To the Editor:

I applaud Chiefs of Police Dick Rizzo and Mike Field, and Sheriff Joel Merry, for highlighting the importance of high-quality early education and what it means for our children and the future safety of our communities (“Combat crime with quality early learning,” page A8, Dec. 21).

As a business leader, I would like to add that highquality early education is good for our economy, too.

According to the national business leaders organization America’s Edge, investments in quality early learning in Maine provide a big boost to our state’s economy, generating an additional 78 cents in new spending for every $1 invested. As an economic sector, early education outperforms many other sectors, like construction and transportation. That’s good news for our economy today.

It is also good news for our economy in the future, when the children who receive highquality early education grow up and join our workplaces. Research published in the Journal of Science shows that at-risk children who attended Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers in the mid-1980s have enjoyed more success as adults than their peers who did not participate. As young adults, these children have had higher high school graduation rates, higher college attendance rates and higher incomes than similar children who did not participate in this high-quality early education programming.

For Maine’s economy today and in the future, I echo the comments of our law enforcement leaders: High-quality early education is a sound investment and should be a public policy priority in Augusta and Washington.

John Peters
president
Downeast Energy