The National Institute for Early Education Research today issued a report titled "Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications" that concluded high-quality preschool programs have lasting positive effects for students. Released in conjunction with the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University, the report tackles an important part of both Barack Obama's and John McCain's education platforms.

"Preschool programs have become increasingly common over the last several decades, with states such as Oklahoma taking the lead. Recommendations for or against various forms of universal, publicly funded preschool have emerged in the current presidential campaign. For example, Barack Obama is proposing grants to encourage states to institute universal, voluntary preschool programs, while John McCain's campaign has called for a more limited federal role, providing information and databases to help parents choose a preschool education program."

W. Steven Barnett, the report's author, is the Director of the NIEER at Rutgers University.

Universal preschool is hotly debated; some say it's necessary to close the achievement gap while others argue that its benefits disappear after a few years.

"Barnett's brief offers both warnings and hope. He explains that well-designed preschool programs have been shown to produce long-term improvements in school success—raising students' achievement test scores, reducing the rates of students being retained in grade, reducing the assignment of students to special education programs, and raising student educational attainment. He also finds that these well-designed programs are extraordinarily cost effective, with their long-term payoffs far exceeding their costs.

The strongest evidence suggests that children from all socioeconomic backgrounds reap long-term benefits from preschool, Barnett says. And he notes that the strongest benefits are received by economically disadvantaged children."

So what's the bad news?

"However, Barnett also warns that current public policies for child care, Head Start, and state pre-Kindergarten programs offer no assurance that American children will attend such highly effective preschool programs. Some attend no preschool and others attend educationally weak programs. Middle-income children often have the least access to pre-school, while many children in poverty may lack preschool as well..."

... Because preschool programs vary so much in quality, Barnett counsels against simply raising child care subsidies. Instead, he recommends greater public investment in effective preschool education programs, with a focus on state and local pre-K programs with high standards, which have been found to be the most effective. Such programs "need not be provided by public schools," he notes; public, private and Head Start programs all "have produced similar results when operating with the same resources and standards as part of the same state pre-K program.""

The report is unlikely to have an impact on the upcoming election because its findings support both candidates' platforms on preschool education, albeit in different ways.

For those of us normals folks - who don't run state education departments and who aren't running for President - we can take away the following:

• Good teaching and high standards have a lasting effect. Preschool programs that border on being little more than day care aren't likely to raise anyone's achievement.
• Good teaching and high standards save money in the long run.
• Throwing money at schools to fund preschool programs isn't enough. Quality preschool needs to be part of a well-organized, well-implemented, sustained effort.

The full report is available as a PDF free for download.

The National Institute for Early Education Research (www.nieer.org), a unit of the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, supports early childhood education policy by providing objective, nonpartisan information based on research. NIEER is supported through grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts and others.

The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University collaborate to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. Our goal is to promote well-informed democratic deliberation about education policy by providing academic as well as non-academic audiences with useful information and high quality analyses.

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