Seattle's Child: The Three E’s: Top Priority for Gov. Gregoire

February 2007

The Three E’s: Top Priority for Gov. Gregoire

Before mastering the three R’s, Gov. Chris Gregoire was taught the value of the three E’s: education, education, education.

She passed her life-long lessons on to her two daughters, one a Harvard Law School graduate and the other a student at Willamette University in Oregon. Her passion for education has continued throughout her professional life and governorship. The buzzword for her 2007 Legislative agenda is “education” with an added emphasis on “early.”

Gregoire’s $30 billion state budget proposal for 2007-2009 calls for substantial increases for all facets of the education system, from early learning through K-12 and higher education.

Raised by a single mother who was a short-order cook and didn’t have a college education, Gregoire says she learned early that the key to personal and professional success lies in a good education. “She’s the person who probably gave me more direction in my life,” Gregoire said in a recent interview with Seattle’s Child and Puget Sound Parent. “She taught me about value and the importance of three things: education, education, education.”

Those three E’s are her highest budget priorities. Her state-spending plan – which has been dubbed the “education budget” – will “fundamentally change educational expectations, delivery and results,” she says. Including teacher salary increases of $382 million and class-size reduction grants of $139 million, her budget for early learning and K-12 hits nearly $1.3 billion. Free full-day kindergarten is proposed for 10 percent of the schools, and early learning proposals would be expanded at a cost of $42 million.

More than $1.9 billion is proposed for public schools and college construction in a separate construction budget.

Her trade missions last year to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan and South Korea underscored the need for Washington state schools to prepare their students for the global workforce of tomorrow. During her most recent trip to Taiwan, which has one of the strongest economies in the world, one of the government officials told Gregoire that his country’s success came through hard work and providing good education.

“I laughed to myself because that’s exactly what my mom taught me,” Gregoire says. “As a single parent, it was hard for her to make ends meet. She kept saying to me, education is the way for you to have a good job. I’ve never met anyone more hard working than my mom.”

Washington Learns

In 2005, Gregoire and the Legislature began an effort to promote quality early learning and parenting and to significantly improve Washington’s ability to ensure that all children are ready to succeed in school and in life.

In June 2005, she launched Washington Learns, an 18-month comprehensive study examining the state’s education system. The Washington Learns Committee began with the idea that the economic future of Washington depends on an internationally competitive, world-class education system, but that the current system was designed for jobs of the past and our students are falling behind international standards.

According to the committee, 26 percent of the state’s ninth graders do not graduate high school on time, one-third of the adult population has a high school diploma or less, and educated workers from other states and nation are being imported to fill good-paying jobs.

The group’s final recommendations, which were issued in November, underscored Gregoire’s belief that “every child in every community deserves good schools and great teachers.”

The report, “Washington Learns: World-Class, Learner Focused, Seamless Education,” focused on five major strategies:

Invest in early learning so that children start off as lifelong learners,
Improve math and science teaching so that our citizens have a competitive edge,
Personalize learning so that every student has the opportunity to succeed,
Offer college and workforce training for everyone,
Hold the system accountable for results.

Early Learning Is Key to Success

Since taking office, Gregoire has maintained that early childhood education is essential in preparing students for an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Following the first “Washington Learns” recommendation, the governor – with broad bipartisan support from the Legislature – created a new Department of Early Learning in July. The department consolidates many scattered programs and resources. It is a merger of the Division of Child Care and Early Learning, formerly part of the department of Social and Health Services; the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, also known as ECEAP; and the Early Reading Initiative, formerly part of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Also last year, Gregoire teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create Thrive by Five, a nonprofit, public-private partnership designed to help enhance parent education and support, child care, preschool and other early learning environments throughout Washington state. The organization’s President and CEO, Graciela Italiano-Thomas, is a nationally recognized early learning strategist. She officially started her new post Jan. 1.

“We must hold ourselves to the highest standards and recognize that our competition is not just in Indiana, Iowa or California, but also in India, China and Europe,” Gregoire said in announcing Thrive by Five.

Gregoire was instrumental in creating the group, whose founding members include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Boeing Co., Social Venture Partners, Kirlin Charitable Foundation, Talaris Research Institute, The Ginger and Barry Ackerley Foundation, Lockheed Martin, Clear Channel Radio Seattle, Foundation for Early Learning and the state of Washington. Initial pledges to Thrive by Five totaled $10 million in pooled funds for various early learning initiatives in the state.

Bob Watt, board member of Thrive by Five and vice president of Government and Community Relations for the Boeing Co., says it is crucial for all children to reach their full potential as we move into a future “that has it crystal clear that we are all competing all over the planet at all times for everything.”

Watt, who has been a child advocate his entire adult life and is currently chair of the state’s Early Learning Advisory Committee, says: “We need every child to be able to work in teams, to be creative and life-long learners.”

He says the key to successful early learning programs is to provide both intellectual stimulation and emotional nurturing.

An Investment in the Future

Gregoire says society needs to accept the notion that “children are literally born learning,” and if they are prepared for kindergarten, they will be more successful in life. She says teacher surveys have shown that approximately 50 percent of the students that come to them for kindergarten are not ready to learn. When students fall behind, they have to struggle to catch up and they get frustrated, Gregoire says.

Like a domino effect, success throughout the entire educational system would begin just by getting every child ready to learn by the time they reach kindergarten, Gregoire says.

“We know children with early learning success are more likely to finish school, more likely to go to college, less likely to be unemployed and less likely to commit crimes,” she said in a speech last year to the Legislature.

She has cited studies showing an $8 return for every dollar invested in early childhood education. The payoff comes in the form of everything from increased high school graduation rates to reduced teenage pregnancy and crime.

Because research has shown that most human brain development happens in the first five years of life, the experiences of toddlers and preschool-age children establish the capacity for life-long learning, Gregoire says.

Making it clear that education in Washington begins long before kindergarten, she says: “Early learning is the new frontier in education, and Washington can lead the nation in quality child care and early learning programs.”

To help do that, Gregoire in August appointed Jone Bosworth as director of the state’s new Early Learning Department.

The notion of early learning usually conjures images of the ABCs and mathematical equations, Bosworth says. But at the core of early learning are healthy and loving relationships, good physical and emotional health, rich language interactions and fun and engaging activities. “These are the things that help young brains develop and grow,” she says. “Without these opportunities, children often start kindergarten behind their peers and, most often, get further behind as they move through school.”

In addition to helping children be ready for kindergarten, Bosworth says it is crucial that schools are ready for all children. “It’s natural that children will arrive in kindergarten with different interests, talents and developmental levels, and it is the role of schools to support all who arrive.”

Expanding early education programs is the “single biggest investment in our future,” Gregoire says. The 80,000-member Washington Education Association (WEA), the state’s largest teachers union, agrees and has commended both her early learning initiatives and her educational spending plan.

Still a Long Way to Go

“Compared to what past leaders have proposed, Gov. Gregoire’s budget is monumental,” WEA President Charles Hasse says. But he adds, “Compared to the need in Washington’s public schools, we have a long way to go.”

Hasse gives the governor an “A” for her spending priorities, which, he says, clearly demonstrate a commitment to students and schools and represents an important investment in public education. But he qualifies that by saying the current public education system is failing our kids in the areas that affect them most directly – class size, spending per student and the ability to hire and retain quality educators.

The long-term need to increase state funding for public schools remains strong, recognizing that the school funding crisis resulted from decades of neglect, says Hasse, who took a leave of absence from his teaching job to serve as WEA president.

He points to Georgia, which has been offering preschool funding for a decade, and other states with lower class sizes, as examples of what Washington state should be doing. Washington now ranks 46th in the nation in average class size and 42nd in overall school spending, according to WEA. (Alabama and Arkansas spend more per student than Washington does.) Teacher compensation is well below the national average and dead last among West Coast states.

The teachers’ union embarked on a “Take the Lead” campaign last year to highlight “the stark reality that Washington’s schools rank far behind most other states in the country.”

The WEA points to New Jersey, the top state for education spending per student, as an example. It spends $3,923 more per student than Washington does: Washington spends $6,985 while New Jersey spends $10,908 per pupil. The national average for per-pupil spending is $8,041 – $1,056 more than Washington’s average.

Bob Watt agrees with that assessment. “Once upon a time, Washington was a leader in early learning, but we took our eye off the ball and fell behind,” he says. But he is confident that the state’s early learning priorities will help Washington regain its old reputation as a leader in early education.

“There is no question in my mind that if we want our children to compete for good paying jobs, the best investment we can make is a good education,” the governor says.

“Our Number One priority in this legislative session is not about money. It’s about changing the system. The competition has changed. The jobs have changed. We need our education system to change.”

Karen West is an award-winning Bainbridge Island writer and mother of two.

Parents Are First Teachers,
Says State’s Early Learning Director

Babies don’t wait until kindergarten to begin their learning careers. And their first, and most important, teachers are not at school, but in their homes.

As director of Washington state’s first Department of Early Learning, Jone Bosworth is committed to helping those first teachers – parents and other caregivers – to have the information and tools they need to give children a firm educational foundation before they are 5.

Bosworth, 42, a former child welfare administrator, says children’s experiences in their first years set the stage for later academic learning. As the adoptive child of two educators, Bosworth knows this firsthand.

She and her two siblings were adopted as babies by her mother, a speech pathologist, and her father, a high school teacher. Her parents did not allow the kids to watch television, and instead provided an environment rich in reading. “We were fortunate to be able to start school ready to succeed,” Bosworth says. “We all had different biological parents, but we all started school reading.”

She brings a diverse background to her new position. She began her career as a child welfare worker and later ran a domestic violence program for Native American communities in Nebraska and worked as a foreign services officer for the U.S. State Department in Mexico, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. She has served as deputy director of the Nebraska Health and Human Services Department, administrator for Nevada’s Child and Family Services and, most recently, senior director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative in St. Louis.

Here are Bosworth’s thoughts on how parents and caregivers can help shape their children’s environments and prepare them for kindergarten:

Focus on warm, secure relationships with each child.
Coach children as they learn about emotions, self-control and ways to get along with others.
Support children’s natural ability to learn by inviting them to participate in home activities.
Sorting laundry and setting the table, for example, build beginning math skills as well as initiative and a sense of belonging.
Read to children daily, making it a cozy time.
Listen to them, talk with them and let them describe and narrate – the number of words that kindergartners know correlates with their later reading ability. Play with words, by making rhymes or reciting nursery rhymes.
Limit TV and screen time, and encourage children to explore the real world instead.
When children express an interest, help them to investigate it further. Explore your house, your yard and your neighborhood together. Take them to family and cultural events.
Finally, when children need care away from you, find the highest quality childcare available. Observe the relationships between caregivers and children, and choose adults who are nurturing and engaged. Good childcare supports each family’s culture, while exposing children to other families’ cultures. Ask about the teachers’ qualifications, compensation and professional development. Make sure that the environment allows children to play alone and with peers and with interesting materials, and that it is rich in language-stimulation. Finally, stay involved, volunteer if you can, and communicate regularly with childcare providers.
– Karen West

Thrive by Five Leader Speaks from Experience

If there were a poster child for early learning, it would be Graciela Italiano-Thomas.

Her life epitomizes everything she is promoting as president and CEO of Thrive by Five Washington, a newly created nonprofit early learning organization.

Born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, Italiano-Thomas grew up speaking Spanish. But her mother, a seamstress who didn’t go beyond fifth grade in school, insisted she learn English as a preschooler. And in lieu of money, her father’s legacy was to provide a good education.

Although her parents divorced when she was young, they continued to instill the value of education and exposed her to piano lessons, English classes and just about anything else they could afford.
By the time Italiano-Thomas was 10, she was speaking English, Portuguese and French. She came to the United States on a one-year foreign exchange program to a small town in Ohio when she was 16. She later returned to the United States to attend college on full teaching scholarships.

Today, at age 55, Italiano-Thomas is a nationally recognized early learning strategist with a doctorate in education, 20-plus years as a teacher of elementary, secondary and college students and nearly a decade of leading nonprofit educational and family organizations.
She says her success in life is a direct result of the early education foundation her parents gave her as a child. “English is what opened the doors to the rest of my education,” she says.

Her stepfather, who was an actor and storyteller, also sparked her curiosity with his stories and love of the stage. “He was a wonderful storyteller who saw in me the spark of language,” she says. “His stories came to life for me. I was living in black and white, but his stories were color for me.”

She received a bachelor’s degree in education from Albion College, a small, private college in Michigan. She later received a master’s from Southern Illinois University where she got her elementary teaching certificate.

She returned to her South American homeland, where she taught at an elementary school, eventually becoming its principal. “I was determined to give back to my little country,” she says of her decision to return to Uruguay.

But after nearly 20 years of teaching, she decided to move to New York, where she set up a consulting business helping school districts integrate immigrants into the education system.

She eventually moved to Los Angeles where she taught graduate language courses while pursuing her doctorate in education. She originally wanted to become a university administrator, but says her passion for early education took her in a different direction. “From my very early years as a teacher, it was clear the sooner we could start supporting children emotionally, the better,” she says.

After earning her doctorate in education and institutional management from Pepperdine University in Southern California, she pursued work with nonprofit, educational organizations.

Prior to joining Thrive by Five, Italiano-Thomas served as CEO of Los Angeles Universal Preschool for two years. Before that, she headed Centro de la Familia de Utah, a nonprofit organization based in Salt Lake City, which works to strengthen the Hispanic family by promoting self-sufficiency. She has also served as a senior consultant to the National Head Start Bureau.

She was hired to run Thrive by Five in October and started her official duties Jan. 1. She lives in Seattle with her husband of 14 years. Although she never had children of her own, she has two grown stepchildren and considers all of the kids she has worked with over the years as her own.

Her mother, who is in her 80s, jokes that she had big dreams for her daughter, but never imagined how far she would go.

“She (her mother) made sure I would have access to whatever the environment could provide with her humble earnings. I still thank her every day for that clear vision,” says Italiano-Thomas.

– Karen West

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