How to Invest in Babies

Simon Kuper, columnist at the Financial Times, wrote an article describing many of the reasons to invest early in children’s lives through programs and practices including parents’ engagement with their children, voluntary home visiting programs, and preschool. While recognizing that many of these programs do cost money, Kuper cites Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, to say that the returns from high-quality early learning programs can be much larger than the original investment.

In an era when most policies are divisive and disappointing, early childhood development has a magic to it. Nurturing kids’ brains can improve education, health, childcare, future productivity of the workforce and crime prevention all at once.