Pay now or pay more later

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

One continual question we face as individuals and a society is how best to spend our money, particularly in meeting basic needs and protecting the common good.

Too often in the public sphere we opt to address symptoms, rather than root causes. For example, building new prisons rather than figuring out how to lower the crime rate.

A new study from Chicago provides proof that prudential use of tax monies on young children does pay dividends.

The study of the Chicago public school system's Child-Parent Center (CPC) found that the low-income children in this comprehensive early-childhood education program were more likely to go to college, find work and stay out of the courts and jail.

A research team led by Arthur Reynolds, a University of Minnesota professor, for 19 years tracked the 1,000 low-income CPC preschoolers and 550 peers enrolled in other early education programs.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Results were published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The CPC program provides comprehensive education, health, job and family services for children and their parents in the city's poorest area. Most children start at age 3 or 4 and can remain in it until second or third grade.

CPC costs Chicago Public Schools about $5,000 a year per student - $2,000 more than Head Start. But Reynolds estimates that by the time the students are 65, taxpayers will have saved 10 times that much.

Certainly CPC proves the old adage: "A stitch in time saves nine."