Call it “No 6-Week-Old Left Behind.”
Infants will be admitted into the city’s first full-day, really early education program being launched next year in Brooklyn, officials announced yesterday.
But the goal of the Brownsville program — which will provide eight to 10 hours a day of educational, social and health services for kids between 6 weeks and 5 years old — isn’t to turn babies into young Einsteins.
“You’re not going to teach them calculus at that age,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The first thing is to teach them to deal with other kids and how you cooperatively work together.”
The initiative stems from a national program targeting low-income families called Educare, which opened its first site in Chicago in 2000 and has since spread to more than a dozen cities.
The city will put up $10 million in capital costs to renovate sections of PS 41 into an early-childhood facility for up to 135 wee ones, and create a training center for future program directors.
The program — which nationally costs around $3.1 million per year to run — will be paid for largely with federal and state money, as well as some private dollars.
“The very first way children learn is through contact with adults in supportive, strong relationships,” said Susan Buffet, daughter of billionaire investor Warren Buffet and chair of the participating Buffett Early Childhood Fund.
City officials also announced plans yesterday to convert 4,000 public-school pre-kindergarten slots in high-risk areas into full-day programs — raising the citywide total next September to nearly 20,000 all-day slots.