 Good morning and welcome to the 2015 State of Texas Children Report release. We are so excited to have you all here on this foggy day. Feels a little bit like Gotham outside, so we order that up for you too. I'm Ann Beeson and I'm the Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities. We believe in a Texas that offers everyone the chance to compete and succeed in life. And we all know that that opportunity has to begin with our kids. So how do we do that? We use data and analysis to advocate for solutions that enable Texans of all backgrounds to reach their full potential. And for 22 years, we have proudly researched and published an annual report on the state of Texas kids. It's produced by our Texas Kids Count Project, which is part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's National Kids Count Data Project. And we are so grateful to the Annie E. Casey Foundation for supporting this work for so many years. And most dearly grateful for our partners at Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas who have sponsored this event here today and supported this work also for many, many years. Now this book's theme you may have noticed has a kind of a superhero thing going on. You may have noticed our cute kids around here on the tables and maybe even a few live superheroes dashing around in the mix. What's that all about? Well, when I was a little girl growing up in Dallas, I personally was a big fan of Wonder Woman. And I love the way she'd wheel those like bracelets and kind of turn around her last though to kind of protect democracy and fight against evil. As an adult and as a parent now, I know that actually our real superheroes here in Texas and beyond are our parents, our parents. Every single day they fight for their kids, they put food on the table. Many of them are working two and three jobs. They're helping kids with homework. They're caring for kids when they're sick and needy. I mean, parents really are our true superheroes. But if they were enough to solve all of the problems that our kids here in Texas face, Texas would not be ranked as one of the worst states in the country to be a kid. Now I wanna say that one more time and you're gonna hear a lot more detail about it in a minute. Texas is consistently ranked to be one of the worst states to be a child. Now, as a Texan and an advocate and a parent myself, that actually makes me really mad. That makes me mad because I am a competitive Texan and I know you all are too. And we want to make Texas the number one state for kids. Now to do that, we know it's possible. We can have fun with superheroes. We know we all need to be superheroes for Texas kids. But in fact, it's actually smart policy solutions that are gonna get us to where we need to go. And you're gonna hear a lot more today about that. We need to all work together. Leaders just across the street at the Capitol today and many days to come during the legislative session are making very big decisions that are gonna have lasting effects on our kids. And we need together to dare them to make the smart investments for the next generation to help our Texas kids. Now I wanna just give you a little bit of a road map for our gathering today after just a few opening remarks. Our wonderful research analyst Jennifer Lee is gonna come up and present this year's data on Texas kids. And then we're gonna have a conversation about one issue, one opportunity that we have in the next few months to help Texas kids that has a lot of momentum this year. And that is the opportunity to expand access to pre-K. And we have some terrific featured guests that are gonna come up here and have a discussion about that. Now just a few details before we begin. First of all, we encourage you to tweet during this event. We have two different hashtags that you can use. One of them is kids count and the other one is dare Texas. And I would suggest that you use the kids count hashtag to take pictures with our superheroes running around and tweet about the event. And our dare Texas hashtag to make your suggestions, to make your dares for how we make Texas the best state for Texas kids. We are also just wanted to mention quickly that for those of you that parked in the garage, it's much more convenient and you need to pay for your parking in the hotel if you can, not in the garage. So do that on your way out. I wanna acknowledge just a few of our elected and appointed leaders that are here in the room with us. And I'm sure I'm probably gonna miss a few more. But I just wanted to first of course acknowledge Chairman Deschatel who's gonna be with us in the conversation about pre-K. Representative Jessica Ferrar and Senator Royce West. And I think we also have Judge Darlene Byrne here. So thank you so much for being here with us. I wanna thank Methodist Health, yes. I wanna thank the Casey Foundation again and also Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas. And invite up Kevin Moriarty, the president and CEO of MHM, who's gonna offer a few marks before we begin. Thank you so much, Kevin. As soon as I stood up, this thing fell out. So don't know what I'm gonna do with it. I'm glad to be here today. I've been involved and engaged with the Texas Kids Count project since inception. Back then I was a public official working on healthcare, working on Head Start. I ran the Head Start program in the southern sector of the state through PCI. I ran the daycare sites, worked on pre-K, and made sure these services were available to kids. And I have a similar story to Ann. It always depressed me that Texas was always listed in Health and Human Services as being the worst. And except for Arkansas and Missouri, we would have been the worst in the nation and everything, and occasionally we beat them out. And that's a pretty terrible things to do. And I remember as a young man with a family of four children, how I was making sure my children had pre-K. All my kids went to pre-K, all my children went to public schools initially. And it was the Head Start that helped them achieve and be great at what they did. And I remember being asked as a public official, I was on the steps of city hall. We had a great deal of furor over an issue associated with children. And I was asked about where in San Antonio or Texas I would refer a family of a handicapped child. So that child would receive services through a daycare center or for somewhere else, and they would be able to achieve and succeed. And I remember my response because the next day it was the front page of USA Today. And my bosses were rather upset with what I said. Because what I said at the time was that child's parents should move them to California, Illinois, and New York. Because Texas didn't have a positive future for that child. And that child's outcomes would be worse if they stayed in Texas. Because there were no services available. I remember the fight for the children's health insurance program in Texas. I moved from the public career where I handled health and human services to Methodist Health Care Ministries. Methodist Health Care Ministries owns the Methodist hospitals. And we receive our revenue from there. And so we put about 75 million a year into non-profits to work on issues of health care. But Methodist Health Care puts 12,000 babies a year into our community. And I think the report several years ago indicated that a lot of births for the United States were occurring in Texas. And so where is this growing economy? Where are these families? Where are these children that are coming into Texas? And where are they being taken care of? And so we have a great responsibility in this state to create the best education systems, to have available the best health care systems, to have access for handicapped and disabled children to the best services. Because there are economy in the future. They're the way to get us out of the distress that we have everywhere that we have it. And so as a public official, I argued for those types of things. In the private sector as a non-profit, I don't get slammed by the media too much since I'm no longer a public official. And they have to play by different rules. But we still stay engaged in these issues. Now I'm a non-profit director, so today I'm wearing a red and a blue tie. Because as soon as this is over, I'm on the legislative floor and I'm lobbying. And we're organized to be able to lobby. Actually, I'm doing public education, right? Not lobbying. And I would urge all of you as you listen to these issues to talk to your public officials. To talk to the people that are making decisions about children's lives. Whether it be the school board, whether it be a city council, whether it be a commissioner, whether it be in legislature. And try and move that mark. And I want to say something hopeful. At the end of the day, we have made a lot of progress. At the end of the day, my career has spanned about 40 years in health and human services. And we are tremendously better off today than we were then. We have great organizations like CPQ cubed out there. The Annie Casey Foundation has provided me, over the years, a tremendous amount of data to use with people that are irrefutable. And that's what I like about it. It's by county, it's by area. I take it home, I use it. And when I use it, I get people saying, oh. And then they start saying to themselves, oh, what can we do about it? And so I think it's a great thing that's being done here. I applaud you for all of the work that you do. I thank all of you for being here. And I know you'll have a wonderfully educated opportunity with Jennifer here, pulling all this data together and running you through it. Thank you very much. All right, good morning. Thanks, Kevin, for that introduction. And thank you all for being here today. Like Ann said, I know that it's really foggy outside. It's sort of strange, so I'm glad you all made it here. My name is Jennifer Lee. And I'm a research associate at the Center for Public Policy Priorities. And at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, we believe in a Texas that offers everyone the chance to compete and succeed. And that means that we envision a Texas where all kids are healthy, they're well-educated, and they're financially secure. Now, Ann said earlier that we have a superhero theme going on. And part of why we picked superheroes is that superheroes are bold, they're daring, they're brave. And part of being bold is having a bold vision for Texas kids. And in order to do that, we need to wrestle with some of these. These are B-hags. Does anyone know what a B-hag is? Does anyone ever use that in their work? I hear some people saying it. A B-hag is a big, hairy, audacious goal. It's that big goal that we set for ourselves that guides us in our work and that we keep our eyes on, even when the going gets really tough. Now, to remind us of our B-hags at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, we use these Truth or Dare cards. You should have, each have a Truth or Dare card in front of you. And we will return to those later in the presentation. And the purpose of the Truth or Dare cards is to remind us of the facts, the underlying truths that motivate our work, and to remind us of our goals, or the dares that we have for ourselves, for our organizations, or for the state. So again, we will return to those. But if there's something that you hear during the presentation and it just sort of gives you an aha moment, feel free to write that down on that Truth or Dare card. We have plenty of cards. So here's an example of how we might use this Truth or Dare card. True. The Annie Casey Foundation ranks Texas the 43rd best state to be a kid. That's based on a lot of indicators measuring how healthy kids in Texas are, how educated they are, and how financially secure they are. Now, when we hear a hard Truth like this, there are one of two reactions that we can have. The first reaction is, nah, denial is a very common reaction that people have to bad news. We can sort of ignore the facts. We can shut our eyes and just hope that they'll go away if we don't think about them. But the second reaction is to try to make change, to make things better. And in our work to make things better for Texas kids, our goal can be to make Texas the 42nd best state to be a kid. That would be an improvement. Maybe we're feeling a little braver. We want to be the 35th best state for kids. But let's face it, no one really wants to be the 35th best state in anything. It's pretty lame. So we want to be bold in our vision for Texas kids. So we dare Texas today to be the number one state for kids, the number one state. Now, it might take a little time to get there, but we need to set that goal for ourselves. And today, I'm going to share some truths and some dares with you that will help us get to be number one. So first, we're going to look at health and how healthy our kids are. Again, we want all of our kids in Texas to be healthy, well-educated, and financially secure. Now, in health, you'll see in the report, we break health down into all of its different aspects. That includes maternal health, which affects baby's health and health from the very beginning of a baby's life. That includes nutrition and access to healthy food, which is the foundation of good health. And it also includes health insurance, which is the access point to health care in the state. And today in my presentation, I'm going to focus on health insurance. Now, here's the truth. Texas has ranked 49th for children with health insurance. You can't be the number one state for kids if you're ranked 49th for children with health insurance. But the good news is that we've improved. Kevin mentioned earlier that there have been a lot of improvements in the state. And Texas has actually improved from 18% of its kids being uninsured in 2008 to 13% of kids now. That's a pretty big improvement in a relatively short period of time. And a lot of that improvement has come through strengthening our public health insurance coverage options to children through Medicaid, through the Children's Health Insurance Program. But the troubling news is that it seems like progress is slowing down. And one of the ways that we can keep momentum going, the legislature has not taken advantage of all the opportunities that are available to it. Part of that slowdown is related to something positive, actually. It's related to the welcome that effect. And what the welcome effect simply means, the welcome that effect simply means, is that when we ensure more parents, we tend to ensure more kids. And this is a theme that I'll return to in the presentation. But if we want to do right by Texas kids, we really need to look at the whole family that surrounds them. We need to make sure that Texas is a good place to be a parent for all those hardworking parents in order for Texas to be a good state for kids. The welcome that effect, which is a positive thing, combined with the coverage gap, is something that prohibits us from ensuring as many kids as we can. Now, how does the coverage gap work? We're going to compare two families, one in the coverage gap and one not. First, we'll start with a low income family who's not in the coverage gap. This is a family, two parents, two kids, that makes $24,500 a year. The employer does not offer health insurance, and the parent's income is too high for them to be eligible for Medicaid in Texas. However, their income is just above the poverty line, so that does give the family access to subsidies that help them purchase private health insurance through the health insurance marketplace. And with the help of these subsidies, we went on to healthcare.gov and figured out that these parents could purchase insurance for about $43 a month. Over 12 months, that would be a little over $500 a year, about 2% of their income. So it would be affordable for this family. And perhaps when this family went to a community-based organization to help them get enrolled in health insurance, they found out that their kids were eligible for Medicaid, and they enrolled their kids in Medicaid. That's the welcome that effect. Now, a second family making just $1,000 less, $23,500 a year. This family's income puts them just under the poverty line. They still make too much to be eligible for Medicaid in Texas because we still have that gap, and Texas did not decide to include these parents in Medicaid in Texas. However, their income is too low to be able to access subsidies because they're just under the poverty line. They don't have access to subsidies, but their income's still too high for them to be able to access Medicaid. So we went on healthcare.gov and figured out that the monthly premium for this family would be around $440 a month. Now, over the course of a year, that's over $5,000. That's over 20% of their income. What that means is these parents are probably going to remain uninsured. And what it also means is that many of our kids who are uninsured live in these types of families. This family has no connection to health insurance. They perhaps have no knowledge or experience about how health insurance works, which, let's face it, is pretty complicated. I mean, I don't think I know how my health insurance works, to be honest. And they might not even know that their kids are eligible for Medicaid. Over half of the 888,000 kids that are uninsured in Texas today are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid. But they may not be aware of this. And when we combine, again, when we combine the effects of the welcome mat effect and the coverage gap, what we're really saying is these kids and these families aren't welcome in the state of Texas. We have chosen not to ensure their parents. And as a result, we ensure fewer kids than we could if we took advantage of all the opportunities available to the state. So in order to make Texas the number one state for kids and move up from 49th in children's health insurance, we dare Texas to close the coverage gap and expand health insurance coverage options for families. Now, health is intimately connected to the second topic that I want to turn to, which is education. How well are kids educated in Texas? A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine who is a high school teacher posted on Facebook that she was frustrated with teaching, that she was done. She said she was frustrated. She had students in her class who couldn't see the board and their parents couldn't afford to get them glasses. She had students who had severe anxiety problems that were affecting their schoolwork in the class and then she posted that she realized she wasn't really frustrated with education. She was frustrated with our health care system, that her kids weren't healthy and prepared to learn. So there are very strong links between health and education for kids. Now, I actually keep in my office a Truth or Dare card that says, I dare Texas to support our public schools to be the best in the nation. And having the number one public schools would go a long way towards making our state the best for kids in the nation. But here's a hard truth. This is a quote from former District Court Judge John Dietz in his school finance court ruling of last year. And he says, Texas's future depends heavily on whether it meets the constitutional obligation to provide a general diffusion of knowledge. What that means is that Texas's continued prosperity depends on how well we educate our kids. Now, Judge Dietz goes on to say, unfortunately, in recent years, Texas has defaulted on its constitutional promise. Now, when we don't adequately support our public schools, we limit the opportunities of kids in Texas. We limit them. And we also limit the future prosperity of our state. It starts from the very first step, pre-K. We've been hearing a lot about pre-K in the news lately. You'll hear a lot more about pre-K in our panel. And why is everyone talking about pre-K? Why is pre-K so important? Well, one of the reasons that pre-K is so important is that, unfortunately, gaps in opportunities that are available to children, gaps in achievement open up from the very earliest ages. We know that by the time many kids start school in kindergarten, there are still a lot of gaps between low-income kids and non-low-income kids. And kids who start behind, even though they're learning and progressing, they tend to stay behind their other peers. In pre-K, in pre-K, kids learn valuable social and emotional skills that really build a foundation for the rest of their educational careers. They learn skills like motivation, self-confidence, perseverance, those are the foundational skills that encourage further skill development later on in all throughout life. And that's why all the research shows that pre-K has such long-lasting effects. Now, this is from a study done by Texas A&M, and Texas A&M did a cost-benefit analysis of high-quality pre-K in the state of Texas. And they found that for every dollar that you invested in pre-K, if we were going to educate 70% of our Texas four-year-olds in a high-quality pre-K, even with all the costs that that type of program would take, every dollar putting in, we'd see $3.50 in benefits. That's a pretty good rate of return. I don't think even real estate in Austin has that good of a return. Putting a dollar in and getting $3.50 back. And those benefits, they're benefits for the kids, but not only, but for the state also. Kids who are in pre-K, they're less likely to be held back later in school. They're less likely to need special education services. They're less likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system, adult criminal justice system, have higher earnings as adults. There are so many benefits to pre-K. And to sum all of that up, I think this quote sums it up beautifully that it's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. And for policy makers who are listening or anyone who keeps track of the dollars, I would add that it's much less expensive to do that. Now, the pre-K study that Texas A&M did depended on pre-K being of high quality in Texas. And unfortunately, Texas lags. The National Institute of Early Education Research has 10 quality standards that they use to evaluate pre-K quality in the states. And Texas met only two out of those 10 standards. That's the lowest number of standards that any state-funded pre-K program in the country had. The two quality standards that we meet are having early learning standards and providing in-service education for pre-K teachers. But we're missing out on a lot of other critically important standards, such as having a maximum class size limit, having a staff teacher ratio, and providing, even making sure that the teacher has a bachelor's degree and is specially trained to teach four-year-olds. These are standards that we don't have anywhere in our policies. So in order to make Texas the number one state for kids, we'd urge Texas to improve its pre-K quality standards and expand access, expand pre-K to a full day so that kids can take full advantage of that effect, of all those good effects of pre-K and narrow that gap. Narrow that gap so they get off to a good start through the rest of their educational life. Now the last topic is child poverty and family economic security, and those are two sides of the same coin. Again, what's good for kids, if we wanna make the state a good state for kids, we really need to look at what's happening in the whole family. And child poverty is deeply connected to the things that I talked about earlier, to health, to education. Unfortunately, there are very strong connections between poverty and worst outcomes in all of those other areas. Now truth, one in four Texas kids lives in poverty. Now poverty means for a parent, two-parent, two-child family living under less than $24,000 a year. It's a pretty low standard. And one in four Texas kids lives under that poverty threshold. When we look at poverty throughout our state, we see that child poverty is pervasive throughout Texas. There are variations geographically, but even in the state that has the lowest child poverty rate, which is Rockwall County outside of Dallas, one in 11 children live in poverty. One in 11 children lives under that $24,000 for a family of four threshold, even in Rockwall County. Now in Travis County, our child poverty rate is lower than the state as a whole. That's a positive thing. 21% of Travis County kids live in poverty, although that's still too high. And when we break this number down to look at children of different races and ethnicities in Travis County and Texas, we again see that child poverty affects kids of all races and ethnicities in Texas, but there are some very troubling disparities. Higher poverty rates for our African American and Hispanic children means that those kids are facing much bigger obstacles in reaching their full potential, in living the full prosperous lives that we want for all of our kids. Now, we like to think that poverty and work are connected, but the truth is that having a job in Texas doesn't guarantee that you're not gonna experience economic hardship, and this is a very simple comparison, and I think illustrates that fact. The parental unemployment rate, so the unemployment rate for parents in Texas is 5%. Yet we have 25% of our kids who live in poverty. There is a disconnect there. There's something that's happening. Texas is actually one of only a handful of states where our parental unemployment rate is better than the national average, but our child poverty rate is worse. And when we look at our lowest income working families, Texas is ranked fifth highest for the share of jobs that pay minimum wage or less. Now, what do we do about this? Child poverty is a big problem, and why should we care? Now, as I mentioned earlier, poverty is related to a lot of the things that everyone in this room cares about. Child poverty is related to worse health outcomes for children, babies who are born into poverty have a greater likelihood of having developmental delays and disabilities, higher rates of chronic illness, and poverty robs children of their opportunities to reach their full potential. Kids who live in poverty are less likely to graduate from high school. They're less likely to enroll in higher education and complete higher education. They're more likely to live in poverty as adults. There are many reasons to care, and there is a line of new research that shows that the stress on families and children that financial hardship causes in a very real way harms children and families. The CDC calls these adverse childhood experiences or ACEs and they look at the effects of things like abuse on kids, exposure to violence, having a parent, the death of a parent, experiencing the death or incarceration of a parent. But among all of those factors that can potentially traumatize a kid, they included economic hardship. Economic hardship can have lifelong effects on our kids. And the truth is, there are many kids and families who have already reached that crisis point. More than 250,000 kids in Texas are living away from their parents. Their families have already reached that crisis point. They're now living with grandparents, aunts and uncles or relatives because of crisis in their families. That represents 90% of the kids living away from their parents. So these aren't kids in foster care. These are kids who just because of tough times going on and their family are living with their grandparents. Now unfortunately, a lot of the grandparents and other relatives that take these kids on are often financially insecure themselves. And they're unprepared to take on the additional cost of raising a child that they weren't expecting. They might be on a fixed income. And there are some programs that are available to help them but often grandparents don't know about these programs or the process is very difficult to navigate. And the financial benefit at the end isn't sufficient. So here's just one example. Last year, there is a program that gives a one-time payment to grandparents who are taking care of children. Last year, 648 families accessed that benefit. That's out of 250,000 kids. We know who are living away from their parents. And the payment that they received was $1,000, a one-time payment, which helps, but it's not really sufficient if you are taking on the cost of carrying a child. Now what do we do about child poverty and family economic security? These are really big problems. You know, there's no easy answer. I wish there was, because otherwise I think we would have done it already. But there are a couple of small solutions that we can take to ease the financial stress on some of our most vulnerable families. First, we can provide more support for informal kinship caregivers, for those grandparents who are taking care of their children. We can help them navigate the system better, and we can increase the benefits so that it's a real help to them. A second suggestion, a second recommendation that we have, is to raise the minimum wage for our lowest income families. Now you may have heard that in Santa Fe or Seattle that people have voted to raise their minimum wage, but what a lot of people don't know is that that can never happen in Texas, because state law actually prohibits cities from asking their voters to vote on the minimum wage. So we're related, dare that we have for Texas is to raise that prohibition and allow cities to decide for themselves what should be the minimum that is allowed for a hard day's work in their city. And again, we just say, to make Texas the best state for kids, we really need to look at the whole family and make Texas the best state for parents and for the families that surround kids. Now we all want our kids to be healthy, well-educated and financially secure, but we've got a lot of work to do. Now, I don't want to leave us on a depressing note. That's why we have the superhero theme. We want to be big and bold. So I want to end actually by asking you to think about what you've heard today and just think, is there anything that surprised you or that made you mad and said sometimes anger can actually be a good motivator or something that inspired you? And I'd like to ask you now to just write something down on your two third air card. I'll give you a couple of minutes to do that. And then when you're done, just share with people at your table. You're looking for these cards on your table. And I'll put this guy up to remind you to think big. Set a big goal for yourself. This could be a dare that you have for yourself. It could be for your organization. It could be for the state of Texas. And take a few minutes to just think about what you could do to make Texas the best date for kids. And after a couple of minutes, I'll ask for people to share. If you're done, please share with your neighbor. Turn and talk as teachers like to say. All right, if we can, do we have any brave, brave, bold superheroes that are willing to share in front of a group? We've got mics. Just raise your hand if you're willing to share your goal for Texas, kid. If no one raises their hand, I will call a name of someone I know. Is everyone done? Can everyone hear me? All right, we're gonna, if everyone can just quiet down for one second. So that, oh, we have someone. We have a volunteer over here. Thank you. Let's hear. All right, I dare our fiscal conservative lawmakers to brag about the healthy state of our economy in a room full of hungry school children. Oh, can you, that's so great. Can you actually stand up and say that again? I just wanna hear it again. Can you stand up? Oh, sure. Yeah, that's great. I dare our fiscally conservative lawmakers to brag about the healthy state of our economy to a room full of hungry school children. That's a great dare. Thank you. And we'll take one more dare and then I have one last dare for all of you. I think Sister JT has one over here. Dare to tell our lawmakers to raise the minimum wage statewide. Raising it by cities will cause lots of problems too long to enumerate on a dare card. Those are great dares and I just have one last dare actually for all of you. And to make all of the dares that we have on our cards a reality would require a lot of things. It would require leadership. It would require commitment. It requires just placing a greater priority on kids and what they need. But it would also require investment some of these things that we want. One of the biggest limitations that we have in Texas today is a state budget that doesn't allow us to invest in the things that we want for our kids. And actually right now at the Capitol the Senate is hearing public testimony on the amount of money that we have that's available to invest in our kids to invest in our public schools. So my final dare for you all in this room today is to have that difficult conversation maybe just with yourself, with your family, with your friends, about are we willing to invest in the things that we say that we want for our kids? Are we willing to put our money where our mouths are? And so that's the last dare that I leave you with today. I hope that I've convinced you that investing in kids is the right decision. But if I haven't then I hope that these kids will. I am the future of Texas. I'm the future of Texas. I am the future of Texas. When I grow up I wanna be an artist. I wanna be a teacher. I wanna be a race car driver. Soccer player. A doctor. A volcanologist. I wanna be a rock star. I wanna help animals that are sick. It's important to go to school cause you can get a job. You can be smart because people need to know what one plus one is. You need to learn. You learn things that you need to know for the life ahead of you. I like to learn about how the earth travels. I think math is really important. The water cycle. I like to learn about other people's jobs so I know what job is right for me. When I'm sick I get tired. I feel like I really can't move. Kids go to the doctor to figure out what's wrong with them so then you don't feel bad anymore. If you're not healthy it's hard for you to learn in school. It's bad to be hungry because it distracts me and I really wanna eat. And you can't think about like learning. It's important to eat the right food to be healthy. It's hard to do your work when you're hungry. It's all connected. That is definitely true. They even made studies about it. Educated kids. Make a better Texas. Healthy kids. Make a better Texas. Kids who eat right. Make a better Texas. Best in us now for a better Texas tomorrow. A few questions about the presentation before the panel. If anyone has any questions. If no one has questions. I just have two. Okay. No one has questions. I'll just have two announcements. The first is that if you're interested in the Kids Count Data Center and learning about accessing more local data on child well-being look. Be on the lookout for an email in your inbox about a Kids Count Data Center webinar that we'll be having in April. I'll walk people through the data center, how to access lots of child well-being indicators for your county. And the second is that tomorrow there is actually Child Protection Day at the Capitol. It's being organized by our friends at Text Protect. So if you're interested in that, you can contact them or just show up tomorrow. So with that, I'll turn it back to Ann Beeson who will introduce our pre-K panel. Thank you. I think we're gonna come up and give you a mic. Thank you so much, Jennifer. She did such a fabulous job with this report and the research. Just wanna give Jennifer another round of applause for this great work. And I'm gonna welcome up our panelists. I think we need to get one more mic. Thank you, far away over there. Hello, these big comfy chairs that they have. I feel like I'm on PBS or something. Thank you so much. Well, as you heard from Jennifer, and as we of course all knew coming into the room, high quality pre-K is a very smart investment in our state's future and our children's future. And as she noted, what we know is that well-funded, high quality pre-K helps kids prepare for school and substantially shrinks the achievement gap for our low income kids. It also happens to be linked to many other good outcomes that we care about in this room. Kids that have access to pre-K and go to pre-K are healthier and their parents are more financially secure. And that's of course because pre-K serves as a work support for working moms and dads. And yet we know that only 52% of our four-year-olds in Texas are currently in public pre-K. And we have a broad group in this room of researchers, educators, advocates, business leaders, and other elected leaders who are working together to expand access to pre-K. And we are so glad that so many of you who are champions of pre-K are here with us. We have many great organizations represented, and I just wanted to acknowledge a few of them who have put out other terrific research and have advocated for expanded pre-K. And they include Texas Impact, the Children's Defense Fund, Raise Your Hand Texas, Texans Care for Children, Children at Risk, and many others here. There's a lot of momentum and that's why we have this great panel here today on pre-K, this legislative session. Governor Abbott has made it an emergency item and lawmakers right across the street at the Capitol are currently considering a number of bills. We wanna have a conversation today, a very practical and pragmatic conversation about what experts and business leaders want our leaders to know and want you all to know about pre-K and how all of the stakeholders in this conversation can work effectively with our elected leaders to get this done. And we also wanna talk about what can we learn from the momentum around pre-K that will help us advance other causes for children. Now I wanna welcome a very distinguished panel here this morning with us. Right here on the right, Chairman DeChateau who has taken time out of his very busy schedule. Thank you so much, Chairman DeChateau, for being with us. He represents House District 22, which is the Port Arthur area, and is a member of the Public Education Committee and the Chair of the Land and Resource Management Committee. We also have Dr. Liz Gershoff who is with the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at UT Austin. We are so delighted, Liz, to have you with us. And finally on my far right, Catherine Morris who's the General Counsel and Director of Public Affairs for Samsung Austin Semiconductor. And is one of our many business leaders who have been a great champion for pre-K and early education. So we are very delighted to have you all with us and hope we can have a good conversation up here this morning about what we can do together today. So Chairman DeChateau, I'd like to just begin with you and ask why do you think there is political momentum around pre-K, this legislative session and what was the tipping point? You know, what's going on that's made this come to the attention of so many of our leaders? Well, you know, I can certainly speak to myself in how I came to this point and it had to do with my work on HB5. But I think this has been going on but I was fairly new to the education issue working on HB5. Prior to that, I did most of the economic development type work and business and industry but it became clear when you talked about economic development that without an educated workforce we can't have a strong economy. So I began working on HB5 and the high school issue and the STARS issue but thinking about why are kids having issues passing tests and how much money we're spending on that and it kind of brought me to talk to some middle school principals and it was some organization that spotlighted in the middle 2014 or 13. And I met with those principals and they were expressing similar issues and questions and concerns that the high school principals were about the kids they got. So that just brought me down to the beginning. I said, well, obviously the problem we're not putting resources at the very front end. And so that kind of got me very interested in early childhood education. And I started doing research and reading and found out the cognitive development of very newborns and very small children and how important it was to begin at that point. And if we did, many of our problems at the end would not exist. Remediation in college for kids who aren't ready for college passing tests, all that would go away if kids had a level playing field begin with and learn from the beginning on how to learn. So I began working with my energies toward that end and that's what kind of got me to this point. But I think it's worked at groups like this does and just constant communication about early childhood education and the importance of it, it started to catch his arm because it's sort of common sense. Now that we learn more about how the mind and brain develops, that we began at a much earlier age as far as the learning process. Of course, at different ages and one, two, and three is different four, five, and six the way you approach it. But we've had enough research to understand how we should approach it so that these kids would not take away their childhood from them but they would also become better citizens and have a better quality of life. And a big challenge that I'm finding is we all probably find is how do we engage the parents of very young children to understand the importance of reading to your child and having discussions and interaction with your child. They just don't understand how important that is and how do we engage, we can't legislate that. So how do we engage that? I think if we could ever do that, it would be a big step in that process. And as they spoke about the budget just a few minutes ago, you're really, your big policy statement on what you actually believe is reflected in your budget. We can have all the rhetoric that we talk about when we run for election, run for office and how important education and things are. But if we don't put the money there, it's really not that important to us. And but I believe there is a movement in the legislature to begin doing that, to start putting more money into education and early childhood education. That's terrific. And you mentioned that, seeing the research definitely had a real influence on you and us lawmakers. You just wanted to turn to Liz and have you share what that's Liz. Some of the big findings around pre-K and why it is so important. Sure. So I just wanted to start by saying that we do know a lot about pre-K now because we've had many states who have expanded their pre-K programs and have done evaluations of them. So we have a lot that we can learn from other states by now. But I think it does bear repeating a comment that Jennifer made earlier, that we know that there is an achievement gaps when kids start kindergarten. So we know that's there. That's probably why you're all here. We know that. But in pre-K gives us one of the best levers we have for trying to reduce that gap. And so we know that some of our states nearest to Texas have started big pre-K programs and evaluated them. And so I'll share with you a couple of findings from those states. So New Mexico has a pre-K program. It's not universal, but it is a pre-K program. They evaluated it and found that it had positive impacts on preschoolers, language, literacy, and math skills. They also did a cost benefit analysis and found that for every dollar they spent, they saved $5. Mostly in services that would have otherwise gone for special education or remediation services for kids who had to be held back later on. So that's pretty exciting. The Arkansas Better Chance program, which has acute acronym ABC, their program was evaluated as well and they found increases in vocabulary, math skills, and pre-literacy. So pre-reading skills in preschoolers. Again, good foundations for later learning in school. Oklahoma has a universal preschool program, pre-K program, which is pretty rare in our country and it's wonderful. And they've had it for a while now and have done several evaluations. Their program is also unique because it's part of the school system. It is not a separate program or run by health and human services. It's run by the State Department of Education, which is key because that means the teachers in the preschool are certified teachers and they get paid as certified teachers. So that's pretty crucial for increasing quality in preschool programs is having high quality teachers with good education backgrounds. That's pretty key. And so the Oklahoma program has found really consistently strong effects on kids, including letter and word recognition, spelling and math skills. And what's also important about the Oklahoma program is they found that all kids benefit. It's not just low income kids, which was found in some other smaller programs, but in Oklahoma, every child benefits, which is pretty important. So a universal approach can be effective. That's often a policy debate about where we should put our dollars. But in Oklahoma, at least they've shown all kids are benefiting from the program. So those are our nearby states, but North Carolina also has done a recent evaluation of their program. They have a set of services that go from kind of birth and toddlerhood through preschool. And they found that the more counties spent on early education, the more savings they had in special education later on. And so for counties, it was a huge savings for them in their education system. And they followed kids all the way to third grade to really show that there were these long-term impacts. And then we also know from a smaller pre-K program, but in Boston, Boston has another universal within the city preschool program, and they've done a rigorous evaluation of that program and also found very strong effects on kids' language, literacy, and math. And again, that is part of their school system. The teachers are certified teachers. 75% of them have master's degrees. So these are, they're treating preschool-like school. It's not, we wanna have high-quality people interacting with our kids. We have good training, are using good curricula to deliver a good program for kids. And then the last thing I'll say is that some of the work that I and others have done on the federal Head Start program have found some long-term effects on kids. And one of the ways that we're finding is that through helping parents, and so this gets to a point the chairman just raised, that programs that can help parents teach their own kids at home, because kids are still spending more time with their kids than they spend in childcare. That's really important. So getting parents involved in preschool, in Head Start, so they can learn how to teach their kids, how important it is to read, how important it is just to talk to kids and expose them to vocabulary. Those are really important things that parents learn from preschool. They see teachers doing it, and so they do it at home. Or you can actually explicitly teach parents that. United Way has a great program that I helped evaluate that Catherine and I were involved in called Play to Learn that helped teach parents those skills so they could do that at home. So I think if we could have pre-K programs that involve parents as well, that would kind of be a double whammy for a benefit. That's a great suggestion. So Catherine, the chairman mentioned that he got interested in pre-K from the perspective of economic development. Tell us a little bit about why businesses are so interested in pre-K. Well, let me tell you my personal journey. I have to say five years ago, I was probably one of many people who just said, what's this pre-K stuff? Don't parents teach their kids what they need to know so they go to kindergarten? I mean, and obviously I've experienced so much in the past five years about that. And I'm a little embarrassed about the ignorance that I was operating under. And so what happened in five years? Well, about five years ago, Samsung made it expanded its plant in Austin, made it a $4 billion investment to upgrade its plant and then the Korean tradition that's celebrated. Any kind of big investment, there's a celebration. And so the president of our subsidiary who had only been in the United States for a few years had come to me and to another gentleman who at that time was a public affairs director. I took those responsibilities over him. He said, we need to have a big party. Let's invite Barack Obama to come and to... And so we kind of laughed and said, well, I don't think that's gonna happen. I mean, this was five years ago. And my colleague, a guy named Bill Crier who was subsequently retired said, you know what we ought to do? This is back when we're still married in the recession. We ought to make a big gift to the community. And we ought to give a million dollars. And he had actually been involved with United Way at that time. I hadn't been involved in different community-based organizations, but not in United Way. So we should give it to United Way's success by six. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that, I had no idea. And so that decision was made. He retired and said, good luck with this, Catherine. You know, have fun. And so we made a big, we had a big, we had Hilton, we had a big community presentation, we gave him a million dollars away. The governor came, it was a big deal. And then I thought, well, that went well. We were on the front page of the newspaper. I thought, my job's done. You know, we got good PR for the company. Well, and then the president of United Way for Greater Austin, Debbie Brezette, contacted me and said two things. Catherine, I think we'd like for you to come on our board. I've told this story before. It's really, this is very true. And I'd like to come and talk to your president about how we're spending your money. So I respond, I said, gee, I feel a little bit, like I'm a little overextended. I don't know if I can join your board. And I really didn't think our president cared how we were spending our money, but I thought I shouldn't say that. That doesn't sound good. So I said, okay, come in and tell. And so she did, and she made a presentation in the middle of the meeting. She turned to my boss and said, and we'd like Catherine to come on the board. And I thought, this woman has no boundaries. I mean, what is going on? And, but what happened was, and my boss said, yes, you go be on the board. But that started my education. And they said, well, you've given all this money to Early Childhood, you need to go learn about it. And they sent me to a national business leader summit on Early Childhood. And I was like, is this true? Is this data right? Because if this is true, why are we all doing this? You know, the return on investment, the 350, I mean, at some of these national summits, you hear figures much more gaudy than that, you know? And I was just like, wow, and at that meet and at this one summit, Charles Butt from HEB was there, and he is a huge, huge advocate for this. And we found out that all over the country, these leader, business leader summits have started. We learned about the children's movement of Florida and that, well, what are we doing here in Texas? Why aren't we all doing this? I mean, it's, you know, we spend a ton of money in our plant on preventative maintenance. You know, we have our, we put, we make wafers, right? You know, microchips and all. So we know that the output's not gonna be satisfactory. We're not gonna have what we call good yield, meaning chips at work. If we don't, we don't prime the tools and it takes time and it's expensive and so there's a debate, well, how much should we spend on? But you don't, you're not gonna, you're not gonna have, you're not gonna have these expensive tools and you're not gonna invest, you're not gonna, you know, if you don't invest in the preventative maintenance, you're gonna get bad wafers, that's what we call it. It's a great analogy, right? I mean, but I think it's an educational point. I think leaders who don't, we're not, it wasn't like, I didn't have a typathy towards youngster. I just didn't know. And I think that that's the big thing is this education, you meaning what this middle school will be like, what's going on here? And then you learn anecdotally, just people saying, you know, the Larry Ellsner runs Open Door locally. He talks to the principals where he sends some of their kids like, oh, we love Open Door kits because we know they're gonna be prepared. Well, that anecdotal information is backed up by this big data that we have. I mean, it's true, it says it, and I think business leaders respond to that, right? They want to make good investments. And this is a good investment if it's quality pre-K. Yeah, that's a great story. That's terrific, and you're reminding me that that's yet another fabulous group in the United Way that are champions for Texas kids and we're so glad to have them working all over the state and here in Austin. Here we are, we've got like four sectors represented up here, so we ought to be able to solve some problems, right? So I want to kind of just get into that conversation a little bit and ask Liz first, what do you really hope the rest of us understand from a research perspective on this issue? What do we really need to know to kind of move forward on this issue of expanding pre-K in Texas? Well, what we've been able to find out from the research is that it's feasible, which is important with interventions. We can do this. It's not terribly expensive per child as an intervention. And it's effective. The research shows, as I had said, very effective, but it depends on having high quality curriculum in the classroom. That is a really important factor. And teachers who are trained and who are paid, well, we have to value our preschool teachers like we value other teachers, which I wish we valued more and paid more, but preschool and childcare teachers, as you probably know, are paid abysmally low. And in order, if we really do want to make this kind of investment, if we really value it, we need to value the people who are delivering it and pay them well, so that we get really good people who are trained in how to work with kids and are passionate about it. We need that. So, and again, that Boston program I mentioned, 75% of the people delivering the preschool program have master's degrees. And that's unheard of in most preschools, but that is a great goal to have. I think it's also important to know that we're talking mostly about pre-K, but we've shown in lots of research studies that three-year-olds are benefiting as well. Kids don't just start learning when they're four and five. They start learning from birth. The earlier we can do, the better. And some programs do go to three years old. Headstart does. Early Headstart goes even earlier, so if we can start earlier, we can get an even better bang for our buck if we did that. As I mentioned, several of these evaluations have shown that all kids benefit. It's not just the most at-risk kids. Some of the research I've done with Headstart has shown that it doesn't really matter what skills they come in to the program with. All of the kids benefit. There's a debate about whether skill begets skill, or whether you have to have a certain level of skill in order to benefit from the program. Jim Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who is now a big champion of early education, he has made this argument, but it doesn't seem to be playing out in the data, at least in Headstart, what we found is all kids benefit, which is really encouraging. It means that if we can afford to give it to all kids, all kids will benefit. And what's also important is there was a poll in the fall by Gallup that over 70% of Americans favor using federal dollars for universal preschool. So the public is behind it. So we have public support. We just have to find the dollars to do it. I mentioned the cost-benefit analysis done in New Mexico. There's been a range of how much savings. It depends on how far you follow the kids. The most prominent study was the Perry preschool study, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. That one has varying numbers. Jim Heckman finally got it to $7 save for every $1 spent, and I think that's kind of the number we go with right now. And a lot of that comes from long-term. They follow the kids until they're in their 40s looking at savings from welfare, savings from the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems, taxes paid by people who are working and are paying taxes into the system. So we get these very long-term benefits from programs when they follow kids for a very long time. But even these short-term benefits we're seeing up to kindergarten and preschool, we're seeing benefits again in savings from special ed that we would otherwise have to spend. And so I guess the last thing that I would say is that I hope that as we think about expanding pre-K in Texas that we encourage the lawmakers to give funding for an evaluation of whatever we end up doing. These states that have done these evaluations, they've learned a lot and they've learned a lot about the impact from the kids on the cost benefit but then also things that need to be improved. And we won't know that if we don't do a rigorous evaluation. So I hope that as the legislature considers this, they'll think about evaluation. Evaluation is not always cheap but otherwise you don't know how your money's being spent and so it's a pretty crucial thing to know. Yeah and I'd love to return Chairman to you and have you just share a little bit about what are some of the different policy changes that are being considered. I know there are many different goals that have been followed. We don't need to go through every one but just big picture. I do believe that there are a couple of them which address this issue that Liz has highlighted about the need to evaluate our program. But what else is on the table? Well the governor has an initiative which I was glad, very happy to hear and made an emergency item. And I think I have five of his bills that he's asked me to move forward in that initiative and they do include the evaluation and they also include teacher certification, teacher training, we have some dollars being allocated to for a choir of for instance 25% of the teacher's age to have at least an associate degree and start to work towards raising that number where we're using that to start with and we're having stipends for teachers who reach AB and IB, AP and IB rates on their students to give them incentives there. So we know that there are incentives that need to be done and we know that we need to raise the certification and teaching certification in early childhood education. We were really working toward doing that. I think those are the main areas, raising the quality of the teacher's understanding that that's very important and then trying to allocate the dollars that help with that. And we have the rising star program in childcare centers which we wanna keep that funded so that we can get those elevated and get those certified people in the early daycare or childcare centers as well. And we're gonna do an interim study to look at various programs, as you mentioned, that other states are doing so that we can determine here in Texas whether or not we want to have early childhood education under the Texas Education Agency or have a whole separate agency like they may have in Georgia and other states to deal with early childhood education. We wanna take testimony, we wanna bring people in from other states where things have worked different ways to evaluate how we wanna do it in Texas. So it's all, some of this long term, we're not gonna solve it all today. HB4, for instance, is half day pre-K. But we would love to have full day pre-K but it's just not realistic that the legislators are gonna fund full day pre-K. We think that they will, maybe next session, we think that we're moving in that direction but what's very important to get us there is a lot of input from around the state from families and centers and agencies that push them. It's kind of sad that the legislature wants to see immediate results. So we don't get funding for long range programs. I think if we put the money in early childhood education that we should, it may be 12 years down the line before we see all these dollars saved. Well, they don't even understand that. They wanna see something happen today. We can put this money in and we're gonna see results and I can go back to my district and show these results. And it's not only in this area, it's in pre-child aversion, it's in criminal area where you can really lower the population in prisons if you put money on the front end into education and things but no, they wanna see something quick and it just doesn't work well. Yeah, thank you for sharing those. Katherine, you've heard a few of these, I'm sure you've heard several other suggestions being kicked around. What do you really want our legislators to understand from a business perspective on this issue that might help move the ball forward? Well, you know, I mean, from a personal standpoint, I'm the current board chair for United Way for Greater Austin. You know, on a personal level, I see it as an issue of social justice, you know? I mean, it just makes, you know, these inequities are not right, okay? Now, if we wanna go speak to businesses, I think there's a number of business leaders who feel the similar way, but if you wanna go sell out the Chamber of Commerce, you need to talk in terms of economic development. Well, that's the way that this has really been, I feel like, you know, from what I can see in these business summits really being sold, okay? This is an issue of workforce development and we all know the anecdotes of how much conversation there is about workforce readiness for kids graduating from high school and so forth and that there's a crisis and what are we gonna do and all this thing? Well, again, you know, so we've gotta, you know, the kids, as Jennifer said, kids that we know, the kids that start behind, they stay behind with financial consequences down the line. So I think that we have to think that we have to trust data. I mean, data speaks to business leaders, okay? And yes, I mean, maybe for politicians, you need immediate results to sell the constituents, but I think business leaders understand data, they're gonna trust it, there's an abundance of it as Liz has referenced. And so I think that you show them data, you talk in terms of economic development, workforce readiness, and we have to be patient. It does, it works. The data show that we're gonna get the results we want. And so that's what I think we have to hammer. Absolutely. Well, she says something that's very important that I have found working with the legislature. If you have an issue you want to get, like we're talking about now, you have to appeal to the different interests that people have. And I've been able to build, you know, coalitions because some may wanna do it for social reasons, some may wanna do it for economic reasons. Many times those two individuals don't see it out very much and they don't work very well together. But when I try to say, look, let's look at the end result. The end result, you both wanna see the end result. I don't care why he wants to get there or why she wants to get there. I wanna get there so I try to pull them together. And that's what we have to do. We have to be able to work together and build coalitions. Many times the people who normally don't see out in the aisle, they're both trying to get to the same place. And so if his reason for getting there is because it's gonna save the state money, your reason is because it's gonna save families. And, you know, so be it, you both want to get to this point. And that's when we'll be successful. I think that's right. Success from the legislature. That's right. We're gonna open it up to audience Q&A in just a minute. But I did wanna just pick up on something that you commented on a little bit already, Chairman, which is, you know, what can we all do? Like everyone in this room is here because they believe in Texas kids and they wanna do better and expand access to Pre-K and do so many other things that Jennifer dared us all to do as the state of Texas. What more, I mean, on a very practical level, what more is needed to help make the case across the street for expanded Pre-K, you know, whether it's half-day this, you know, this time in expanding access or full day, which is where I think we all really wanna get to. How can we all help? Well, legislators like cover back home. So if you have statewide organizations, the important thing to do is have them visit their legislators. It really doesn't do, if you live in Austin, it doesn't really do you go good to talk to a Lubbock legislator about what your needs, if that's not his interest, but you need people back from Lubbock in his office, calling his office and saying, you know, this is important to us as constituents of yours. Many of them will go with that. I mean, but they wanna make sure that they have cover, that they can, somebody's behind them and they're not gonna step out on something in an area that's normally they're not comfortable in. So it's very important. And I think that's what got HB5 and the reduction to start because we had parents all over the state complaining to their legislator about all these tests. And they came on, they felt comfortable by making changes that they wouldn't have made two years earlier. And so if you have, if this is a passion, you need to, you can't do it this session, but you need to grassroots work throughout the state in your districts where your organization has members and let them and their neighbors contact us. I mean, it really, and it really doesn't do any good from my perspective, and I think from our colleagues to get a petition with 10,000 signatures, because we know people don't, they'll sign anything. Can you sign anything? But what really matters is a call from an individual saying this is important to me, from their district or a handwritten card, not a postcard, this Xerox, then you send in 10,000 like Mr. Smith goes to Washington and pull them out. That doesn't work for them. So, but personal contact really does influence these members and some of them there can state you once, you know. Yeah, I think that's right. You know, in addition to being on the, you know, the chair of the nine-way board, I mean, around they also serve on the executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce. And, you know, the truth of it is these are, these are well-meaning business people who, from big businesses and small businesses who want their businesses to thrive. And they're rational people. They're gonna listen to data. And I think if you look at what Charles Butt did, granted his success might not necessarily be at the Capitol and he got frustrated with those efforts and went and drove a local solution in San Antonio, which would be very interesting to follow. But obviously as a person with a huge reputation, very influential, and there's other leaders out there. We see examples in other states where you have CEOs. Of course, you know, it's easier maybe in Vermont, it's really a little, you know, so you've got a couple of CEOs and they go down this, and everyone listens to that. You know, we're a huge state, so that creates some challenges to have statewide solutions. But I do think that, you know, it's like I think we need to go, we need to evangelize and sort of convert souls. And I mean that not from a moral perspective, just with, but just make the business case. The business case is there. And if we bring people in and present them the data in a way that they don't feel like they're bad people, that they don't care about poor children, you know, and their solutions. I mean, I think that we're all overwhelmed. There's so much need. And as a business, like, well, how do we start? Where do we go? You know, because I think it's overwhelming and some people just wanna stick their head in the sand, like I just can't deal with it. But when we talk about solutions, and we do it, we obviously have to go to full day pre-K because what parent works three hours a day, you know, then where do you put your, where does a child go after pre-K is up? So we have to be practical and look at, you know, the great thing is we can look at successes otherwise they've taken place elsewhere, present business leaders, you know, with somebody, and knowing that the school districts are gonna, they're gonna see a return on their investment. You're not gonna, you know, the school districts aren't gonna fight you. And the school districts, they want this, okay? And so, you know, I just think that we need to, we need to put people out, boots on the ground, go in, talk to business leaders, convert key business leaders so they can have these persuasive conversations with their representatives. And then I think we'll have change. It's happened in other states. We have a big state with, you know, all sorts of different economies around the state. So we have challenges, but it's, I mean, how exciting that it's starting to happen. Yeah, that's terrific, wonderful. Let's open it up for Q&A. We've got just a few minutes for some questions and we've got folks with mics in the room. Here we have one up in front. And if you could say who you are too, we'd love to hear. Oh, sorry. Cynthia Osborn. Chairman, you mentioned that one of the constraints is that there's long-term payoffs, early investment. And sometimes it's hard to understand what the short-term payoffs would be. I was wondering, Liz, could you speak a little bit to what some of those short-term payoffs really are? You mentioned school grade retention and so forth, but it really doesn't take 12 years for us to start seeing some of the payoffs to our systems and at the individual level. Could you just speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, we see obviously very short-term gains in kids' achievement. And so that, I mean, that should be a goal in of itself, you know, that the kids are learning and doing better in school and that's gonna set them on a good path. You can't put a number on that, like a dollar savings on that, but we do see that. There's some studies that have found health benefits and so you can't put numbers on those. We see benefits in kids' social-emotional skills and so their ability to regulate themselves and also some benefits on kids' attention skills, which is obviously a huge set of skills that will care them well through school. So we do see these kind of short-term benefits for kids. Some of them, again, are hard to put numbers on but they're definitely there. Yeah, Sharon. No, I mean, the number's issue is what I was speaking to because what I was referring to and why I said 12 years, we were looking at the prison population, things of that nature. It's gonna take a while. You know, remediation classes in college will go down and all this and you won't see that for 12 years. But certainly there are short-term benefits for individual kids. There are short-term benefits certainly for the individual kids. But then that was my point, the legislature, they don't look at those types of social benefits. I mean, yeah, it is not measurable and so they don't think that is important and they can't get anything out of it. And unfortunately, a lot of members wanna get something out of it. Let's have another question here. Thank you. Christa Delgallo at the Texas Council on Family Violence and I've spent a lot of time working with and on behalf of poor single mothers and their children that have survived domestic violence and one of the main job markets for those folks, particularly at an entry level, has been childcare and pre-K to be teachers in those settings. And they're largely going in with low educations and with not a lot of job skills. So I was at the same time extremely thrilled to hear about the idea of providing more training to that sort of section of the job field and raise those wages up because in doing so, that's not only gonna help the kids in those classes, it's gonna help the kids of the families, of those employees. But I was also scared when I hear things like, and in Boston, all of them have masters because I feel like if we set some educational bars, it's going to cut out most of the market, most of the individuals that are currently in those jobs right now, if we don't just work on bringing them up with the training that they need to succeed as opposed to just setting that bar and then kids fresh out of college are gonna get those jobs instead of single moms that are raising three kids by themselves. I'd like to just address that real fast. And there's a, and Dr. Alifa Houston is a professor emeritus at University of Texas in early childhood has spoken on this as well. And there's publications about the economic development implications of having professionally trained pre-K teachers. It's not gonna eliminate the opportunities for those individuals. They're gonna be complementary too. I mean, if you look in the special education realm, right? You have certified special education teachers and you also have, everyone has eights who certainly have some level of skill in continuing education, but not necessarily a four-year degree, it's not required. So I think that it's gonna expand opportunities for everyone, all right? But the truth of the matter is, as much as we wanna give job opportunities for these folks, absolutely. And I think if we expand early childhood education, we bring in these standards, those opportunities aren't gonna go away because we're gonna wanna have certified teachers and then we're gonna wanna be complimented by AIDS, which this population would build. But the truth of the matter is people who do not have education are not gonna raise that bar, but you're not gonna meet the quality guidelines. And so it needs to be complimentary. So I don't think it's a zero-sum game, okay? I think it's gonna be all the above. Well, yes, and on that end, one of the bills that we have requires initially 25% of the parent AIDS to have at least an associate degree, and we're gonna eventually raise that because we don't wanna just fire people and kick them out, but we do wanna, we have to raise the bar, we're not gonna change the outcome. And when we do that, their wages are gonna go up, okay? So that's gonna be an opportunity. So we're almost out of time. I wanna just make a few remarks in closing before I think our fabulous panelists up here and get you all onto the rest of your day. I have to make a bit of a shameless plug here for the fabulous wonderful staff that I have the privilege to work with at C-Triple-P. They are out there every single day. In fact, today we have folks, our fiscal policy experts across the street of the Capitol advocating against major tax cuts that would prevent so many kids and families from getting the public services they need. We have our healthcare analysts arguing about the devastating impact of further restricting Medicaid and restricting, therefore, healthcare for kids. Every single day we're out there doing research and analyzing and developing policy recommendations. Some of you may know that tonight starts a big annual event here in Austin called Amplify Austin. It's a philanthropic giving day. It starts tonight and goes all the way through till tomorrow, I think at five o'clock. We are participating in Amplify Austin and it is an opportunity to help support the work of the center. You'll notice that in your folders, you have this fun little thing that has a beer mug on it. As an extra little incentive in case all the work isn't enough to convince you, we are going to have a very fun party which we're calling our Beer and Bar Charts Party, enabled for anyone who donates. Anything helps, I mean, whether it's $10 or 25 or 100 or whatever, we would so appreciate if you would support the work of CETRLP during Amplify Austin and support all the other great organizations, including those I mentioned earlier and the many more that are represented here. So I wanted to say that. I wanted to really dearly thank our panelists. Thank you so much for your passion on this issue and for your leadership. And I wanted to thank our sponsors again, Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas for sponsoring the event and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And we will be posting Jennifer's presentation online and we hope that you all will fill out your Truth or Dare cards and work with all of us to Dare, Texas to be the number one state for kids. Thank you. Thank you.