EARLY CHILDHOOD
As more and more states begin funding pre-kindergarten programs, four-year-olds are becoming an increasingly common sight in the nation’s public schools. W. Steven Barnett
Preschool Education: A Concept Whose Time Has Come
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o area in education has grown like preschool in recent decades. Since 1965, when fewer than two in 10 fouryear-olds attended preschool, the number of such programs has risen to the point where seven in 10 now receive some sort of education before kindergarten. Preschool education— with its patchwork quilt of programs and funding streams—has reached the point where the traditional K–12 public education grades may soon expand to Pre-K–12.
IN BRIEF Although preschool education received a powerful boost with the development of the Head Start program in 1964, it faces major barriers in affordability and accessibility for many, especially families with incomes just above the eligibility requirements for targeted programs like Head Start. A steady growth of state-funded programs in the past decade holds promise of expanding the concept that educating children begins before kindergarten.
PHOTO: SEAN JUSTICE/IMAGEBANK
The idea of sending preschoolers to public school is nothing new. Preschool’s roots, like those of kindergarten, reach back to Massachusetts in the mid19th century, where preschool-aged children were permitted to go to school with their older siblings. The first kindergarten for four-year-olds was established in Wisconsin in 1873. The early preschools didn’t survive the establishment of today’s public system, though there are many of us who wish it had. The great leap forward for preschool education came with President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty and the development of the federal Head Start program in 1964. For 40 years, Head Start has served disadvantaged young children with comprehensive services aimed at improving their health and nutrition, social and emotional development, and cognitive development. Principal
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The Readiness Gap But despite the efforts of Head Start and other programs, the school readiness gap among low-income children remains large and persistent. Social development and academic ability scores for children from families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale are well below those for the rest of society. This is in no small part due to the fact that Head Start and other programs with income-based eligibility have problems identifying and serving children who qualify in a highly mobile society. For example, 22 percent of young children move to a new residence each year. Changing economic circumstances is also a large contributor to turnover in targeted preschool programs. Affordability and availability of highquality programs clearly remain major barriers to preschool participation. Even if targeted programs effectively reached all those for whom they are intended, research shows there is a large group of children that lacks access to quality preschool education. These are children from families whose incomes hover just above the eligibility requirements for targeted programs, but are too low to purchase high-quality preschool education. Even if these families could afford it, many would not be able to find highquality programs in their neighborhoods. It’s not surprising, then, that when we look at preschool participation by income, the lowest rate (41 percent) of participation is among families whose incomes lie in the middle of the economic spectrum ($40,000 to $50,000). However, preschool participation impacts disproportionately on some groups. For example, only 38 percent of Hispanic families sent their children to preschool in 2001, compared to 62 percent of black families and 57 percent of white families. Some educators have speculated that cultural factors primarily account for this lag. Not so. Research at the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) shows that when we adjust for other factors, especially family income, Hispanics are almost as likely to send their children to preschool as other groups.
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Ten Benchmarks for HighQuality Preschool Education
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he National Institute for Early Education Research has established these 10 quality benchmarks for preschool programs: ■ Curriculum standards. The state must have comprehensive curriculum standards that are specific to pre-kindergarten and cover the domains of language/literacy, mathematics, science, social/emotional skills, cognitive development, health and physical development, and social studies. ■ Teacher degree requirement. Lead teachers in both public and private settings must be required to hold at least a B.A. ■ Teacher specialized training requirement. Pre-service requirements for lead teachers should include specialized training in pre-kindergarten. Kindergarten endorsements and elementary teaching certificates do not qualify. ■ Assistant teacher degree requirement. Assistant teachers are required to hold a CDA or equivalent training. ■ Teacher inservice requirement.
State-funded Preschool: Two Approaches It is encouraging to see the steady growth in state-funded preschool programs over the past decade. Oklahoma and Georgia lead the country in providing voluntary universal preschool programs for four-year-olds. States like Florida, New York, North Carolina, and Massachusetts also are moving toward universally available programs despite significant budget challenges. Faced with hard choices, preschool policy-makers find themselves asking the question: In an imperfect world, is it better to begin with broad access and then develop quality, or begin with quality and then build access? Florida and New Jersey represent these two quite opposite approaches. By their own admission, Florida’s policy-
Teachers must be required to attend at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year. ■ Maximum class size. Class sizes must be limited to no more than 20 children for both three- and fouryear-olds. ■ Staff-child ratio. At least one staff member must be present per 10 children in a classroom for three- and four-year-olds. ■ Screening/referral requirements. Programs are required to provide both screening and referral services covering at least vision, hearing, and health. ■ Required support services. Programs must offer, either directly or through active referral, at least one type of additional support services for families of participants or the participants themselves. Types of services may include parent conferences or home visits, parenting support or training, referral to social services, and information related to nutrition. ■ Meal requirements. All participants must be offered at least one meal per day. Snacks are not counted as meals.
makers passed a universal preschool law last December that is short on class time and costly requirements like welleducated teachers. The program is scheduled to be available to all fouryear-olds in the state this fall, and leaders there say they will raise standards later. New Jersey, on the other hand, began with the court-mandated premise that the state should provide highquality pre-kindergarten in its 31 poorest districts. That task is approaching completion and results are beginning to show in higher test scores. Now the challenge is to expand pre-kindergarten beyond those districts. Some say it’s an open question as to which state will be the first to make high-quality programs available to all four-year-olds. I would bet on the www.naesp.org
“quality first” approach, since lowquality programs have a poor track record for raising their standards. An evaluation of current state preschool policies shows how much remains to be done. NIEER found startling disparities in state policies regarding quality of and access to preschool programs across the United States. The difference of only a few miles in the location of a child’s home often means the difference between having access to a high-quality preschool program and none at all (Barnett et al. 2004).
Skimping on Quality That isn’t surprising when one realizes that 10 states account for threequarters of the 740,000 children served by state-funded programs in the United States, led by Georgia and Oklahoma. At present, however, most state-funded preschool programs target disadvantaged populations and skimp on quality. When it comes to program quality, only Arkansas meets all 10 of NIEER’s quality benchmarks (see box). As of last November, 20 state initiatives met only five or fewer of these benchmarks. Of course, quality doesn’t just happen at the stroke of a policy-maker’s pen. It takes time, money, and persistent effort to provide the incentive for teachers to get the kind of training that produces large benefits for preschoolers. Research shows these benefits are likely to be fully realized only when teachers are professionally prepared and adequately compensated. Unfortunately, most of America’s preschool programs, including Florida’s, are not required to hire teachers with the training necessary for best results. Only 13 programs require pre-kindergarten teachers to be paid on a public school salary scale. If, as some have said, pre-kindergarten is becoming what kindergarten used to be, this situation needs to be corrected.
Looking Into the Future As states like Iowa, Tennessee, North Carolina, and New Mexico take early steps toward expanded state-
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funded programs, and other states begin the dialogue, the future for early childhood education is brightening. However, if we expect to close the achievement gap that exists between advantaged and disadvantaged students, and to increase the capabilities of all our children to successfully compete for jobs in the international economy, a more cohesive national plan recognizing the role of early childhood education will be required. That means making Head Start a more integral and effective part of preschool education. I and others have testified before Congress in regard to giving increased authority over Head Start to states where pre-kindergarten standards are high and coverage is extensive (Barnett 2005). This, and requiring Head Start to maximize participation in state pre-kindergarten programs, would create efficiencies and better serve target populations. At the same time, it is critically important that public school educators buy into the idea that educating children today should begin before kindergarten. Happily, that is already happening in many places. An optimist’s view of the future holds that universal pre-kindergarten will join the K–12 public education system sooner than one might think. I can foresee a time when all children in America will begin their public education at age 4, when preschool teachers will be paid on the same scale as K–8 teachers, and pre-kindergarten standards will have the same integrity as those in grades K–12. There is another view, however, which holds that America’s public schools cannot provide the highly effective preschool programs that could produce the kinds of gains found in seminal research like the Perry Preschool Program and the Abecedarian studies. America cannot afford to succumb to this sort of pessimism. As President Bush has stated, “Our goal as a nation must be to make sure that no child is denied the chance to grow in knowledge and character from their first years.” Like kindergarten before it, pre-
school education is a concept whose time has come. One who has studied preschool education in the context of global competitiveness is Nobel Prizewinning economist James Heckman. When it comes to investing in early childhood education, he says it best: “We can’t afford not to.” P References Barnett, W. S.; Hustedt, J. T.; Robin, K. B.; and Schulman, K. L. The State of
Preschool: 2004 State of Preschool Yearbook. New Brunswick, N.J.: National Institute for Early Education Research, 2004. http://nieer.org/yearbook/ Barnett, W. S. “Early Childhood Education Improvement Through Integration.” Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Education Reform: Washington, D.C., April 31, 2005. http://nieer.org/resources/hot topics/BarnettTestimony042105.pdf W. Steven Barnett is professor of education economics and public policy at Rutgers University and director of the National Institute for Early Education Research in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His e-mail address is
[email protected].
WEB RESOURCES
The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) provides considerable background information on preschool education. http://nieer.org. For the most recent data on the landmark longitudinal Perry Preschool Program, go to www.highscope.org. Study the findings of the Carolina Abecedarian Project, a continuing study of the potential benefits of early childhood education for poor children from birth to age 5 at www.fpg.unc.edu. The Head Start Bureau maintains an informative Web site that includes comprehensive data on its programs, services, and research at www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/.
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