Chapter 5 - “Follow the Science”

Summary

This chapter continues the story of the preceding chapter with a wider lens to discuss advocacy efforts of various kinds for children in the years following the brain development campaign. These include California’s Proposition 10 campaign for a cigarette tax that has provided millions of dollars in funding for early childhood programs through First 5 California, the work of James Heckman and Rolnick and Grunewald using economic principles to argue for early childhood investments as a means of improving workplace productivity through the developing brain, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ ten-year campaign for prekindergarten education, the development of advocacy efforts for early childhood within the business community, confused and constructive applications of developmental neuroscience to education, and other initiatives. The results of these efforts were some real wins for young children, such as advances in child health care access and affordability and early childhood education. But there have been disappointments, including lack of improvement in child care and parental leave, and inattention to brain development for children in poverty. The chapter documents the evolving brain development message as new voices and priorities entered and the problems of overpromising results from proposed programs for children.