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| Garner, state director present lesson for pre-kindergartners |
By: chris Menees Messenger Staff Reporter
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Posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:02 pm
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By CHRIS MENEES
Messenger Staff Reporter
Pre-kindergarten — just consider it an investment in the fight against crime.
That’s the lesson Union City Police Chief Joe Garner and Fight Crime: Invest in Kids state director Mark Rogers taught Friday when they visited Union City Elementary School.
The two men held an informal press conference to share with The Messenger the importance of pre-kindergarten in cutting crime, reducing violence and saving taxpayer dollars, as well as the importance of proposed federal legislation that would increase access to quality early learning for at-risk children.
Garner also paused to read the book “Officer Buckle and Gloria” to the school’s two classes of pre-kindergartners. Ironically, most of the children were already familiar with the popular story since the book is one of those provided to them free of charge through the Reading Railroad program.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is a national non-profit organization that has been in existence about 14 years. Rogers said the organization studies “what the research shows really works to keep kids from ever becoming involved in crime” and then gets law enforcement to make the case to state and federal legislators.
Rogers said the “investments” in deterring children from involvement in crime start as early as pregnancy with high-quality home visits and continue all the way through high-quality child care, early education, Head Start, pre-kindergarten, after-school programs — including the right anti-gang and anti-bullying programs — and, finally, the best juvenile justice initiatives.
“We look at what really works and, since we don’t run any programs, we don’t have any sort of interest except being able to say that when we say that it works, it works,” he said. “Often, the important thing is knowing that only doing something part-way doesn’t get you the savings of only spending half the money. It just means you wasted your money, so we’re very strong in advocating for doing the right thing the first time and doing it well, because when we say it’s been shown to cut crime, it really will.”
Rogers said in the case of pre-kindergarten, the evidence is very clear over 40 years of research in showing that average children who have a high-quality pre-kindergarten/Head Start experience are much more likely to stay in school and not start falling behind.
“Once they start falling behind, they start skipping. When they start skipping, they start dropping out. Once they start dropping out, they’re less likely to finish and when they don’t finish ...,” Rogers said, his voice trailing off. “The chief will tell you that about 70 percent, maybe a little lower or a little higher, of the people that he arrests don’t have a high school diploma.”
Garner said newly-appointed Obion County General Sessions Judge Jimmy Smith is strong in advocating GEDs or high school diplomas to offenders.
“In the 30 years I’ve been here in Union City, it’s just so obvious that those who drop out of school don’t work well with society, they don’t get the jobs, they don’t have the life skills to do well in society and they end up getting locked up in jail,” Garner said.
Rogers said Fight Crime: Invest is Kids is making a concerted effort to travel statewide to visit areas where law enforcement officers are members of the organization in order to ask them to read to a pre-kindergarten class and talk to the news media during the budget crunch.
“In really tight budget times, there’s going to be a desire to cut back and we just can’t afford to do that with pre-kindergarten, because you don’t see the results right away,” Rogers said. “This is not something that next year every child that has pre-K is going to be a better student, but the long-term research shows that if they’re happy, if they want to come to school, if they’re keeping up, that 10 years later, they’re still going to be in school, they’re still going to be doing well. We’re not saying it’s going to turn them all into A students, but if they just come to school, want to keep up and graduate, then they’re just not going to become involved in crime — and that’s what makes it absolutely so vital.”
He said much of the program success is based on areas such as brain development, mastering learning skills and early identification of learning problems — which gives children a real opportunity to start off their educations on a positive note.
So far, Tennessee has garnered high marks in its pre-K program, he said.
“One of the greatest things about Tennessee’s pre-K that shows how good it is: There are 10 markers that the National Institute for Early Education Research uses and Tennessee meets or exceeds nine of them,” Rogers said.
A win-win situation
Garner said he has been a member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids for several years and met Rogers through the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police.
“We have been supportive as far as sending letters to our legislators, letting them know that this is an important issue for law enforcement, that we get these kids at a young age,” Garner said. “My initiative here with the police department, with the school resource officers, with DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), with (Assistant Police Chief) Perry Barfield sitting on the board of directors for Boys and Girls Clubs — those initiatives make an important impact on our community in reducing crime, especially with our youth, getting them off the street and into a positive atmosphere.
“When I met Mark, it was a win-win situation for us,” he added.
Rogers said he is very appreciative of the support of law enforcement professionals like Garner. To make his point, he shared a story about the first year the governor sought pre-kindergarten funding.
“The first year the governor asked for money for pre-K, a lot of very conservative legislators were opposed,” he said. “And we sent a letter signed by about 40 or 50 Fight Crime members to all the state senators and after pre-K passed, I was at a reception and a couple of the most conservative state senators, who are friends of mine, came up to me. They got on either side of me and started giving me some grief and one of them said, ‘Now look Rogers, we voted for your bill, but we just don’t want you to think we did it because we like you. We did it because we had guys on your letter who were our law enforcement. So if anybody comes and tells me about what a liberal I am, I’m going to tell them to take it up with the chief or the sheriff.’”
Rogers said law enforcement is in a unique position to take a stance on public policy because of the circumstances they see in the line of duty. For example, he cited situations where police may arrest both a father and a son — which Garner said is one example he uses, especially in regard to drug operations.
“One time, we went into (a local area) and arrested the mother, the father and the grandmother for selling crack cocaine. And that’s what the kids were growing up in,” Garner said.
Staff Reporter Chris Menees may be contacted by e-mail at cmenees@ucmessenger.com.
Published in The Messenger 11.24.09 |
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