Babies and toddlers are our smartest and most congenial, eager, and underserved citizens. You think you are smarter than they are? Try learning two new languages to perfection in three years or learning to read a new language without formal instruction during that same time period. Not so easy for you. But baby/toddler brains can do this and more with early education and a little attention and love. These babies and toddlers deserve our support.

If the Office of Early Learning goes forward, it's likely to be administered within the Department of Education and headed by Dr. Jacqueline Jones, a point person for Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge, and a former assistant commissioner of early childhood education for the New Jersey State Department of Education. According to Dr. Jones, "the office would encompass birth through third grade early learning and allow for better coordination of federal programs that contain early learning."

The ED (shout out to Rick Perry: That's the Department of Education) may already have made a mistake stretching the proposed new agency too thin by making it birth to third grade rather than birth to age five. The agency should focus solely on new education solutions from birth to age five and not get bogged down in our persisting failures with formal education beginning in kindergarten to grade three. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores demonstrate that we have already failed in the K-3 formal education arena, and we've found no new solutions.

But here's the deal. If we could fix things from birth to age four or five, reading scores in third grade would take care of themselves–there wouldn't be an American epidemic of reading failure in grade three. Give America's teachers students who are ready for success when they enter school, and students will do just fine. Tea Party advocates take note. Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? Patriots, friends, countrymen, listen to your forefather!

Can Babies and Toddlers Close America's Achievement Gap?

Our underserved population of babies and toddlers are the only American citizens possessing the brainpower needed to end the achievement gap and boost the nation's reading scores. Starting at birth with joyful, informal literacy activity, we eliminate the achievement gap before kids enter school and enable them to enter kindergarten ready for success with reading. Academic achievement could then spiral upward through the grade levels toward college- and career-ready achievement.

Sadly, the new push by 45 states and the governors for Common Core State Standards (CCSC) to improve student performance probably won't work, because CCSC starts at the top with college- and career-ready requirements, including an emphasis on using complex texts, and then works downward. Back on the farm where I grew up, we called such a scheme "ass-backwards." It's not so surprising that our politicians came up with that one.

Who Says Babies and Toddlers–Our Most Precious Resource–Are Underserved?

World renowned economist and Nobel Laureate Dr. James Heckman of the University of Chicago has focused his life's work on identifying the most effective way to increase productivity in the American economy. Not only does he say that education for babies and toddlers is one key to economic success, he's been proving it statistically for years. His message? Spending money on babies and toddlers will benefit taxpayers in America and help shrink the deficit. Pay now, he says, and get your money back–and more–in the future.

Speaking this week about early education development he nails it: "The United States invests relatively little at the starting point . . . and as a consequence pays dearly for this neglect at every point thereafter." He goes on to point out that investment in education in second grade and beyond has been woefully ineffectual. Dr. Heckman's numbers don't lie. Spending on babies and toddlers will benefit every tax payer in America. Here's how:

Investment in education–birth to age five:

• Reduces the achievement gap
• Reduces costs for special education
• Promotes healthier lifestyles
• Reduces costs for unhealthy lifestyles
• Lowers crime
• Reduces overall social costs
• Produces a 7 to 10 percent annual return

Backed by psychologists, sociologists, statisticians, neuroscientists, and a consortium of world-class economists, Dr. Heckman and his colleagues have paved the way to a bright future for American education and our citizenry. For every dollar we invest in early education, we get back $1.07 to $1.10. That's better than investing in the stock market.

Invest in Human Potential, not "Drill Baby Drill"

Invest in human potential. This investment will boost literacy in the workforce, increase American productivity, and help us compete in a global economy. (See "The Economics of Inequality" by James Heckman ).

We're not talking "drill baby drill." Hopefully the new agency will spotlight early learning objectives that are completely baby/toddler friendly. These should include five or ten minutes a day of joyful, loving bonding during parent-and-child interactions through reading aloud, enhanced parent education, children's books, and perhaps some investment in software-driven, parent-interactive reading tools. Taken together, this early learning focus can promote word reading by one and two years of age; intuited phonics at two, three, and four (which toddlers pick up as easy as new languages); and access to quality preschool education.

Smart solutions for our smartest Americans–babies and toddlers–are our hope for the future

(Dr. Gentry is the author of The Science of Spelling and his new book Raising Confident Readers. Available on Amazon.com. Follow Dr. Gentry on Facebook and on Twitter.)