March 30, 2007 | Volume 4, Issue 1
Early Education: Intervening When It Matters Most
The problem facing the public school system is simple: the poorest children start falling behind their peers from the day they are born, but public schools are unable to help those children until they are five or six years old. Policy makers need to be cognizant of this fact and craft policies to reach those high-risk children.
American educators’ attempts to improve our schools have been a study in frustration. Americans are still awaiting the benefits that were supposed to come with years of increased spending, smaller class sizes, and national education reform. In 2003, more than two thirds of 4th and 8th graders scored below the proficiency level in federally mandated reading and math tests.1 These test scores have barely budged in the past 15 years, even with the implementation of No Child Left Behind.2 Reading scores have not changed significantly since the 1970s.3
If our schools are failing, it would not seem to be for lack of resources: since World War II, public school spending has increased by a factor of eight and has nearly doubled in the last two decades.4 Furthermore, in the last 20 years, average class size measured by student-to-teacher ratios has declined by 10%.5
Why has all of this investment failed to pay off? Some blame poverty. They argue that poor students from broken families in crime-ridden neighborhoods are beyond schools’ ability to help. These critics frequently oppose additional education spending on the grounds that the money will be wasted.
These critics are partially right. It would be too much to expect the eight hours students spend at school each day to overcome all of the negative influences the most disadvantaged students experience at home. But the situation is not hopeless. We can dramatically improve the quality of education, particularly for the most disadvantaged families, by addressing the root causes of underachievement.
The problem facing the public school system is simple: the poorest children start falling behind their peers from the day they are born, but public schools are unable to help those children until they are five or six years old. By then it is usually too late for the most disadvantaged students to catch up. One study captures the magnitude of the problem: For their book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young Children, Professors Hart and Risley recorded interactions between parents and their children, measuring the size of the vocabulary used by each participant. Families were categorized as “welfare”, “working-class”, or “professional”. Their findings were shocking: during parent-child interactions, welfare parents used a smaller vocabulary than professional children.6
The “welfare” children carry this disadvantage for the rest of their lives. According to a study by sociologists George Farkas and Kurt Beron, by the time children reach the age of 36 months, there is a “substantial” gap in oral vocabulary between social classes, which is largely a result of the differences in the amount of vocabulary mothers teach their children. Once children enter school, the gap in vocabulary growth disappears, but the cumulative effect of the first four years puts the poorest students at a permanent disadvantage.7
The first years of life are particularly important because that is the time in which our brain develops most rapidly. A newborn baby’s brain is only a quarter the size of an adult’s, but by the age of 3 it has already reached 80% of its adult size.8 Scientists use the term “critical period” to describe the period of time in which a brain is particularly well-suited to learning a task and forming new neural connections. Many critical periods, including the period for understanding basic grammar, occur in the first years of life, particularly before the age of three.9 Without appropriate stimulation and learning in the first years of life, a child will never be able to form these connections.
Fortunately, parents and policymakers can ensure that this stimulation occurs by expanding access to quality early education. Pre-Kindergarten programs like Head Start are steps in the right direction, but brain research shows that the ages of zero to three are important as well.
The Perry Preschool Project in Michigan showed the enormous benefits that early education brings to the most at-risk children. Researchers took a sample of 123 low-income African-American children ages 3 and 4 who were deemed to be at risk for failing in school, and randomly selected 56 of them to be part of a high-quality preschool program. The researchers continued to evaluate the progress of project participants for the next 40 years in order to investigate the long-term impact of early education. They found that those who were in the program were over three times as likely to meet basic standards on school achievement tests at the age of 14, 44% more likely to graduate from high school, and were far less likely to have been arrested by the age of 40.10
While the prospect of providing preschool for all at-risk children seems expensive at first, the study showed that the social benefits of early education far outweigh the costs. Cost-benefit analysis of the program showed that for an average investment of about $15,000, the public saved nearly $200,000. The beneficiaries of the preschool program made more money, paid more taxes, used fewer social services, and committed fewer crimes.11
If we want to reproduce the effects of the Perry Preschool Project on a larger scale, we need to increase the quality and availability of early education. Less than half of all 3 and 4 year old children in poverty are enrolled in a government early-education program, and only a tiny fraction of 0–2 year olds are in such a program.12 In their book America’s Child Care Problem: The Way Out, economists Helburn and Bergmann suggest that, as a first step, we fully fund existing state and federal government child care programs for low-income families. These programs currently lack the funds to serve all of those who are eligible to participate. Along with an expansion in funding, the government should publicize these programs to make sure parents are aware of their existence.13
Improving access to early education will have little effect if the programs are of poor quality. The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers found that “young children’s learning and development depend on the educational qualifications of their teachers.”14 Unfortunately, we have been unwilling to pay enough to attract educated and qualified teachers to early education programs. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates, the 2005 median hourly wage was $10.57 for preschool teachers and only $8.20 for child care workers.15 While all elementary school teachers must receive bachelors’ degrees, the same requirement rarely applies to early care and education programs. Only 31% to 47% of teachers in child care centers have bachelors’ degrees, and only 30% of Head Start teachers have one.16 If we want early education to make a lasting difference, we must pay teachers salaries commensurate with the importance of their work, and comparable to those received by teachers of older children.
Early education has proven successful in raising school standards where traditional methods have failed. The positive effects of this education continue for the rest of the child’s life. And in the long run, it actually saves us money. Unfortunately, we have not yet made a large enough investment in early education, particularly for the poorest children. Some are daunted by the initial investment required, but the research suggests that our investment will pay for itself many times over.
1 Lefevre, A. T. and Drummer, L. Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis, 1983–1984 through 2003–2004. December 2005, American Legislative Council: Washington D.C. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/Report_Card_on_American_Education.pdf
2 Romano, Lois. “Test Scores Move Little in Math, Reading.” The Washington Post. Thursday, October 20, 2005; Page A03. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101900708.html
3 Perie, M. and Moran, R. NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2005. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard
4 Greene, Jay. “Education Myths”. The American Enterprise Online. July/August 2006. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.19233/article_detail.asp
5 Lefevre, A. T. and Drummer, L. Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis, 1983–1984 through 2003–2004. December 2005, American Legislative Council: Washington D.C. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/Report_Card_on_American_Education.pdf
6 Hart, B, and Risley, T. Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young Children. 1995. Paul H. Brookes Publishing. Synopsis retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.brookespublishing.com/store/books/hart-1979
7 Ibid.
8 Arnold, R. and Colburn, N. Oh! What a Smart Baby. School Library Journal. 2/1/2005. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA499361.html
9 Zero to Three. “Brain Development: Frequently Asked Questions.” Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.zerotothree.org/brainwonders/FAQ.html
10 Schweinhart, Lawrence J. The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40: Summary, Conclusions, and Frequently Asked Questions. High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. Retrieved on November 18, 2006 from http://www.highscope.org/Research/PerryProject/PerryAge40_SumWeb.pdf
11 Ibid.
12 Barnett, W. S. and Belfield, C. R. “Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility”. The Future of Children. Volume 16, No. 2, Fall 2006. Retrieved on November 19, 2006 from http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/05_5563_barnett-belfield.pdf
13 Helburn, S.W. and Bergmann, B.R. America’s Child Care Problem: The Way Out. 2002. Palgrave Macmillan.
14 Barnett, W. Steven. “Better Teachers, Better Preschools: Student Achievement Linked to Teacher Qualifications.” Preschool Policy Matters. Issue 2/December 2004. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research.
15 Bureau of Labor Statistics. “May 2005 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates. Retrieved on November 24, 2006 from http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#b25–0000.
16 Barnett, W. Steven. “Better Teachers, Better Preschools: Student Achievement Linked to Teacher Qualifications.” Preschool Policy Matters. Issue 2/December 2004. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early Education Research.