In a press release, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “A dedicated early learning office will institutionalize, elevate and coordinate federal support for high-quality early learning, while enhancing support for state efforts to build high-performing early education systems.”

Heading the office will be Jacqueline Jones, an official within the department since 2009. As an early education commissioner for New Jersey she helped oversee the successful Abbot pre-k program that enrolls a mix of low-income three- and four-year olds in full day preschool classes. A 2009 longitudinal study conducted by researchers at the University of Rutgers shows that participating students outpaced their peers on math and literacy measures by the second grade.

Here’s a summary of the findings from Rutgers:

In language, literacy and mathematics, effects through second grade were all about 0.20 (enough to move a child from the 50th percentile to the 57th percentile, moving a child up past 7 percent of the population) for one year of Abbott preK.  For language and math, the effects of two years of state-funded pre-K were about 0.40 (enough to move a child from the 50th to the 67th percentile).

The newly-created office will adopt a portfolio of recent and longstanding federal projects aimed at expanding early education programs. Those include the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge, a competitive grant launched last year for which 35 states and Puerto Rico applied, and the i3 Fund — grants that reward communities for partnering up with local non-profits, schools, and business networks to student address performance gaps and dropout rates.

In October, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Early Learning Proficiency Act, which would better coordinate pre-k and kindergarten federal education spending.

A public school in Bogalusa, La. (Flickr: Ken Roberts Photography)

As Congress debates a roughly $825 billion economic stimulus package, many interest groups want to make sure their pet programs get a piece of the action. The education community is no exception.

Various advocates are urging Congress to use the stimulus to fund universal pre-k, expanded after-school programs, education technology, and new teacher compensation packages, among other education initiatives.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Many of these are worthy proposals. And there’s good reason to include education in the stimulus. With state budgets deep in the red and local property taxes, another key source of education funding, plunging with property values, schools across the country are facing serious financial deficits. By plugging holes in state budgets, stimulus spending could reduce the pressure for painful education funding cuts.

Unfortunately, many of the education-related proposals are fundamentally mismatched to the goals of economic stimulus. Stimulus spending is a temporary measure to increase demand by quickly injecting federal dollars into the economy. To the contrary, effective education reforms require sustained, stable investments; schools are unlikely to make meaningful changes if they know funding is temporary. Implementing new education programs effectively takes time, compromising the effect of an economic stimulus.

There is, however, one big exception. New investments in school construction and modernization are a natural fit for the stimulus package. Unlike education programs, which need ongoing funding in order to keep operating, a two-year investment in school construction would produce thousands of school buildings that could be used for decades to come, with no need for continued federal funding. Similarly, investments in “greening” existing school facilities to reduce their energy consumption will produce substantial, ongoing savings that school districts can use to fund pre-k, increased teacher compensation, and other educational programs.

Many states and school districts have construction projects that were already in the works but have been put on hold due to the economic downturn. Federal school construction aid would allow work to resume on those projects, moving cash into the economy quickly. School construction would also create new jobs for construction workers hard-hit by the housing downturn. Because the construction sector is slow right now, schools and districts are likely to secure better deals on projects now than they would if they waited until the economy picks up.

But perhaps the most important reason to invest in school construction is that our students need it. Just as Americans have underinvested in our bridges, roads, and other infrastructure, we’ve also underinvested in our education infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure report card gives our school buildings a grade of D — lower than grades for bridges, rail, or public transit infrastructure. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, it would cost $127 billion just to renovate and repair crumbling or outdated school facilities to good condition. Poor school facilities don’t necessarily prevent students from learning, but, it’s unconscionable that we currently ask students to learn, and teachers to work, in buildings that are overcrowded, inadequately heated and ventilated, poorly maintained, and in some cases literally falling apart. The contrast between schools and other buildings sends our most disadvantaged children a devastating message about the value we place on their education.

States and local governments bear primary responsibility for building and maintaining school facilities but high-poverty and rural communities lack the tax base to support these types of investments. The credit crunch and economic downturn have made things even harder.

By investing in school construction as part of the stimulus, the federal government can put tens of thousands of construction workers back to work, reduce energy consumption in our schools at great savings to local school districts, and improve the quality of educational facilities for a generation of children. That’s a pretty good deal, and one Congress and the president should take advantage of.

Sara Mead is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. She writes about early education policy for the blog Early Ed Watch.