Universal pre-K can o er boost to state’s economy

 If Michigan is serious about its economic growth and improving the labor market, universal pre-kindergarten is nearly imperative.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called for a “Pre-K for All” plan in her annual State of the State address Wednesday night. While her speech was sparse on details, Michigan’s economy, businesses and workers would stand to bene t from such a plan.

“Every parent knows an early start is critical to their child’s future,” Whitmer said in her speech. “It’s why we read, talk, and sing to our babies, worry about nding a great child care provider and have wait lists for great preschools.”

Universal pre-K would further shift dollars that families spend on day care for 4-yearolds to a publicly funded program, presumably including public school systems. It’s currently unclear whether private day care centers would stand to bene t under the proposal, but the state’s current Great Start Readiness Program does include private centers.

Universal pre-K has long garnered support from the business community. Business Leaders for Michigan, the Small Business Association of Michigan, Detroit Regional Chamber and chambers from all over the state have supported several di erent plans to expand preschool access.

Currently, nine other states, Washington D.C., and several municipalities o er a form of universal pre-K. e results are hard to dispute.

A May 2021 study by economists at University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of e kids in the public preschools were less likely to get suspended and more likely to take the SAT. But it’s the educational outcomes that stand out. Children in the program had a high school graduation rate of 70 percent, above the 64 percent of those not in the program. Plus, 54 percent in the program went to college after they graduated, compared with just 46 percent outside of the program.

Technology and University of California-Berkley examined Boston’s public pre-K program, which started in the late 1990s and selected participants through a lottery. e economists tracked the outcomes of about 4,000 students in the lottery program between 1997 and 2003, making the enrollees between 19 and 26 years old now.

Naysayers point to a lack of short-term bene ts to universal pre-K programs — and there is some evidence to back that. e Boston study showed no improvement in standardized testing performance. And researchers from Vanderbilt University in Nashville followed nearly 3,000 disadvantaged Tennessee children, with a portion in preschool programs. e children who attended preschool, in fact, did slightly worse on standardized tests. Children in third and sixth grades who attended preschool scored about 1 percent to 4 percent lower scores in reading and math testing, according to the 2021 study.

Jews are being verbally and physically attacked in our own backyards, most recently in the Dec. 2 antisemitic incident at Temple Beth El in Bloom eld Hills. Our heightened security is matched only by our heightened sense of anxiety. Who will be targeted next? Will there be physical violence? Are Jews in America safe?

At e Zekelman Holocaust Center, we believe that businesses have an important role to play in creating a safer and better world, one free of antisemitism and all prejudice. e diversity, equity, and inclusion movement must lead this important e ort.

In a new Skillsoft survey of 1,000 professionals, 72 percent of respondents reported that corporate social responsibility has become more important since the pandemic — 40 percent said that “doing the right thing” guides their e orts.

We are assisting companies with their corporate social responsibility and DEI initiatives. In the last few months, nearly 1,000 business professionals have participated in museum tours, education programs and virtual museum experiences at e Holocaust Center. Corporate education makes up almost a quarter of our adult education programs.

Visiting business leaders to e Holocaust

Center learn that the darkness that descended over Europe during WWII was a result of everyday choices made at every level of society. ey learn how business leaders themselves were complicit during the Holocaust. Many corporations pro ted o the murder of innocent people, while high percentages of individual business professionals were bystanders, failing to help their fellow coworkers. Some major corporations helped the perpetrators, by bene ting from the slave labor of Jews and other victims of Nazi racist ideology, producing the materials and machines used in the killing centers as well as in the greater war.

Despite this, a few courageous business leaders and professionals chose to defy the Nazis by defending their Jewish employees and colleagues, helping them escape captivity and extermination. e Spielberg movie “Schindler’s List” is a dramatization of one such e ort.

Education is society’s best safeguard against hatred. Many in uential people working in the realms of politics, culture and economics espouse strong antisemitic beliefs, exploiting their audience’s ignorance. Recent examples include professional athletes citing lms denying the Holocaust happened; media personalities who promote the canard that Jews are “replacing” the white race; and politicians and musicians who recycle tropes about Jews’ outsize in uence, normalizing antisemitism and hate.

We encourage businesses, places of learning, and law enforcement to schedule a tour at e Holocaust Center. Come and be inspired by the study of Holocaust history to become upstanders today, to take responsibility for business practices and create institutional cultures that value and celebrate diversity and inclusion.