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conferences at our shipyards to encouraging employees to volunteer for

tutoring programs.

In recent years, we’ve begun to widen that aperture to include more

focus on a growing national concern: pre-school.

Why pre-school? Because we’ve learned that the earlier you fix the

problem, the better the result.

I’m a strong believer that to fix education, we need to get it right

from the very start.

The beginning of the workforce development “pipeline,” if you

will.

In my business, engineers know if a problem is not solved at the

design stage, it will persist in the finished product.

In education, the design stage is pre-K.

Early learning can help a child succeed—not only in school, but

also in life.

A study published by

The Economist

backs this up, ranking the U.S.

24th in the world in early childhood education.

While U.S. children start kindergarten at age 5, the nations we

compete with have education programs that begin at age 3 or 4.

According

the

Organisation

for

Economic

Co-operation and Development—the OECD—only half of American

children are enrolled in educational programs by the age of 3.

That compares to an average of 68 percent among the 34 OECD

countries, which include most of the world’s leading economies.

In France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, among others, more than 90

percent of 3-year-olds are enrolled in formal pre-school programs.

Although I’ve tossed quite a few statistics at you, the bottom line is

that toddlers in these countries will be our children’s or grandchildren’s

competitors in the next generation’s global workforce.

So what can I tell you about the economics of early childhood

education?

As I said, I’m not an economist, but I do know the basics of supply

and demand.

With early childhood education, I would suggest there is a dangerous

situation with a very high demand and a relatively low supply.

Let me share a few more numbers to clarify what I mean.

InVirginia, there are more than 500,000 residents age 4 and below.

That’s 6 percent of the population below “school age,” meaning

they are in a child care or early education situation.

Meanwhile, there are only about 7,000 child care centers and family

child care homes in the state.

When demand is high and supply is low, two things happen: Price

goes up, and quality goes down.

I’ll say that again: Price is going up, and quality is going down.

The average annual cost of child care for a 4-year-old in Virginia

is $7,700.

Of the 7,000 child care centers and family child care homes I just

mentioned, only 8 percent are nationally accredited.

I think we can agree the barriers are high for a family with two

working parents and one child.

But what if you add one … or two … or three more children?

What if one of the parents doesn’t work?

I’m here today to talk about the

economics of early childhood education.

Having heard my introduction, you

might ask yourself: “Why him?”

After all, I’m not an economist.

I’m not an educator.

And I’m certainly not a politician.

But what you didn’t hear in that

introduction is the story of how education

changed my life.

I wasn’t born pre-destined to attend

the Naval Academy or to serve on submarines, much less to build

them—along with aircraft carriers, destroyers, large- and small-deck

amphibious assault ships and fast response cutters for the U.S. Coast

Guard.

I grew up on an orange and cattle farm the oldest of six—five boys

and one girl.

My family was a farming family.

Yet when I was in the sixth grade, my parents encouraged me to

take the entrance exam for a Jesuit high school that cost well beyond

their means—and was located 40 miles from where we lived.

Not only was I accepted, I earned a scholarship to work off half

the tuition by cleaning classrooms and doing other odd jobs around the

school.

I saved up the rest from my wages from working on my dad’s farm

in the summers.

For transportation, I made the commute first with my uncle, then

with my aunt and later with a neighbor.

It takes a village, right?

Yet attending that school changed my trajectory. It changed my life.

The question in my life went from, “

Are

you going to college?” to

“

Where

are you going to college?”

Bottom line: Education changed my life.

Now, my path didn’t change until I was in sixth grade and took

that entrance exam—yet I believe it needs to happen sooner for most

children.

Like in pre-school.

One of the greatest advantages to living in this country is that people

can

change their trajectory.

Yet it’s often hard to do it on your own, and it’s just about impossible

if you’re only 3 or 4 or 5 years old.

So we—that’s you and I—need to do everything we can to set our

kids up for success—as early as possible.

And while this may sound very altruistic, I am here today as the

CEO representing the largest manufacturing company in Virginia and

the largest employer in Mississippi—and one of the largest employers

in Alabama.

Huntington Ingalls Industries has been involved in workforce

development since Newport News Shipbuilding was founded 128 years

ago—and most actively since Newport News’ Apprentice School

opened 85 years ago.

In fact, we opened a brand new apprentice school just last year in

Mississippi that’s modeled on the one in Newport News.

We’ve also forged strong partnerships with local community

colleges and supported any number of secondary and elementary

school programs—from funding STEM programs to hosting teacher

By Mike Petters

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