Closing the Science-Policy Gap

A Conversation with Pediatrician Jack P. Shonkoff

Take education reform, for example. “How can we call for stronger standards and more competitive salaries to attract and retain highly qualified teachers for our nation’s elementary schools, and then turn around and tolerate inadequate training and poor compensation for the providers of early care and education throughout the important preschool years?” Shonkoff asks incredulously. “Who came up with the idea that the quality of the learning environment and the skills of the supervising adults don’t matter for our youngest kids? That not only flies in the face of decades of research, but it also makes no sense.” Shonkoff goes on to say that if science informed our policies, we’d act on the extensive research that shows how the quality of a child’s earliest experiences is a predictor of his or her later success in school.

Similarly, the current national focus on reading tests for ever-younger students fails to recognize the comparable importance of the social and emotional determinants of early learning. “Knowing the alphabet on your first day of school isn’t enough if you can’t sit still or control your temper in the classroom,” Shonkoff observes. “Providing early literacy training without attention to a child’s emotional health is like fertilizing a prized rose bush while neglecting to water its roots.” Indeed, extensive research clearly indicates that “we must pay as much attention to children’s emotional well-being and social development as we do to their cognitive skills” in these critical early year—not more, but certainly not less,” he says.

And while these observations are true for all children, they are especially important for youngsters in low-income families. The science shows quite clearly that poverty in early childhood is a strong predictor of all sorts of problems—including academic failure—for which there are effective solutions if we intervene early enough. But by and large, “the welfare system for families living in poverty focuses largely on increasing maternal employment and pays relatively little attention to the well-being of their children. So again, here is a blatant disconnection between what we know and what we do to take care of the kids.” If we provided better supports for parenting and assistance in developing marketable skills for women receiving public assistance, as well as good quality care and education for their children, Shonkoff believes, our society would get a much better return on its investment in public efforts to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

When it comes to the nation’s patchwork of early childhood policies and services, Shonkoff asks, “Why not simply look at what science has to say about interventions that work and those that don’t?” Whether it’s promoting early literacy, fostering children’s mental health, or protecting youngsters from abuse or neglect, there is a rich foundation of developmental science that can be drawn on to address the challenge. That science, he suggests, provides much better guidance than partisan politics for achieving positive outcomes for children. We have to start with the child’s well-being as the goal and work backward.

Meeting Needs in a Time of Scarce Resources

Many children’s advocates report an array of impressive “cost-benefit” statistics to press their case for public investments—citing studies, for example, that show every dollar invested in early childhood programs yields up to $17 in long-term benefits to society.

Shonkoff underscores the critical importance of such financial benefits, and calls for a parallel commitment to the moral imperative of nurturing, protecting, and ensuring the health and well-being of all young children as an important objective in its own right, independent of whether measurable financial returns can be documented in the future. “This should not be a choice between social justice and return on investment,” he says. “Both are essential.”

Shonkoff knows that expensive programs to address children’s needs face a tough sell in today’s fiscal climate—both in Washington and in cash-strapped state capitols from coast to coast. In this context, he views the battles over budget priorities as falling within the realm of the advocates. As a knowledge broker rather than an advocate, Shonkoff believes that the Council should address a different set of questions: Given finite resources, what are the best ways to invest those funds that are earmarked for young children? “Our goal will not be simply to push for increased funding. We’ll leave that to the advocates, who are much better than academics at that kind of task. Our role will be to say, ‘However much money you have decided to spend on children, let us tell you what science has to offer about how to get the biggest bang for the buck.’” And in times of scarcity like the present—with everyone fighting over a more limited pot of dollars—that role is more important than ever, he says.

So, will the Council endorse controversial political fixes to the many problems facing America’s children? Unlikely, says Shonkoff. “We intend to be stubbornly nonpartisan,” he insists. He predicts that the Council will rarely, if ever, endorse specific legislation, although that decision ultimately rests with the group as a whole.

Toward that end, Shonkoff’s dream for the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child looks something like this: “Whenever any policymaker—from the most liberal to the most conservative—is dealing with an early childhood issue, our group will be on his or her ‘short list’ of places to go to get reliable, credible, and useful information that can inform honest, constructive dialogue. At the end of the day,” he muses, “we are eager to demonstrate that academics can be both rigorous and relevant in the policy arena.” And ultimately, he hopes, these attributes will serve a higher purpose by helping bring about real, lasting improvements in the lives of America’s most precious resource: its children.

The interviewer: Dorian Friedman is the policy editor at The American Prospect, a monthly political magazine, and a former associate editor at U.S. News & World Report. She is based in Washington, D.C.

For information about commonly used terms in Council publications, see Definitions.