Interested in an investment that produces a 16 percent return? A 2003 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis says that's the expected return for investments in early childhood education. Money spent improving the early years of life reap a 16 percent savings in spending later when the need for special education and juvenile-justice system interventions are reduced.

Three hundred educators, elected officials and foundation partners met recently to study this issue during "The Economic Impact of Early Childhood Learning," a conference produced by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation.

Robbin Johnson of the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation reported that leading corporations and state government are investing $30 million in early-childhood learning. MELF identified three problems that will sound familiar to New Mexicans. First, low-income families whose children were most at risk were "priced out" of the market for quality day care because of high tuition. Secondly, the quality at some centers wasn't good and, finally, there weren't any performance standards to evaluate programs.

MELF developed a pre-school quality rating system, based on the kindergarten students' readiness to learn when they begin school. They also established a scholarship program for children from at-risk families to be able to access quality early-care programs.

Johnson said that corporate CEOs were willing to invest in the early childhood project because they had previously invested in high-school, middle-school and primary programs with little success and high cost.

"They learned that remediation is very expensive and doesn't often succeed," Johnson said.

Based on experience, business and government leaders realized that investing at the early childhood level made sense because 80 percent of Minnesota's children participate in day care and only half of their children start kindergarten ready to learn.

Now in its second year of operation and with only two staff members, MELF will dissolve at the end of the fifth year. This time-limited plan was another aspect that interested corporate donors. MELF plans to demonstrate what works in its efforts to improve early-childhood education by bringing results back to the community and legislature.

"Investing in early-childhood development improves the quality of the future work force and creates tremendous cost savings for society. It benefits not only participating children and their families, but also society as a whole," said Diana MacArthur, CEO of Dynamac Corp. and president of the LANL Foundation's Board of Directors. "The costs of not investing in early childhood learning are just too great to ignore."

The LANL Foundation is sponsoring a program aimed at improving early childhood learning in Northern New Mexico. The First Born® Program is a medical-based, home visiting program designed to improve the health and wellness status of first-time families. First Born® provides mothers, fathers and primary-care providers with the education and support necessary to encourage normal growth and development of happy, healthy babies in positive, nurturing families. At its core, the program supports the idea that a healthy pregnancy and childhood are not only critical to the immediate well-being of the child but are also basic to building a resilient family and healthy community.

Based on a program that started in Silver City, the LANL Foundation expanded First Born® to Rio Arriba and Taos Counties. For more information, contact Deborah Boldt at 505-753-8890 or dboldt@lanlfoundation.org.

Valerie Ingram is the development director at the Santa Fe Community Foundation and can be reached at vingram@santafecf.org or 505-988-9715 ext. 4.