Executive Constantine proposes strategy to put every child in King County on path toward lifelong success

In his annual State of the County address, King County Executive Dow Constantine proposed strategies to help every child in King County get off to a strong start in life and reach adulthood healthy and able to reach his or her full potential.

The proposed six-year levy for the November ballot—calledBest Starts for Kids—would fund prevention and early intervention based on the latest brain science being conducted here at the University of Washington.

This approach seeks to break the connection between incomes and outcomes, and reverse demand for high cost, crisis-focused services.

“The crisis of income inequality is not unique to King County, and many of its causes are beyond our local control,” said Executive Constantine. “But income inequality puts our future prosperity at risk by denying more of our children the opportunity to fully contribute as part of a well-educated middle class. The ultimate goal of Best Starts for Kids is to sever the link between incomes and outcomes—to create a King County where the circumstance of one’s birth no longer defines the course of one’s life.”

The proposal Executive Constantine presented to the Metropolitan King County Council includes a six-year levy lid increase of 14 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, which would raise $58 million in the first year. The cost to the average King County homeowner would be about $56 per year, or about a dollar a week.

King County is the first jurisdiction in the nation to bring together a set of proven and promising strategies, driven by science, to ensure all children can develop the cognitive, emotional, and social skills necessary to succeed in life and be able to contribute:

Invest heavily in a child’s first 5 years, starting with prenatal services.
Invest at key developmental milestones on a child’s journey to adulthood.
Create healthy communities, in partnership with The Seattle Foundation, that support strong families, reinforce progress, and sustain the gain.

While many jurisdictions provide individual programs such as universal pre-kindergarten, no other metropolitan region in the country has ever created a unified, comprehensive approach.

Severing the link between income and outcomes

Learn more about James Heckman’s research on the great gains to be had by investing in early development.

Best Starts for Kids is supported by the research of Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, which shows that early investment in a child’s development—starting with prenatal support—delivers the greatest returns.

King County’s existing revenues cannot support extensive investments in child development, as about 75 percent of its General Fund must be devoted to the “bad outcomes” of law enforcement, courts, and jails in the criminal justice system.

Best Starts for Kids is designed to confront the region’s growing inequity by providing parents, caregivers, and childcare professionals with tools to ensure every child in King County develops the basic skills necessary to thrive as adults.

Examples of Best Starts for Kids strategies include:

Universal access to developmental screenings for very young children, when it is proven to be most effective at helping infants and toddlers prepare for school.
Increase access to mental-health screenings for middle school-age youth.
Nurse home visitations for first-time mothers—from pregnancy through a child’s first two years—to make sure they get off to a strong, healthy start.
Flexible funding for families to prevent homelessness. For example, helping a working mother keep her transportation so she can make it to work and not lose her job, decreasing the likelihood that she and her family become homeless.

Science confirms what we already know

The proposal delivers on the pledge made in Executive Constantine’s most recent budget address to define regional investments that will improve the health of residents and communities through prevention and early intervention.

Over the past seven months, the advisory group he convened created the framework for Best Starts for Kids based on the latest available science, including groundbreaking research by the UW’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences.

Emerging neuroscience shows that 85 percent of the human brain develops by age three. Many of the basic skills people need to succeed as adults—including the ability to manage incoming information, as well as attention and distraction control—are developed by age five.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, adolescence provides the greatest opportunity to help youth develop impulse control and the ability to plan ahead.

King County has great prosperity and disparity

While King County is one of the most prosperous counties in the state and the nation, with an unemployment rate of less than 4.5 percent and a median household income of $69,000, it also shares some of the greatest disparities:

Of the 85,000 net new households n King County since 2000, less than four percent are middle-income. The rest are split evenly between those earning $125,000 a year and those earning under $35,000.
The number of children 5 and younger who live in poverty is as low at 4.7 percent in some areas and as high as 26 percent in others.
Infant mortality is four times higher in some areas of King County compared to others.

“The sad truth in America today is that a top predictor of a child’s success in life is the income of the household in which that child is raised,” said Executive Constantine. “Income inequality has forced its way into the public arena, but here in King County we are fortunate to have both the wealth and the willingness to confront it head-on—by investing in our people, by investing in our communities, and by giving all our children the best start in life we can.”