Throughout my career as an educator, most of the initiatives, opportunities, and concerns about public education seem to have focused on the upper grades, on high school.

And yet, if we want the biggest bang for our buck, the largest return on investment, it is the opposite end of the spectrum we should be focusing on. We need to be putting our education dollars behind pre-school and early childhood education.

And business owners know its true! Watch this video from the Maine Early Learning Investment Group (MELIG):

Three of the MELIG's key members are retired high ranking military officers: retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Earl Adams, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Ralph Leonard, and retired Army Brig. Gen. Robert Carmichael.

MELIG also commissioned UMaine Economics Professor Philip Trostel’s Independent Cost-Benefit Analysis of Early Childhood Investments in Maine. The summary of the independent analysis suggests that costs for early childhood education programs would be recovered by the time a student was 14, and over the life of the child and into adulthood would continue to offer a 7.5% return on investment.

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