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GOVERNOR: Yeah? Hey. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi Governor. My Name is Chris Daniel and I'm a Mitlon Resident.
GOVERNOR: Chris. DANIEL: Thanks for this opportunity. We appreciate it. As an educator and a father
of two toddlers, I just want to speak directly to early education. I really want to thank
you for what you've done and the steps you've taken to sort of help that along. I guess
- I really do, I think it's so important that education for all kids starts early - I guess
I have two questions. One: could you explain a little more about what you see in the next
few years in regards to early education. And what, as a community, can we do to help that
movement along? GOVERNOR: Thank you Chris for both questions. First of all, there's
a factoid that I learned in the course of writing this project that we were just talking
about. A child's brain develops ninety percent betweeen the age of zero and 4.5. We start
spending money on them when they're five. You gotta ask yourself, "does this serve our
long-term interest?". In the community where we live - here in Milton - most parents provide
early education opportunities. Not just babysitting, you know, there's this program and these lessons
and all kinds of ways to stimulate that child, to teach everything from social skills to
reading for that matter. And so the universal Pre-K movement is something whose logic and
objective I support. Now we can't go there in one step because we can't afford it. And
there are some communities, by the way, where the parents say "you know I would rather not
do that through the education system. I just want to have the latitude to be able to do
it in my own way". I think what we are trying to emphasize is the highest-need communities
first, if we have to stage the implementation. So places that are unlike Milton, where parents
can't imagine a way to make those kinds of opportunities available to their kids. So
if we start in the highest-need places and kind of leverage out from there. All of this
depends on growing the state fisc - or does in part - and that depends on growing the
economy and the job base, which is job one for me. But I do think this is one of those
things where we pay for it sooner or later because if we don't put the time in on the
front end in terms of preparing kids so that they are ready to learn. And, to the point
that we respectfully differ on in terms of time, but making an educational experience
where - and the best teachers do this, you probably do - where there is a professional
in the class helping the kid deal with the stuff outside of the classroom that affects
their ability to study inside the classroom - that whole wrap-around, that whole child
approach - that's what I think, that's what happens in the best schools - public, private,
whatever they are. And we're trying to create conditions that make that happen. But I think
that the many, many studies that show that investmnt in early childhood education saves
at the back end in a whole variety of things, from you know the most simple things like
workforce preparation to criminal justice expenditure. But it's one of those things,
it's a long term play, and we haven't governed for the long term in a long time in Massachusetts
or in America. And we're trying to change that. Thank you.