More than two-thirds of parents of school-age children in Bernalillo County said they would support the creation of a new cabinet-level department to oversee and coordinate all of the state’s early childhood education programs.
In recent separate surveys conducted by Research & Polling Inc. for the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and the New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership, a majority of parents polled said the current delivery of programs is too fragmented.
“The topic of early childhood education has been at the forefront of policy discussions in New Mexico for the last few years,” Research & Polling President Brian Sanderoff said Tuesday. “The survey results clearly show there is a lot of support among parents with school-age children to merge all these programs now spread out over other departments, and create a department of early learning.”
The survey of 500 parents shows 67 percent of them support such a measure, 28 percent oppose it. Lesser percentages either have mixed feelings about it, don’t know or declined to say. The survey has a margin of error of plus/minus 4.4 percentage points, Sanderoff said.
The outline for the new Early Childhood Education and Care Department is spelled out in Senate Bill 22, sponsored by state Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, and state Rep. Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe. The new department would essentially take control of all early childhood programs now spread out among four other departments: Children, Youth and Families; Public Education; Health; and Human Services.
The new department would be funded by moving a combined $325 million from those other departments. In addition, Padilla said, “we’re asking for a one-time appropriation of up to $2.5 million for the first year of operation for set-up of the department.” Whatever is not spent “will revert to the general fund.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham supports the creation of the new department, Padilla said, adding that he is unaware of any opposition from the heads of the four other departments currently administering early childhood programs and services.
“These survey results reinforce that New Mexicans are committed not just to expanding early childhood education, but to making sure it’s done right, with a focus on quality and effective coordination,” said Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Terri Cole. “Making sure all of these early childhood programs are in one department and accountable to a cabinet-level secretary helps ensure that the investment taxpayers are making will pay off in the form of more prepared, kindergarten-ready children.”
Kate Noble, vice president for policy for the New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership, said her organization did eight months of community outreach, talking with people throughout the state who work in various aspects of early childhood programs and services.
“They felt very strongly about the need for alignment – common goals, common leadership, common measurement,” Noble said.
“What we have now is different missions in different departments.” Consequently, it makes financial and structural sense “to have one department that can look at the whole well-being of a child from birth until they enter kindergarten,” she said.
The new department, she estimated, would be the sixth or seventh largest department in state government.
Padilla said SB22 is his third attempt to combine the bulk of the state’s early childhood resources into a single department.
“The idea is to take all early education services, programs, funding and operations out of those other departments and put them in one new department, which will allow us to see consistency in services, delivery, and in quality and performance metrics associated with things like un-met needs,” Padilla said. “Right now, we can’t even measure that because we have four different infrastructures across four different departments.”
According to the latest scientific research, Padilla said, about 80 percent of a child’s brain synapses are formed by the time that child is 3 years old.
“We need to focus on those first three years of life,” he said. “We spend about 50 percent of our state budget on education, kindergarten through college, but if we’re not preparing the raw material – the child through age 3 – we’re really missing the boat.”
Padilla grew up in the New Mexico foster care system. “I think the state would be a lot further along if we focused on early education and home visiting services,” he said.
“A very large number of New Mexicans are growing up the way I did – in extreme poverty and with little focus on education,” he said. “Education is the path to prosperity. If we can turn that around for New Mexico, we will turn around poverty, child abuse, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, DWI and incarceration rates.”
