Early Childhood Education: A Governor’s Perspective

Bev Perdue served as North Carolina’s 73rd governor from 2009 to 2013. She was the state’s first female governor. Before holding the governorship, she served for a decade as the state’s lieutenant governor, a decade as a state senator, and four years in the state’s House of Representatives. She holds a PhD in education administration from the University of Florida and is a champion of education across all levels in North Carolina, but particularly in early childhood education.

You have been a proponent of early childhood education throughout your time in the North Carolina government. What inspires you to continue to advocate for this policy issue?

I continue to believe it’s the most important investment that we make as a people in the future. Making sure that every child in the country has a shot at being somebody starts with education. Kids from at-risk families, low-income children, and other kinds of social challenges—those children need the same kinds of access as kids of means.

The other side of the coin that I don’t think people think much about is that if you spend quality time, energy, and money on helping a two-, three-, or four-year-old level the playing field, by the time they enter a public or a private kindergarten, they’re not going to bring down the kids who had other opportunities. At the end of the day, it behooves all parents—parents who can afford it or parents who can’t afford it—to support early childhood education.

In December of 2011, North Carolina was one of only nine states to be awarded a share of the Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge funds ($500 million) for early childhood education. How did you all accomplish this, and what lessons can other states take away?

I put really bright people in charge of it. I believed my whole career in finding the brightest people with the most varied backgrounds to come together and build consensus around an outcome.

The public sector, the private sector, and the academic sector were very involved. We developed a plan that I think blew out Arne Duncan and the Department of Education. We have Race to the Top-Early Childhood and we are one of 12 with Race to the Top. We developed a continuum where we can start working with the child as soon as they enter the system, all the way through graduate school and college. The plan in how you invest, how you follow, and how you enrich children from pre-K all the way through college completion is really seamless in North Carolina.

The Feds understood that and wanted to be a part of having a data-driven, outcomes-based, early childhood initiative. Again, I believe very strongly in the metrics. If you’re going to give me $200 million, I need to be able to prove to you at the end of the day that it was $200 million well invested. Our system does that.

In October of 2012 you issued an executive order to authorize the expansion of the North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten program to serve up to 6,300 more children by the first of this year, bringing the number of these children served to around 31,000. Why was this necessary, despite winning a share of the Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge funds?

The Early Learning funds weren’t continuation funds. There were very specific uses of the money that were outlined in the grant proposal, and none of those uses were providing absolute, direct childcare or child educational care. I had to figure out a way to do it.

I believe strongly in pre-K. Everybody knows I do. The courts in our state had ruled that pre-K access is a constitutional right in North Carolina. It didn’t rule that it had to be a certain income. It just said eligible children have the constitutional right, so the legislature was bound by the courts to move forward with the further investment, and they refused.

I visited communities and saw what was going on in the pre-Ks. I saw the difference that this kind of opportunity made for a three- or four-year-old. I figured it was the most important decision that I could make that month. I took a risk. The lawyers weren’t sure. I had the courts’ ruling, and my team was divided. But again, you know what your core values are, and you just go for it. At the end of the day, there have been about 12,000 kids who last year benefitted from a pre-K experience that they wouldn’t have had but for that decision. That’s worth the risk.

If policy makers want investments in early childhood education to work, arguments can be made to also invest in parents in regards to parenting skills. What are the challenges associated with investing in parents? 

The challenge is just making people understand the reason. One of the biggest disappointments of my term as governor was there was no money. There was no way to do what I wanted to do. One of the first things I’d intended to do was establish a nurse family practitioner program. Anytime a mother and dad, or mother or dad, had a baby, there would be somebody who would actually work with them in the hospital and actually go home to help them learn parenting skills.

I harken back to the dark ages when I was a young mama. I had an education. I had friends. I had a social system that worked for me. I had a good income. But I didn’t have parenting skills, and I was scared to death, and I wasn’t really good at it. I didn’t know what I was doing initially. I think that must be the feeling of every young mom and dad in the country.

Our country is one of the very few that doesn’t offer some kind of prop-up, if you will—a safety net or assistance around that experience. That would make that whole family unit stronger.

In his State of the Union address in February, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.” What conditions are necessary for this to happen, and what challenges does North Carolina face?

I think all states face a bucket of challenges around resources and access—around just the capacity. It’s tough to build capacity quickly for that many four-year-olds in America. That was one of the biggest challenges. We set ours up so that it was open to public and private providers.

But if I’m a public school in a rural community, and my school is already bursting at the seams, and I’ve got mobile units in the back, how am I going to set up a four-year-old pre-K program, even if I have the money? I don’t have the space. If I have the space, I may not have the trained teachers, because again, in our state we require certification from pre-school teachers. Those kinds of logistical issues are problematic across America.

I think the president’s endorsement, his passion, and his awareness of the returns on early childhood education has sent a message not just in the public sector but also around the country. Head Start has not been nearly as academic as what the administration is talking about and what we have talked about in North Carolina. I don’t believe that pre-K, or pre-school education if it starts at three, should be just go play and learn to color. I think there have to be some metrics, some deliverables, so that we will know what the stated outcomes are—what the results are for the children. Data-driven again, in terms of returns on investment—that’s a real challenge for states. It’s a challenge for North Carolina.

President Obama is set to tour the country in the coming weeks to raise support for investing in early childhood education (in addition to support for the middle class). Will it be enough to convert people into advocates of early childhood education? If not, who does the burden fall on to convert people into advocates? Parents? Teachers? People in policy school?

I think it’s all three, but it’s also the business leaders of the country. I believe that just as business leaders are finally speaking out on immigration reform and the need to keep really bright and talented people from around the world in this country’s workforce, there needs to be a very involved and committed role from the business community around early childhood learning.

It behooves them because these children are their future workers. They have a real return on investments. I really hope that the president’s moving around the country will make the difference it should make.

But if what’s gone on in Washington is indicative of what will go on in Washington, regardless of his passion and his energy, there still seems to be unwillingness among the political leaders of our country to make decisions around monetary issues. I think that’s dangerous for America.

Feature Photo: cc/catd_mitchell