Washington, DC preschool kids

Back in the late 1800s, a powerful grass-roots movement spurred the creation of public kindergartens across the nation. In December 2004, at a conference put together by the Council on Economic Development, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the PNC Financial Services Group, hundreds of men and women from the worlds of economics, business, charitable foundations, education and advocacy talked about doing the same for early childhood education.

Throughout the daylong event in Washington, DC, participants kept returning to a few key elements: research has consistently shown a high return (both public and private) on every dollar invested in quality preschool for disadvantaged children; the U.S. labor force is aging and educational gains among younger workers have stalled; and emerging economies are threatening the ability of U.S. companies to remain competitive.

"Each year China graduates twice as many students with bachelors' degrees as the U.S., and six times as many with engineering degrees. India is producing a million more college graduates each year," said Al Stroucken, chairman of the Minnesota School Readiness Business Advisory Council and CEO of H.B. Fuller Co. "Tomorrow's employees will need a significantly higher level of education, and they will need to be successful in many different jobs over their lifetimes."

An Ambitious Agenda
Rebecca Rimel, President and CEO of the The Pew Charitable Trusts, said that the organization is has made a major 10-year commitment to invest in education initiatives, with the ambitious goal of ensuring that within five years, at least half the nation's 4- and 5-year-old children will be able to attend preschool, and that within 10 years, access would be universal. The Trusts support campaigns to improve quality and expand access to preschool in 10 states.

Learn more about the Trust for Early Education's campaigns to expand quality preschool access.

Right now, publicly-subsidized child care serves only about 12% of eligible children, and Head Start serves only 60% of children below the poverty line according to the Trust for Early Education. Recently, states have begun to increase their level of investment in preschool. For fiscal 2005, 15 states increased their preschool funding by $205 million, according to a study from the Trust. The added spending will allow 60,000 more 3- and 4-year-olds to attend early-education programs this fall—a 17 percent increase from 2001. Business leaders have been key players in state campaigns, such as Massachusetts Early Education for All motivated in large part, said conference participants, by worries about labor force quality in the future.

Charles M. Kolb, the president of the Committee for Economic Development, said business leaders bring three key characteristics to the effort: they are comfortable with change, they are consumers of the end result of the educational process (the labor force); and they can be impatient. "That's good, because we don't have a lot of time," said Kolb.

The Research

The latest update on the Perry Preschool children at age 40 is available online.

Research based on three well-regarded early-childhood studies (the Chicago Parent-Child Centers, Perry Preschool, and Abecedarian programs) provides much of the rationale for looking at early education through an economic development lens. While the number of children studied in each was quite small, the ability to track participants over many years provides researchers with rare insight into long-term effects of early interventions.

The studies show that while early gains in measures of cognitive ability, such as IQ scores, tended to diminish over time, children who participated in the programs had much better than expected outcomes in other, arguably more important, areas.

On average, compared to peers of similar circumstances who did not attend these intensive programs, graduates were less likely to be held back in school, and to require special education services. They were: more likely to graduate from high school; less likely to be arrested; more likely to have gone on to higher education; more likely to be employed and to own their own homes; less likely to become parents while still teenagers; more likely to marry.

One benefit/cost analysis that looked at Perry Preschool graduates at age 28 showed that the average benefit to participants was over $19,000 (mostly in the form of higher earnings) and the public benefit (higher tax receipts, reduced educational and criminal justice expenses, etc.) was over $88,000 per participant. Compared to the $12,356 cost per child of the program itself (all figures are in 1992 dollars), that's a pretty good return.

More recent research, such as a Georgetown University study of universal preschool in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has bolstered the argument that preschool pays off as an investment in human capital.

Big Question Marks
However compelling the research, big questions emerged at the conference about how best to harness economic arguments on behalf of creating a national consensus favoring public investment in early childhood education.

For one thing, disagreements remain about the ultimate goal. Many attendees argued that universal preschool for 4- and 5-year-olds would have enormous economic benefits, and enjoy considerable public support. Others said that there is no compelling economic argument for publicly-funded preschool for children whose parents can afford to pay for it. Still others pointed out that a broader look at existing research would suggest that public investment in the birth-to-age-three category would yield the best results of all.

Then there's the problem of defining quality, and bringing quality programs to scale. The research seems clear that small, intensive programs carried out by well-educated, well-paid, and well-supported teachers have powerful effects. But it is also clear that many existing preschool programs don't have those characteristics.

"I could improve the outcomes for Head Start children right now," said Edward Zigler, director of the Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University and one of the key figures behind the creation of Head Start 40 years ago. "I'd just require that Head Start teachers have bachelor's degrees. But that costs money."

Some conferees pointed out that public support will vary depending on how programs are presented. "Are we talking about all-day day care, or targeted interventions for disadvantaged kids?" asked an Ohio legislator during one session. Mara Aspinall, president of Genzyme Genetics, said public opinion research in Massachusetts found insufficient support for public programs for children younger than three, so early education advocates are focusing their efforts on preschoolers.

Tough Talk
Meanwhile, some of the educators and advocates at the conference were uncomfortable with economic arguments based in part on a harsh assessment of the parenting abilities of poor young mothers, and on a calculation that investing in young children is more cost-effective than investing in their parents.

"Family environments are deteriorating," said James J. Heckman of Chicago University, a 2000 Nobel Laureate in economics. "Relatively more children are being raised in disadvantaged environments." (In a paper included in the conference materials, Heckman wrote that "A constellation of pathologies is associated with less educated mothers and teenage mothers. They are less likely to marry when they have children and they are more likely to divorce. Their IQs are low; family incomes are low, and the emotional and intellectual support accorded children is low.")

Meanwhile, said Heckman, "We know that adult remediation programs have a poor track record. They are expensive, they work for a few, but not for most. They are not efficient."

One participant later told Heckman that while he welcomed the economists' powerful data-driven arguments in favor of preschool, he wanted to "make a plea for more sensitive use of language. If you want buy-in on this you need to be careful."

A Preschool Freight Train?
Lobbyist Larry LaRocco, a former U.S. Congressman, warned the conferees that at the federal level, even business leaders will have a hard time making themselves heard. "We're looking at huge deficits as far as the eye can see," said Rocco, along with the prospect of permanent tax cut. "Congress is being told, think incrementally, think small."

The push for preschool has to be "a movement. It has to be long term, and it has to transcend the election cycle of members of Congress," said LaRocca. "It has to be a freight train." He recommended that supporters find a marquee name that Congress will take seriously to head up their efforts. "They'll listen to Alan Greenspan," commented LaRocca.

Betty Sternberg, Connecticut's education commissioner, said that when she approaches state lawmakers to argue for preschool funding, she keeps three notions in mind: "I remember that the lawmakers to whom I speak are parents, are grandparents. I do try to put in the hook, to make it personal," said Sternberg. She also has data about the achievement gap between rich and poor, white and minority students at her fingertips, and makes it clear how that gap begins before children enter school.

Finally, she said, "The economic argument is one that you can make, but it's dependent on your audience. Some lawmakers will listen to that, some will listen to the personal, and some will listen to both and say, 'This really makes a lot of sense.'"

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