UWATX held a breakfast briefing event at Google Fiber on February 5th to update business and philanthropic leaders and stakeholders on how far the Success By 6 program has come–and how many more children still remain unserved.
Speakers included Dr. Leah Newkirk Meunier, UWATX Vice President of Mission Advancement; Mayor Steve Adler; Dr. Paul Cruz, Superintendent of Austin ISD; Elizabeth Sobel-Blum, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Catherine Morse, UWATX Board Chair; and Mollie Duckworth, WLC Member.
Speaker Highlights:
–Elizabeth Sobel-Blum noted four numbers to remember:
- 700 = In the first few years of a child’s life, 700 new neural connections are formed every second.
- 18 = Differences in the size of a child’s vocabulary first appear at 18 months of age, based on whether they were born into a family with high education and income, or a family with low education and income levels.
- 2:1 = By age three, children with college-educated parents or primary caregivers had vocabularies 2 to 3x larger than those whose parents had not completed high school.
- 3:1 = Adults who recall having seven or eight highly stressful experiences in childhood are 3x more likely to have cardiovascular disease.
–Dr. Leah Meunier gave an update on the Success By 6 program. There are 6,344 low-income three-year-olds in Travis County. 2,036 are served through Head Start, childcare subsidies or their local school district; 4,308 remain unserved.
–Mayor Adler noted that the city has increased its funding for preschool by 25% and sees it as a highly important initiative.
View all photos from the event on Flickr.