How Early Education Grows the Workforce in Maine

High-quality pre-K can increasing high school graduation rates, thus improving the workforce

Maine’s preschools are essential for future workforce development, to avoid a serious skills gap. High-quality pre-K can deliver very strong results, improving children’s math and literacy skills well into elementary school and increasing high school graduation rates. ReadyNation’s Maine business leaders are calling on state policymakers to continue to improve pre-K quality and expand access to more children. This is a solid investment in Maine’s future.

Early learning programs impact productivity in our companies, reducing absenteeism and turnover, while increasing productivity and retention. And that’s good for our bottom lines.

John Bragg, retired President, N.H. Bragg and Sons

With early childhood education, Maine needs a skilled teaching workforce, research based programs, high standards, best practices, and continuous quality improvement. Such investments in quality pre-K can yield strong short and long-term results. In the short term, for every $1 invested in early care and education in Maine, an additional $0.78 is generated into the overall economy, for a total of $1.78 in new spending in the state.

There are also longer-term gains: a well-respected, independent cost-benefit analysis of more than 20 different studies of high-quality state and local preschool programs showed that they can have, on average, a net return of more than $26,000 in current dollars for every child served. Given these benefits, extending access to pre-K to one-third of Maine children still not covered after current expansion plans would save society $64 million.

ReadyNation’s Maine business leaders are calling on state policymakers to continue to improve pre-K quality and expand access to more children. This is a solid investment in Maine’s future.