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Against 2020’s backdrop of a raging pandemic, Black Lives Matter and racially divisive elections, undergraduate enrollment fell by 2.5% in higher education yet soared at many historically Black colleges and universities. Before we celebrate, it’s time to understand what it really takes to increase Black academic achievement and lifelong success: early childhood education and intervention programs.

Higher education is not the most effective way to close the equity gap. That fight must start much, much earlier. Long before most Black and brown children get to grade school, let alone college, they face obstacles that can ruthlessly diminish their academic achievement and success. Every year, almost a million children start kindergarten with an undiagnosed developmental delay.

Exactly how many of those children are Black and brown is hard to substantiate, but the facts make it clear that many, if not most, of them are minority and low income.

Large-scale studies have shown that almost 60% of children ages three to five are not “on-track” to start kindergarten with all of the requisite skills they need. Roughly half of all babies born in the U.S. are non-white, a number that is expected to grow given current fertility rates by race. And census data shows that 43% of Black children and 37% of Latinx children under age five face the challenge of poverty. So when research shows that fewer than half of all low-income children are ready for school by age five, it’s easy to surmise that many or most are Black and brown.

And no matter how good a school system is, there’s almost no way to compensate for the long-term deficits readiness gaps inflict. Kindergarten readiness and early achievement in school are the best predictors of later success in life; extensive peer reviewed research — decades old and new — proves this point.

Yet, Black children are consistently faced with unequal access to both high-quality preschool programs since the availability of Head Start programs vary widely depending on a family’s state of residence, as do early intervention services for disabilities that could change the course of their lives. Research shows that there are great disparities in early intervention efforts, and children from minority and low-income backgrounds more likely to have delayed or missed diagnoses.

Take autism. Diagnosing it as early as possible is essential to starting interventions that can help children improve their language, social and cognitive skills. And today it is possible to diagnose autism in children before age two. But a recent Washington University School of Medicine study showed the average Black child is diagnosed at almost five-and-a-half years old, even though his or her parents had expressed concerns about the child’s development more than three years earlier.

ADHD fares no better. Benchmark studies in 2013 and 2014 of more than 17,000 American children showed Black children were 70% less likely to be diagnosed for ADHD than white children, and the disparity started before they even entered kindergarten.

In fact, it often takes proof that there is something wrong before Black children get the early intervention treatment they need for developmental delays. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers recently found that white children were more likely to be referred for early intervention treatments for developmental delays before receiving screenings to substantiate those delays, while referrals for Black children took place after testing positive for developmental delays.

Since we know catching up is not a realistic option, the best strategy is to make high-quality early childhood education and intervention programs available to Black children from low-income families dealing with the stressors and lack of enrichment opportunities that all too often accompany financial disadvantage. Such programs make them less likely to repeat grades and be identified as having special needs; more prepared for later grades; and more likely to graduate and earn higher incomes.

Yet, far too few Black and brown children have access to high-quality programs they can afford, namely those that are state-funded, a recent Education Trust report showed. And in many of those states, both groups are underrepresented in those programs. And the current system enrolls only 1% of Latinx and 4% of Black children ages three and four in high-quality state pre-K settings.

So, as we celebrate the renaissance of the much deserving and extraordinary HBCUs, and hope for those enrollment numbers to keep soaring, we must still face up to one simple fact: What happens before college matters tremendously. Early childhood education programs, and intervention programs for children with developmental issues, consistently improve lifetime outcomes. They are critical. We must do better at making Black children’s first five years count.

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Angela F. Williams is president and CEO of Easterseals, the nation’s leading nonprofit provider of life-changing services and powerful advocacy for children and adults with disabilities. The 10th person to lead the organization in its history, she is the first Black and the first female in the past 43 years to hold the post.

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