Hearing Speech and Deafness Center

March 30, 2007
Prepared remarks by William H. Gates Sr.

Thank you for that kind introduction. I am excited to be here this morning. And I want to be sure you know one thing before I get started: I’m not just HSDC’s keynote speaker; I’m also a client.

I don’t hear very well, and I’ve been going to the center for years to keep up with the latest advances and get my hearing aid fixed up every time it goes haywire. With the center’s help, I’ve been able to officially flunk my retirement by keeping a schedule that’s as busy as ever.

I’m grateful for what HSDC has done for me. But what really impresses me is the work I see the center doing with people whose challenges are much greater than mine—and who wouldn’t be able to get the help they need without HSDC. The center has always served its clients whether or not they can afford to pay. That is what makes HSDC such a pillar of this community—it follows the principle that everybody deserves the same chance to succeed. 

Now, as you celebrate your 70th anniversary, you are doing more than ever to support learning and language programs for very young children. When I heard that, the center grew even more in my esteem.

You see, it took me until my 80th year to understand how critical a child’s first few years are. So you are at least a decade ahead of your time.

Let me tell you a little bit about how we at the foundation arrived at the conclusion you have also come to—that focusing on our youngest children is one of the smartest investments we can make in the future.

We start all our work from the premise that all lives have equal value. An impoverished child in an African village or an Indian slum is just as precious as your children or mine.

And so our foundation’s goal is to ensure that all people have the opportunity to lead a healthy, productive life. That means that most of our work takes place in poor countries in the developing world, where inequities are most stark.

We are committed to improving the health of millions of people who are sick and dying from diseases that we don’t even have in the United States. Today, 1,000 kids will die of measles—measles!—even though there is a 15-cent vaccine that has been available for four decades. So we try to help people in the developing world get access to the treatments that already exist, like the measles vaccine, and we support research into new, lifesaving solutions.

Sadly, it doesn’t do much good to save a child from measles if she is destined to die of malnutrition a few years later. So we also focus on fighting hunger and poverty in developing countries. Sixteen of the 18 most undernourished countries in the world are packed together in sub-Saharan Africa, and yet few people are looking for ways to make that region’s staple crops higher-yielding and more nutritious. Instead, the crop with the fastest growing research budget in the world is golf course grass!

Here in the United States, we’re relatively lucky. Children don’t die from diseases we have a vaccine for. They don’t starve to death. And yet inequities still divide this country. Some people have to fight tooth and nail for opportunities that others take for granted.

Right here in Washington state, home to some of the most dynamic businesses in the world—(including one you might have heard about where my son works)—more than 600,000 people live in poverty. About one in four of those people living in poverty is a child under the age of 18. Those impoverished children are at greater risk than their peers of dropping out of school, going to jail, and failing to find steady work.

We’re dedicated to making sure that all children in Washington state have the chance to share in the prosperity of our region. If we can’t do it here, in one of the best economies in the world, in one of the most generous communities in the world, then how can we do it anywhere?

So we started by asking ourselves a simple question: Why do kids go awry? Why do they wind up unemployed or in jail? Why do they quit school? And we kept moving further and further back in what sociologists call the problem cycle. Eventually, we got to the end of the line; we traced these problems all the way back to the years before a child’s fifth birthday.

By the time many of these children get to the first day of school, they’re already behind. And chances are they won’t ever catch up. Let me be clear: I’m not talking about five-year-olds who can analyze the use of metaphor in Mark Twain’s lesser works. I’m talking about the basic building blocks of making sure a child is ready to learn. Can she stand still in line? Can he recognize colors? Can she follow simple rules and instructions? Can he cooperate with other children?

Imagine what it must be like for a child who isn’t ready for the first day of kindergarten. On one side of her is a girl writing her ABC’s. On the other side is a boy who can tell time. And yet she doesn’t recognize a single letter. Right away, school is a place where she feels like a failure, where she feels overwhelmed.

When she comes home and her parents ask: “What did you learn in school today?” her answer is, “I hate school.”

It is not just that she doesn’t have the same skills as other students in her class. It is that she’s lost confidence in herself, and formed a negative—and probably bitter—attitude about school. What chance does this child have to excel over the next 12 years?

Even if only a few children had to suffer through this experience, it would be tragic. But in Washington, more than half of all children walk into kindergarten on that first day prepared only for disappointment and frustration. More than half. For low-income children, it’s more than three-quarters. That is more than just a tragedy. It is a moral and public policy disaster. In some of Washington state’s elementary schools, less than 10 percent of 4th graders who took the WASL test were at grade level. That’s a direct consequence of their lack of preparation from Day One.

Think what it means for the future of our society. Think what it means for the future of each child who, through no fault of his or her own, is at a tremendous disadvantage starting from the very beginning.

That’s the bad news. But there is great news, too. First of all, we know how to fix this problem. We know—from scientific research and years of experience—what it takes for children to grow up confident and secure.

What they need most is a lot of affection from the people who take care of them. Without that sense of intimacy, infants get stressed. They have a hard time forming a sense of belonging. Scientists have actually shown that children with fewer intimate attachments have higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in their blood.

I’ve seen first hand how important this kind of human attachment is, because I’ve visited child care centers around the state. I’ve been to low-quality centers—sadly, that’s the majority of them. The teachers aren’t properly trained. It isn’t their fault—it’s our fault as a society for not valuing the work they do—but they don’t know how to engage the children, or their parents. Often the rooms are ill-equipped, without stimulating toys or a safe space for playing. It isn’t what any of us would want for our children. It must be heartbreaking for moms and dads to have to leave their kids there day after day. But these days, few families have the luxury to decide that mom or dad will stay home from work. They need child care, and they don’t have affordable, high-quality options.

I’ve also seen great child care centers, like the Building Better Futures Head Start Center in Kent. You can sense the difference in an instant. This is a place where kids belong. The teachers are professionals, they work together with parents, and everybody’s focused on the children. So they’re engaged. You can tell that they are learning—and having fun while they’re at it. 

The Hearing, Speech, and Deafness Center follows these principles in its infant, toddler, and Pre-kindergarten programs. The teachers are well-qualified, they know how to build relationships with parents, and they have the time and the resources to work with each child individually.

The point is, the jury is already in. We know that the first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out.

We also know that there are excellent models for giving children a stimulating place to learn. At least a dozen states have made early learning a policy priority, and they’re seeing great results.

Let me give you just one example. In Oklahoma, high-quality pre-kindergarten is available to all four-year-olds. Since 2000, pre-k enrollment is up almost 50 percent. Even better, four-year-olds who go to preschool improve their pre-literacy skills—that’s things like being able to recognize letters—by almost twice as much as four-year-olds who don’t go. Universal preschool is making a huge difference in children’s lives.

Here in Washington state, we are way behind states like Oklahoma when it comes to making sure our children are ready to learn. We don’t spend the money we should. We don’t provide high-quality care for all children. We don’t do enough make sure the places where our children spend their time meet high-quality standards. We just haven’t had a solid, statewide approach to early learning.

Until now. There is more good news, which is that in the last two years, Washington has finally started to make early learning a priority. Finally, we are building momentum behind the idea of making sure that all children are prepared for school. Everybody is on board: the business community, the state and local governments, foundations, non-profits. There has never been a moment like this, when we have a real chance to make life better for all children in this state.

Your campaign is part of this much larger movement. Together, we can do something about the fact that half of our children are already behind when they start kindergarten.

Governor Gregoire has been one of the great champions for the cause. She even reorganized parts of the state government to establish a cabinet-level Department of Early Learning.

The most important advance we’ve made in this state is creating a public-private partnership devoted to early learning. It’s called Thrive by Five. It launched just last summer, and already it has nearly $10 million per year from state and national corporations, foundations, individuals, and governments. Thrive by Five will help provide parents with practical information to help them help their children. It will fund high-quality early learning programs that prepare children for success in school. And it will build awareness about the importance of early learning and promotes public policies that benefit our children. The state legislature is debating one of those policies right now: a quality-rating system for child care centers so that parents can get reliable information about where their children are spending the day.

One of the goals of Thrive by Five is to set up two demonstration communities—one nearby in White Center, and the other in Yakima. In these communities, Thrive is committed to making sure all children grow up in stimulating environments—and showing what a difference it will make if we give children in all our communities the same kind of attention.

Sometimes, a stimulating early learning environment means a child care center—one that is based on proven models, one that incorporates the lessons early educators have learned through years of experience and research.

But most often, it means making sure parents have the know-how and resources to give their children what they need. Thrive by Five Washington is guided by the principle that parents will always be children’s first and most important teachers. But we also know how hard it is these days to juggle being a full-time parent and earning a living full time. Parents want help with this balancing act, and Thrive by Five will provide it by working closely with parents in Washington’s communities.

We have reached a turning point in this state, and it is up to all of us to make sure things really do turn around. As supporters of HSDC, you know what dedicated people can accomplish when they get together and commit to a goal. And there simply isn’t a more important goal than making sure our children get the chance they deserve to succeed in life.

Imagine what the future could be like if we meet our goal. The next time a mother and a father ask their little girl what she learned on the first day of school, she doesn’t have to say, “I hate school.” She can answer with pride. And 13 years later, on her last day of high school, they can applaud her on graduation day, as she looks forward with excitement to all the possibilities that life has to offer her.

If we make sure all children are ready to learn when they get to school, then every child in Washington can have the same hope for the future. Let’s make it happen. Thank you.