The facts by now are undisputed: Providing at-risk children with quality early childhood care and education significantly reduces the achievement gaps that otherwise plague them later in their school careers.

Over the years, study upon study has proven the point. Now, new Denver data from a study funded by The Piton Foundation reinforces these findings. Such compelling and irrefutable information cries out for a public policy response.

Up to now, however, no one in Colorado has led the charge to publicly fund pre-kindergarten for any 4-year-olds whose families choose to seize the opportunity. In fact, the state's modest-sized Colorado Preschool Program has suffered significant cuts during the current state budget crisis.

That may be about to change. Momentum is building among government and education leaders across the ideological spectrum to launch a universal pre-kindergarten initiative in Denver, or perhaps all of Colorado. The initiative could be similar to ones that have been successful in Georgia, Florida and in several cities across the country.

(The subject of education for very young children is rife with jargon. We use the term "early childhood care and education" to denote the broadest possible range of models, from traditional day care to highly structured pre-kindergarten programs. Pre-kindergarten means a program specifically for 4-year-olds.)

In Denver, Mayor John Hickenlooper will soon launch an early childhood initiative, Invest in Success. The idea, Hickenlooper says, is to provide every child in Denver with access to quality early childhood care and education.

Invest in Success aims to ensure that:

• Early care and education is available and affordable to working parents;
• It is of high quality and prepares children for school;
• The early childhood care and education workforce is well-trained, supported and compensated;
• Programs serving children from low-income families, such as Head Start, are adequately funded.

Proponents of any universal pre-kindergarten initiative face key questions as they ponder if, when and how to move forward with some sort of ballot initiative:

Is there enough support for this ambitious undertaking, either in Denver or Colorado? Polling data from last summer suggest, not surprisingly, that the sell would be easier in the city than the state.

If support seems sufficiently strong, how do advocates make it happen? What are possible funding streams? Would such a program serve all kids or only low-income children?

If voters are not yet ready, what would it take to persuade them that this is not only educationally sound but fiscally responsible as well? Would a marketing campaign be effective and, if so, who would fund it?

Compelling information is readily available to fuel a powerhouse marketing campaign. Most recently, the Piton study of young Denver Public Schools students found that children who participated in a high-quality DPS pre-kindergarten and kindergarten program consistently outperformed their peers several years later on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) test.

Characteristics of the roughly 1,600 students in the program make the results particularly notable. The Early Education Collaboration Project chose students for the program because they were the lowest-scoring children on a developmental screening test given at each school prior to enrollment. About 65 percent of them were from low-income families, as measured by eligibility for federally subsidized lunches.

"There are many explicit indications that Denver students who participate in a quality early education program are doing better (than their peers) despite the fact that they tested low at the beginning," said Catherine Felknor, the statistician who conducted the data analysis for The Piton Foundation.

Felknor examined third-, fourth- and fifth-grade CSAP reading scores for students who had been in the Early Education Collaboration Project as 4- and 5-year-olds. She then compared those scores to those of DPS third-, fourth- and fifth-graders as a whole.

Results were substantially stronger for children who participated in both a high- quality pre-kindergarten and kindergarten program than for those who were enrolled in only one or the other. Children who enrolled only in quality kindergarten outperformed other district children, while those in the pre-kindergarten program but not the kindergarten program did not measurably outperform district children as a whole.

The data strongly suggest that high-quality pre-kindergarten followed by high-quality kindergarten offsets the negative effects of poverty on school performance more effectively than either pre-kindergarten or kindergarten alone, Felknor said.

For example, of the 76 children who entered the pre-school program in 1998 and kindergarten in 1999, 64 percent scored proficient or advanced on the third-grade reading CSAP in 2001. That same year, 50 percent of all district third-graders scored proficient or advanced on that same test.

The following year, as fourth-graders, 54 percent of program students scored proficient or advanced, compared to 37 percent of all DPS fourth-graders.

And students who entered the program as pre-kindergartners in 1999 performed even better. Some 72 percent of them scored proficient or advanced on the 2003 third-grade CSAP reading test. District- wide, 55 percent of third-graders tallied similar scores.

Even more significant, data show that the program's greatest benefit went to low- income children. For example, program students in the subsidized lunch program who entered pre-kindergarten in 1998 outperformed all DPS low-income children by a statistically significant margin in both third-grade (2002) and fourth-grade (2003) CSAP reading tests.

Taken in isolation, this Denver study would be interesting but not earth-shaking. In the context of much larger national studies, however, the study provides another key piece of evidence for those building the case for dramatically increased public funding for pre-kindergarten.

The national studies vary in scope and duration, but draw remarkably similar conclusions. When combined with recent advances in brain-development research, they make an irrefutable case for the efficacy of the earliest possible start to a child's education. In a nutshell:

The brain develops more rapidly before age 1 than at any other point in a person's life.

Brain development is extremely susceptible to environmental influence.

The quality and variety of the physical environment are vitally important.

Studies of children raised in poor environments show that they have cognitive deficits of substantial magnitude by 18 months of age. Full reversal of these deficits may not be possible.

Early childhood care and education prepares young children, especially those from low-income backgrounds, to succeed in school. It helps counteract the brain-development deficits described above. Among the key findings from national studies:

Low-income children who were in high-quality early childhood care and education from infancy through age 5 had higher cognitive scores from the toddler years to age 21 than their peers who were not in high-quality programs and were more likely to attend college than their peers;

They were less likely to be held back a grade than were their peers;

They were less likely to be arrested as youths than those who did not participate in such programs;

They had higher earnings than their peers;

They had greater commitment to marriage than their peers;

They had fewer criminal arrests as adults than their peers; and

Mothers whose children participated in high-quality programs achieved higher educational and employment status than mothers whose children were not in the program. These results were especially pronounced for teen mothers.

High-quality early childhood care and education programs offer broader societal advantages as well, the studies show. They provide families with a safe and stimulating environment for children so that parents can work.

And, most notably, despite the upfront investment, early childhood care and education ultimately saves society significant amounts of money.

According to researchers Steven Barnett and Leonard N. Masse, every $1 spent on early childhood care and education now saves between $4 and $9 later in reduced need for expensive special-education services and prisons.

Barnett and Masse found that school districts could save $11,000 per student when children attended a quality early childhood care and education program, because those students ended up in special-education programs far less frequently than their peers who did not attend such programs.

All of these findings, however, carry one significant caveat: For early childhood care and education to work its magic, programs must be high-quality. High quality means low student-teacher ratios (ideally one adult per every three infants, and one adult per every eight to 10 preschoolers), appropriate materials in the classroom, positive interactions between teachers and children and well- trained and educated teachers.

Teacher quality is perhaps the most important of these indicators. Quality early childhood care and education requires trained, educated, literate teachers, because children learn from adults and through structured play. Adults set up activities and stimulating activities to enhance learning. To be effective educators of infants, toddlers and preschoolers, teachers must talk to the children, read to them, ask them questions.

Early childhood care and education is not babysitting. Television and videos are not adequate substitutes for human interaction. Language development is the precursor to literacy, and to develop vocabulary, children must be engaged in conversation by interested adults.

The abysmal salaries that most early childhood educators receive - less than janitors and bus drivers - make maintaining consistently high teacher quality a daunting challenge, even for the best child-care centers.

Unfortunately, high-quality early childhood care and education is the exception, not the rule. A 1996 study by the University of Colorado at Denver found that 85 percent of licensed early childhood care and education in Colorado was of poor to mediocre quality.

Locally, a broad-based effort has been underway for years to boost the quality of early childhood care and education in the state. Educare Colorado, a nationally recognized non-profit, identifies promoting "high-quality child-centered care" as one of its goals.

Educare has developed its Quality Rating System (QRS) to measure quality in all licensed centers and home early care and education settings for children from birth to kindergarten. This month, Educare will release quality ratings for early childhood care and education providers across Colorado.

To ensure quality, Educare and other advocates say, providers must recruit talented teachers, pay them well enough to keep them in the profession and offer them ongoing professional development. Finally, directors of early childhood care and education programs must carefully monitor classroom environments, teacher behavior and student outcomes.

Although the evidence supporting universal pre-kindergarten may seem overwhelming, any statewide ballot issue to fund it across Colorado would face an uphill battle, according to a poll taken for Piton last summer.

Still, the foundation exists for a successful campaign, according to pollster Floyd Ciruli, who conducted the survey.

According to the Ciruli Associates poll, Colorado voters would support a pre-school ballot initiative by a 57 percent to 35 percent margin - with 36 percent in strong support.

But those numbers dwindle significantly when voters are asked whether they'd pay new taxes to fund the initiative. It would cost an estimated $160 million annually to fund a program that could serve up to 50,000 children statewide. A half-day program for Denver alone would cost at least $20 million per year.

Only 34 percent of Colorado voters said the program would be a top priority, and one for which they would willingly pay more taxes. Some 41 percent said they would support the program, but only if funded within the current budget.

Among several tax options, Colorado voters viewed most favorably a partial restoration of the state income tax, which was cut from a flat 5 percent to 4.63. Bringing the flat tax rate back up to 4.9 percent would pay for the pre-school program.

Of those polled, 56 percent said they would prefer the income-tax increase option to any other. But only 21 percent expressed a strong preference for this option. Increases in the state sales tax and local property taxes garnered significantly weaker support.

Numbers in Denver were far more encouraging. By a 58 percent to 40 percent margin, Denver voters polled said they would support a sales-tax increase of 0.2 percent to pay for a universal pre-kindergarten program.

Craig Ramey, a professor of health studies at Georgetown University and an outspoken and eloquent advocate for early childhood care and education, summed it up well in a speech he delivered in Denver last summer:

"We know from many different sources that the public believes K-12 education is one of our most pressing domestic issues. But the public school system is like a novel that begins in the middle. It brings kids in at age 5 or 6. But what happens in the earlier years of life helps determine how children engage the school system.

"If we're to do something serious and positive about helping the K-12 system reach its true potential, that something must involve paying attention to what happens before kindergarten."