Early childhood education is an issue of national security
Opinion/Editorial By: Rick Noriega
Featured in: The Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, El Paso Times and Rio Grande Guardian
Early childhood education is not just an education imperative—it needs to be a national security priority.
Seventy-five percent of young Americans are unqualified to join the military, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Three primary reasons are inadequate education, criminality and physical unfitness.
According to the U.S. Army Accession Command, approximately one in four young Americans lack a high school diploma, one in 10 possess a criminal conviction and 27 percent fail physical requirements due to obesity.
I want to focus on education. A high school diploma requirement can sometimes be waived but roughly 30 percent of potential recruits with a diploma fail the Armed Forces Qualification Test. The 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported the majority of U.S. eighth graders scored below proficiency in math (69 percent) and reading (70 percent).
Couple these facts with upcoming U.S. Census data estimating tremendous growth in the very communities needed to populate our Armed Forces. The students we will need in uniform tomorrow are increasingly failing in school today. In the 2008-09 Texas school year, 51 percent of kindergarteners and 65.4 percent of pre-kindergarteners were Hispanic, the demographic with the highest state dropout rate. These statistics foretell the future population of military recruits.
The research behind early education is irrefutable. In the Institute of Medicine report, From Neurons to Neighborhoods, brain scans and neuroscience demonstrated the best time to influence a child’s intellectual development occurs when the brain is under intense development, which occurs during the first five years.
We at AVANCE have been doing an intensive parent-child program that addresses this in predominately Hispanic communities for 37 years—an approach focused on the mother as the first teacher and home as the first classroom.
Our results? According to a 17 year reunion study of the first cohort of families, 94 percent of children who successfully completed the AVANCE Program graduate from high school. In Dallas, AVANCE children are excelling in their studies. In the 2007-2008 school year, 97 percent of AVANCE child graduates (kindergarten to eleventh grade) were promoted to the next grade.
Nobel laureate economist James Heckman estimates, for every dollar we fail to invest in early childhood education, we as Americans will be forced to pick up at a rate of eight dollars to address other social needs. Heckman stresses early intervention reduces crime, grade repetition and special education costs, promotes high school graduation, college attendance, helps prevent teenage births, and raises test scores. Though our financial consequences are obvious and tangible, this call to action is not about our nation’s financial security but our investment for our national security.
Most people understand the importance of education in the success of America’s economic engines—the need for educated workers, the importance of continued innovation driving our prosperity but we fail to recognize its impact on our military. Improved educational outcomes increase military abilities to recruit the warriors we need to ensure America’s safety. Justly, I feel understanding the importance of an educated pool of recruits for our military forces and public safety professionals (firefighters or police) are integral. The safety of our future and our nation depends on it.
Rick Noriega: He is the new National President/CEO of AVANCE Inc. an Early Childhood Education Program. He is a Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard and an Administration appointee to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission.