or, Hooray for preschool. I don't know about the rest of you, but preschool always brings back fond memories. Okay, they are admittedly fuzzy memories but they do give me a warm fuzzy feeling. It wasn't till I was much older than four that I found out that preschool is not a universal experience....it was only universal in my particular demographic set. Sometime in high school I did a research paper on The Perry Preschool Project which was born in Ypsilanti, MI in the 1960s. The Project was a precursor to our modern day Head Start and set out to prove that preschool is essential for later life success and is a particularly strategy for breaking the cycle of poverty. Now, forty-years later, it seems the folks at the Perry Preschool Project were right. Researchers tracked the original kids from the beginning...for forty years! And what they found was impressive:
As they progressed through school, the Perry children were less likely to be assigned to a special education class for the mentally retarded. Their attitude toward school was also better, and their parents were more enthusiastic about their youngsters' schooling. Their high-school grade point average was higher. By age 19, two-thirds had graduated from high school, compared with 45 percent of those who didn't attend preschool.
Most remarkably, the impact of those preschool years still persists. By almost any measure we might care about -- education, income, crime, family stability -- the contrast with those who didn't attend Perry is striking. When they were 27, the preschool group scored higher on tests of literacy. Now they are in their 40's, many with children and even grandchildren of their own. Nearly twice as many have earned college degrees (one has a Ph.D.). More of them have jobs: 76 percent versus 62 percent. They are more likely to own their home, own a car and have a savings account. They are less likely to have been on welfare. They earn considerably more -- $20,800 versus $15,300 -- and that difference pushes them well above the poverty line.
As most of my readers know, I'm not a fan of The Shrub. But I hope he read this article too. Because even though I am skeptical of his "No Child Left Behind" (after all, he didn't even fund it adequately), this would be perfect to add to such an agenda--universal preschool-- if he truly wished to leave no child behind. And, for all of those who would gripe about the cost: The newest report attaches a dollar-and-cents figure to this good news. Economists estimate that the return to society is more than $250,000 (calculated in 2000 dollars) on an investment of just $15,166 -- that's 17 dollars for every dollar invested. How about them apples?
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