliest years," he said.

Lawrence led the 2002 campaign for The Children’s Trust, a dedicated source of funding for early intervention for children. He also helped pass a statewide constitutional amendment to provide pre-kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. The Trust was funded with a ballot initiative to raise property taxes. It had a five-year sunset, but voters reauthorized it last year.

Lawrence also warned there is no magic bullet.

"Pre-K for 4-year-olds is almost the least important thing I work on," he said. "So don’t think if you have pre-K, you have solved the challenge."

There must also be pre-natal and early literacy programs, as well as skill building for parents.

"This isn’t a matter of higher taxes, it’s a matter of priorities," he added.

The scope of the problem

• 20 percent of current workers are functionally illiterate
• Less than half the children in every state are proficient in reading and math
• 54 percent of business leaders said they expect to have difficulty finding enough educated and skilled workers in the future
• Children born with low birth weight and fewer parental resources have poorer health, are less likely to work and have lower earnings as adults
• By age 5, a child’s brain reaches 85 percent of its adult weight, developing 700 neural synapses every second
• Of 50 children who have trouble reading in first grade, 44 of them will still have trouble reading in fourth grade
• Children who move three or more times between the ages of 4 and 7 are almost 20 percent less likely to graduate from high school
• Children who are chronically hungry are more likely to be in special education, to repeat a grade, to get into fights and to have lower test scores. It can cost up to four times as much to educate a child who doesn’t have enough to eat.

Source: Pew Center on the States and Partnership for Success

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