Given the news of the past two weeks one would expect a group calling itself the "Partnership for America's Economic Success" to talk about credit availability, productivity or market regulation (or deregulation.) But as radio documentarian Emily Hanford reported this past weekend, the partnership of business leaders and foundations actually is devoted to expanding investment in early childhood education. In a piece titled "The Business of Pre-Kindergarten" for American Public Media's Weekend America service, Hanford reported that a founder of the group, Rob Dugger, is an economist and a partner in an international hedge fund. He is trying to get business leaders to think about the return of such investments over the long term. Hanford has great audio of Dugger using business rhetoric that can sound awkward when applied to investments in children.

Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Dugger says: “Our goal for five years has been to informationally weaponize those of you in the early childhood development community so that you can compete successfully in a budget world in which evidence-based long term returns is what is going to be the deciding factor of who gets money and who doesn’t."

A number of foundations are investors, including MacArthur and the Buffett Early Childhood Fund. The Pew Charitable Trusts, which is a supporter of this blog, invests in and manages the partnership. Sara Watson, who heads up that effort, champions the economic arguments. But she also says: “There are some investments in children we should make that will never show an economic return but we have to do them or we should do them. So we want to be careful that we don’t set too high of a bar.”