President Barack Obama has put forth a bold and
ambitious plan to significantly expand access to high-quality preschool for
low- and moderate-income children and to provide incentives to expand access
for children from middle-income families. The plan would establish a
state-federal partnership that allows states to expand, improve, or create
preschool programs.
Across the country, existing large-scale preschool
programs are already succeeding at improving school readiness for children from
a range of backgrounds. These programs have demonstrated the important benefits
that access to state preschool can have for all children, as well as the
diverse nature of these benefits, ranging from academic to social to emotional
impacts. These demonstrated impacts clearly show that a major federal
investment in state preschool programs is both smart and necessary for the
country to ensure that the next generation will be prepared to compete in the
increasingly global economy.
This column looks at impacts of large-scale public
preschool programs in Georgia, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and the
city of Boston.
Everyone benefits from preschool
Across the country, children from low-income
families—the children most at risk in our society—have seen large gains in
academic achievement from attending preschool. Researchers at Rutgers
University’s National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER, have
found that children in New Jersey’s Abbott preschool program—so named for the
state Supreme Court decision requiring preschool in economically disadvantaged
school districts—have seen demonstrated increases in achievement in language
arts, literacy, math, and science—gains that were sustained through fourth and
fifth grade. According to Georgetown Professor William Gormley’s presentation
to Child Care Aware, a leading voice for child care, on April 11, poor children
who qualified for the federally subsidized free lunch program and who were
enrolled in Oklahoma’s preschool program in Tulsa saw gains equivalent to 11 months
in pre-reading, 8 months in pre-writing, and 5 months in pre-math skills.
Professor Gormley also found that Tulsa children who qualified for the federal
reduced-price lunch—children from families below 185 percent of the poverty
line—saw gains equivalent to 10 months in pre-reading, 6 months in pre-writing,
and 6 months in pre-math skills.
Studies show that children from middle-class
families also benefit from preschool. According to the same presentation by
Professor Gormley, children in Tulsa who did not meet the income-eligibility
requirements for the free or reduced-price lunch program still saw gains from
attending preschool equivalent to seven months in pre-reading, four months in
pre-writing, and four months in pre-math skills. Boston’s program is open to all
children regardless of income, and Harvard researchers found a relationship
between program participation and improved school readiness for all attendees,
with increases in cognitive development, language, literacy, math, and mental
skills such as attention, problem solving, and inhibition.
Preschool attendance has also been associated with
benefits for English-language learners and for students of color. In Georgia
Spanish-speaking children experienced significant growth in both English and
Spanish domains, including in language, literacy, and math skills. In Texas
researchers at the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in
Education Research found that students with limited English proficiency saw
substantially meaningful increases in scores on the math and reading portions
of the third grade Texas state assessment. In the same Texas study, attending
preschool was also found to relate to a 40 percent reduction in grade retention
for limited-English-proficient students.
Professor Gormley’s presentation shows that Hispanic
students in Tulsa’s program saw significant gains in pre-reading, prewriting,
and pre-math skills of 11 months, 4 months, and 6 months, respectively.
Hispanic students who primarily spoke Spanish at home saw the greatest benefits.
African American students in Tulsa’s program also saw substantial gains—9
months in pre-reading, 10 months in prewriting, and 5 months in pre-math.
Finally, children with special needs also benefit
from access to preschool. In Tulsa children with special needs had
significantly higher pre-reading and prewriting gains, gaining from 9 months to
close to 11 months on each.
Preschool produces a range of benefits for children
Preschool can have academic and cognitive impacts
for children. In New Jersey, for example, children showed increased achievement
in language arts, literacy, math, and science through the fourth and fifth
grade. Researchers at NIEER found that one year of preschool is associated with
increases in achievement equivalent to roughly 10 percent to 20 percent of the
achievement gap between students of color and white students, and corresponds
to an increase from the 50th percentile to the 58th percentile on language
skills. Greater benefits were found for those who attended the preschool
program for two years.
Children in Tennessee’s program similarly saw
significant increases in early literacy, language, and math skills equivalent
to 47 percent greater than those of children who did not attend preschool.
These gains included a 75 percent improvement on letter-word identification—a
measure of preschool literacy gains—a 152 percent improvement in oral
comprehension, and a 176 percent improvement in picture vocabulary; the latter
two are both measures of preschool language gains. Students also saw a 37
percent improvement in applied problems and a 63 percent improvement in
quantitative concepts, which are both measures of preschool math gains.
Preschool also produces social and emotional
benefits for children. Children in Tulsa’s program were less timid and more
attentive. In the Gormley study, there was also no evidence of a negative
impact on behavior from attending the state-funded preschool.
In addition to building and increasing specific
skills, preschool attendance has been correlated with a reduction in grade
retention, meaning a reduction in being held back to repeat a grade. Case in
point, attending Texas’s public preschool program was associated with a
reduction in the chance that a student would be retained by 24 percent; for
students with limited English proficiency, the chance of being retained was
reduced by 40 percent. NIEER researchers similarly found that attending New
Jersey’s Abbott preschool program correlated with a reduced likelihood of grade
retention by 40 percent through the fourth and fifth grades.
Finally, preschool attendance is associated with the
reduced chance that a child will be referred to special education programs by
providing them with the necessary pre-literacy skills at an earlier age. NIEER
researchers found that attending New Jersey’s preschool program was associated
with a 31 percent reduction in the chance of special education placement. For
Texas’s program, researchers found that preschool attendance was associated
with a 13 percent reduction in the likelihood that a student would be assigned
to the special education track by the third grade.
Conclusion
High-quality preschool can be a game changer for all
our children, especially for those most at risk of arriving at kindergarten
without the skills needed to succeed. The data show that existing large-scale
state-run preschool programs are proving effective. The evidence clearly
suggests that a federal-state investment that would allow states to grow and
improve these existing preschool programs while simultaneously supporting other
states as they create their own programs is the wise and prudent path to
follow. Given the results highlighted above, encouraging, fostering, and
funding preschool programs seems to be the ultimate no-brainer.
About the author: Juliana Herman is a Policy Analyst
with the Education Policy team at the Center for American Progress.
This article was published by the Center for
American Progress.
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