Ed Morrison · Cleveland’s expertise in early child education

December 21st, 2009

In Cleveland’s next economy, prosperity will depend more on brain development than real estate development.

Over the past decade, leading-edge economists and policy analysts have drawn the connection between early childhood education and economic development. See for example:

  • The prestigious Committee for Economic Development report, Preschool for All;
  • Nobel laureate James Heckman’s work on the economic value of early child care
  • The prominent role that the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank is playing in shaping early child care policy as an economic development strategy

    • Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have nationally recognized experts in early childhood education. Yet, these capabilities are still strangely detached from a meaningful economic development strategy. My sense is that Cleveland’s leaders view early childhood initiatives as human service investments that stand apart from economic development.

    Big mistake. Early child investments boost productivity and are tightly bound to economic development strategy.

    All of these thoughts came to mind, as I read this New York Times article out of Buffalo:

    For much of the last century, educators and many scientists believed that children could not learn math at all before the age of five, that their brains simply were not ready.

    But recent research has turned that assumption on its head — that, and a host of other conventional wisdom about geometry, reading, language and self-control in class. The findings, mostly from a branch of research called cognitive neuroscience, are helping to clarify when young brains are best able to grasp fundamental concepts.

    Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them

    Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison

    Random Posts

    Category: BFD
    Comments Off