Opinion
Early Childhood Opinion

Preschool Priorities

By Elanna S. Yalow & Nina S. Rees — January 25, 2008 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Should preschool be the new kindergarten? Our nation appears to be embroiled in debate about the most significant expansion of public education since the early 20th century, when kindergarten was first widely introduced. Oklahoma, Georgia, and Florida currently offer publicly funded universal-preschool programs, and New York state and Illinois have announced plans to do likewise. Today, 38 states fund prekindergarten initiatives, and many of the 2008 presidential candidates have made universal access to preschool a cornerstone of their campaigns.

Numerous studies document the benefits of beginning school at an earlier age. In 2005, a RAND study calculated that every dollar invested in early-childhood education leads to a future return of $2.62, as well as additional benefits to the state, such as reduced crime and greater international competitiveness. A 2007 study by the Economic Policy Institute calculated the return on a targeted program at an even higher $12.10. As the Nobel Prize-winning scientist James J. Heckman wrote last year, “one of the best investments government can make to raise academic achievement and reduce welfare dependency and crime is the provision of quality preschool programs.” (“Beyond Pre-K,” March 21, 2007.) The research even suggests that waiting until age 4 may be too late, and that investing at an earlier age will have a more dramatic impact.

While many agree that early access to quality care and education is a good investment, who should deliver these services and how they should be delivered has not been as extensively discussed. A look at the private sector’s experience with preschool and the efforts now under way to reform our K-12 system suggests that policymakers consider the following factors when drafting legislation:

First, parents should be free to choose the pre-K program that best fits their child’s and family’s needs and work schedules. Both children and families have diverse interests and needs—one size does not fit all. Sound public policy will enable families to select any licensed pre-K program that meets their needs. The private sector currently provides more than 80 percent of early-childhood care and education (including services for infants and toddlers), and serves 9.28 million children annually. Allowing families to choose private-sector providers enables lawmakers to leverage significant capital investments made by the private sector and its existing capacity, rather than wasting precious resources on what Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia has called “bricks and mortar.”

If preschool is indeed becoming the new kindergarten, we have a historic opportunity to expand our education system in a manner that puts a priority on the children who most need our help.

Second, we must better understand the key ingredients of a high-quality pre-K program before dictating specific attributes. Today, some early-learning advocates address the quality question by requiring that pre-K providers hire only teachers with bachelor’s degrees and specialized training in early-childhood education, while ignoring the critical issue of program effectiveness. This is a notable absence, given new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (published in the journal Child Development) that fails to find a significant relationship between a bachelor’s degree and classroom quality or children’s academic gains.

Research from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child finds that high-quality early-learning programs combine “highly skilled staff; small class sizes and high adult-to-child ratios; a language-rich environment; age-appropriate curricula and stimulating materials in a safe physical setting; warm, responsive interactions between staff and children; and high and consistent levels of child participation.” Instead of implementing arbitrary, unproven, and expensive requirements, we must do additional monitoring and assessment to find the critical parameters that actually determine quality in early-learning programs.

Finally, it is important that we ensure access to high-quality programs for low-income families. Research clearly shows that disadvantaged students—those who start kindergarten with skills that are 60 percent lower than their more affluent counterparts’—benefit most from high-quality early schooling. These benefits continue well beyond kindergarten, into students’ adult years, with disadvantaged students who had access to high-quality early-learning programs less likely to repeat a grade or commit a crime; more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college; and, ultimately, more likely to earn a higher income. At a time when the demands of laws such the federal No Child Left Behind Act require that we spend our limited federal funds on efforts that can eliminate the achievement gap between poor and rich students, it’s essential that new state or federally funded early-learning programs first serve those most in need and most likely to benefit.

If preschool is indeed becoming the new kindergarten, we have a historic opportunity to expand our education system in a manner that puts a priority on the children who most need our help. It is essential that we structure any new taxpayer-funded early-learning programs to target those who will benefit the most, while strengthening existing high-quality programs to better preserve parental choice.

Related Tags:

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
Pave the Path to Excellence in Math
Empower your students' math journey with Sue O'Connell, author of “Math in Practice” and “Navigating Numeracy.”
Content provided by hand2mind
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum Reading Instruction and AI: New Strategies for the Big Education Challenges of Our Time
Join the conversation as experts in the field explore these instructional pain points and offer game-changing guidance for K-12 leaders and educators.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Early Childhood What the Research Says 6 Challenges for Early Educators as Preschool Growth Halts
School enrollment for the nation’s youngest learners has nosedived—and could cause long-term problems.
4 min read
Close crop of the back of a pre-school girl's head showing her playing with foam puzzle pieces of shapes and numbers.
iStock/Getty
Early Childhood What the Research Says Starting School in Infancy Can Help Low-Income Children Keep Up With Peers in Elementary School
Research on a birth-to-4 initiative in Tulsa finds academic gains through 3rd grade.
4 min read
Teacher Silvia Castillo, center, reads a book about dinosaurs with Everett Fisher, left, and Jaz Endicott in a toddler classroom at Kids First on Jan. 30, 2019 in Lincoln, Neb.
Teacher Silvia Castillo, center, reads a book about dinosaurs with Everett Fisher, left, and Jaz Endicott in a toddler classroom at Kids First on Jan. 30, 2019, in Lincoln, Neb.
Gwyneth Roberts/Lincoln Journal Star via AP
Early Childhood Why Parents 'Redshirt' Their Kids in Kindergarten
Parents have a number of reasons why they decide to delay their children's school entry, but it's not always a good idea.
5 min read
Students participate in a pre-kindergarten class at Alice M. Harte Charter School in New Orleans on Dec. 18, 2018. Charter schools, which are publicly funded and privately operated, are often located in urban areas with large back populations, intended as alternatives to struggling city schools.
Students participate in a pre-kindergarten class at Alice M. Harte Charter School in New Orleans on Dec. 18, 2018.
Gerald Herbert/AP
Early Childhood Q&A An Investment in Early-Childhood Education Is Paying Off Big
Richard Tomko believes that expanding the early education pipeline buffers schools against enrollment loss and academic struggles.
2 min read
Dr. Richard Tomko, Superintendent of Belleville Public Schools in Belleville, N.J., visits science teacher Paul Aiello’s Medical Academy Field Experience class on Tuesday, January 10, 2023. The Medical Academy’s class uses Anatamoge tables, an anatomy visualization system that allows students to garner a deeper, comprehensive understanding of the human body and medical tools to prepare them for careers in the medical field.
Richard Tomko, superintendent of Belleville Public Schools in Belleville, N.J., has expanded academic programs while restoring trust in the school system.
Sam Mallon/Education Week