Staff Writer
As the days begin to shorten, the temperature begins to drop and the leaves start to change colors, kids throughout the state start worrying about what they’re going to wear on the first day of school. At the same time, police and other law enforcement individuals start worrying about how many students won’t graduate in June.
According to Kim Gore, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 70 percent of all inmates in the country’s prisons failed to receive a high school diploma. A report from the agency states that 30 percent of high school students across the country don’t complete school on time and two out of 10 Maine students fail to graduate on time.
“Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is a statewide, bipartisan, nonprofit, anti-crime organization of more than 120 police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, other law enforcement leaders and violence survivors,” said Gore. “We believe that investment in programs such as Head Start and other high quality early education are proven to give kids the right start in life and will cut crime.”
According to findings from a study of Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers, a high-quality early education program, kids that were left out of the program were 70 percent more likely to have been arrested for a violent crime by age 18 than those who were involved in the program.
According to Gore, 83 percent of Maine’s 3-year-olds and 59 percent of 4-year-olds are not enrolled in state pre-kindergarten programs, Head Start or early childhood special education programs. Funding for Head Start, the nation’s premier pre-kindergarten program is only enough to serve 66 percent of eligible children, she said.
Law enforcement leaders involved in the program released a report showing that an increase in graduation rates by 10 percentage points means that 3,000 murders and 175,000 assaults will be prevented in America each year.
“Every school year we are called on to work with high school students who get in trouble with the law and often end up in our custody,” said Houlton Police Chief, Butch Asselin. “These are short-term, often remedial solutions. If we really want to look at the long term, we need to focus on young children to make real progress.”
Closer to home, the report stated that 24 percent of Caribou students fail to graduate on time.
Caribou Police Chief, Michael Gahagan commented, saying, “America faces a high school dropout crisis that poses a significant threat to public safety. Far too often, today’s dropouts are tomorrow’s criminals.”
Maine law enforcement officials called on Maine’s representatives in Congress and the state legislature to expand the amount of early education programs available to kids. By participating in pre-kindergarten programs, the rates of graduation are increased by up to 44 percent, according to information given by Gore.
“Nationwide, the percent of 4-year-olds served by state pre-K programs has risen from 14 percent in 2002 to 22 percent in 2007,” said Gore. “Definite progress, but far from where states should be.”