Thrive by Five puts focus on early learning

SEATTLE – Drawing a line from a lack of quality preschool education in Washington to the state’s 30 percent high school dropout rate, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday announced the beginning of a new public-private partnership to support learning for all children younger than 5.

The partnership, Thrive by Five, was presented at a news conference in White Center, a low-income neighborhood in southwest Seattle and the location of the first test site for the project. The second pilot for the program, which is being started with $9 million in state and foundation money, will be in a so-far-unidentified location in Eastern Washington.

The program is called Thrive by Five because studies indicate that much of a child’s brain development happens before age 5.

“Everybody and anybody who’s involved in early learning across the United States is watching Washington state,” Gregoire said.

They could also be watching the involvement of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation because this marks a major foray into preschool education by the private charitable foundation.

The foundation plans to invest as much as $90 million over the next 10 years in improving early learning in Washington state. Its $4 million grant to Thrive by Five is a major early learning investment, but the foundation has also given money to a Seattle program and the Puget Sound Educational Service District, which will run the pilot project in White Center.

“We know children with early learning success are more likely to finish school, more likely to go to college, less likely to be unemployed and less likely to commit crimes,” the governor said.

Gregoire said the new organization wouldn’t be possible without the financial and programming support of the Gates Foundation, plus help from Boeing Co. and other foundations and local corporations, although the dollar breakdown of other pledges has not been announced.

Thrive by Five will be handing out money to parent education, child care, preschool and other early learning programs, and will be working closely with the Washington’s new Department of Early Learning, which officially started its work on July 1.

Thrive by Five’s new Web site, which was also launched Monday, said the organization is not ready to take requests for grants.

Greg Shaw, director of the Gates Foundation’s early learning department, said the goal of the project is to make sure every child in Washington has equal access to the kind of preparation he or she needs to succeed in school.

Shaw said the foundation has made no plans yet to spread its early learning work across the country as it has done with its donations to American high schools and libraries.

“Our intent is to learn from this work in Washington state, see what works and doesn’t work,” Shaw said. “Only after we’re in this for a while would we look at this nationally. We’re certainly open to that, but we have a lot of work to do to get it right here.”

Nearly every speaker in White Center quoted from recent studies on the long-term effect of early childhood education, including a November report by the Gates Foundation that summarized much of the current research on the value of a good preschool.

Speakers also agreed that $9 million is the seed money for what will become a much bigger project involving more money from the Gates Foundation, the state of Washington and other organizations.

Bob Watt, vice president of government and community relations at Boeing, said every dollar the state invests in quality preschool will pay dividends in better workers and citizens.

Watt said the project was “among the most important work that any of us will be able to do in our lifetimes.”

The new organization will be headed by the governor and Bill Gates Sr., one of three co-chairmen of the Gates Foundation.