Public Discussion of Early Childhood Education. And More!

1. The promise of any payback from all this energy is in the hands of the urban school principal and their ability to pull up the bottom of the bottom half in collaboration with anybody who cares but especially the Faith-base. This is of course controlled by those who care enough to give the gift of civility and then the gift of early reading skills. In this case the gift is much, much, much more important than making it a standard government activity.

2. The faith base must become the on the ground backbone of the focus on the bottom half of the bottom half. Under the direction of the principal? Why not? Fix the why-nots! The position needs the fix anyway.

3. Basic quality and collaborative organizational principles must be recognized and commingled with the loving effort to change lives. Staying positive! Building on truths! Excessive communication!

4. Innovation verse “new building”
a. Measurement is already set with No Child Left Behind.
b. Physical space exists in churches, children organizations and libraries.
c. Does the manpower also exist in these locations? Marginal cost to start the payback is not significant.
d. Willingness to fund raise and collaborate on civility and ready to read skills? This is USA VALUES-CDP.

5. Endowment verse investment with a ROI. Payback.
a. Can do this with bonds not endowment!
b. Nobody would turn down the endowment for early education, but there is no reason to wait for it.
c. Payback expected in police and justice and schools and productive community lives after age 15.
d. Any payback depends on success with the bottom of the bottom half.

6. Effective citizens defined. Business, merchants, health care, government, income taxpayers, property taxpayers, sales taxpayers, schools, churches, children organizations.

7. 1830-- Da!! Education has been discussing this since 1830. Competition, Federal verses states, Montessori, local on the ground support efforts to teach children how to fish. All this has been known for years. We need to support tactical action by the professionals in public schools and the Faith-base. They care, they have missions that include caring. Those operating on high ground need to get their feet wet. New reading methods are needed? All children have to be exposed during the sensitive period (age 3-6) to start.

8. Importance of 100% focus. Importance of emotional intelligence and civility defined for the children.

9. Listen to the experts. Principals, teachers, consider them experts in the school activity. They would not be experts in innovation or community collaboration- yet. Embrace the experts in the future internet and other future communications. There is every reason to believe a tremendous collaborative capacity exists in these resources and the roleout period would be very short and continous. Are we up for it? Examples exist that will save urban public education for our middle class dominated nation. With all disengaged becoming engaged schools are going to be a growth industry.

10. Politics no matter! Civic emotional intelligences matters. Generational Poverty matters. Who will give the gift to the principals to send the right messages? Who will give the gift to the children most in need of capitalizing on the sensitive language development period?

11. How do you see the isolation of the bottom-half? Under clear glass or is it behind painted glass so it is not even seen until the child is left behind. Or it is poured out of the glass as melted ice leftovers. Each community has its own truth and assets to deal with it.

12. All solutions go through the population on the ground. No way around the islands. Resources are required to change lives. The solution requires the gift of reading readiness from those who can give the gift. The Master Degrees and the PHD's should be working our most difficult issues first and foremost. The bottom half of the bottom half waits for the individual attention of our best and brightest. To see the light it will only take two cycles of 3-6 year olds entering the Kindergartens ready to read in English. That is six short years of innovation.

13. To get to the islands we need bridges. Not boats. On the ground bridges that can be used repeatedly. Schools, faith base, police, justice, government, effective citizens, health care, merchants, business. Promoting secular civility and early reading.
a. Inoculations are public policy. Early reading in English should be also.
b. Why would effective citizens want to pay more taxes and then spend it on remediation without a focus on doing it right the first time.
c. Accountable already exists. Ask a principal. Ask the Florida Head of Public Education.
d. A local capacity to be ethical in a unique school territory is required.
e. Break down the need to do it right location by location.

14. How good is this for business and effective citizens?
a. $300-500 billion per year good! Using $1,000,000 per disengaged student.
b. That is trillions of dollars of tax cuts built location by location.
c. Grasp the moment, capitalize on the progress, and look at the civility we are leaving our children.
d. Look at the federal customer, who will pay for the progress, the investment is not even out of our pocket.

15. Authentic leadership
a) Steward of the local civic ethic
b) Business leaders are not effective citizens, unless they care about the jobs they send overseas and care about the children that cannot read.
c) Define civility, define the role in it, say no to the short-term speculators and yes to the builders. Then claim to be authentic.
d) Know that early literacy for the bottom half of the bottom half will happen only through the gifts given.
e) Provide the get it done expertise, business has been through the problems the schools are now dealing with. Ask your activity cost expert to pick a local school and community and estimate the total activity cost of early reading to include the cost of failure, recovery, disengagement. Then do first things first in your own opinion. How simple can it be made.

16. When does a so-called solid start become only half a start for the community school? Hint 100% of the children are needed. Truth is the sensitivity periods to language development are never recovered. Students can fight through what is missing to learn, but it is never the same as it could be, and the opportunity lost is never forgotten becoming a major reason for racial discontent. What could schools do with a 100% solid start? We ask them now to completely fix the communnity's poor start. Is that fair and ethical? Lets get to a positive lead.

17. When does crime prevention actually payoff for the community? Hint, with 100% civility and early reading skills. And jobs for the engaged.

18. Real progress on the ground looks like an urban real estate development boom to me. This will draw the economics to the streets. And jobs for the engaged. Authentic business leaders can do better here also. They have time to just redirect the growth in production, what is done is done.

19. Tactical next steps,
a) Build civility and achievement cultures-- School, community
b) Build a civil ethic that faces the truth location by location—looks to the bottom of the glass before it is poured out.
c) Recognize the gifts required to put it behind us.
d) Recognize the high cost of doing nothing. Communities, principals and students fail. Society becomes less safe, secure and civil. Costs go up not down regardless of what is in the budget.

Sincerely,

Thomas D. Wolfgram