April 20, 2009


Will Universal Preschool Increase Universal Inequality?


Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education


There is an old saying from those who study individual differences in
response to differing educational programs: “ If you want everyone to look
different, treat them alike. If you want them to look alike, treat them
different.”

Following this rule, it is reasonable to ask if treating all children alike
by providing universal preschool education programs, which were developed
to help close the educational achievement gap between the “haves” and “have
nots,”  will maintain or even increase the gap instead of closing it.

In an interview in 2005 at the Federal Reserve bank in Minneapolis, the
Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman argued for focusing preschool
programs on disadvantaged children. He was asked, “Should public funding go
for universal early childhood programs, or should funding be targeted for
at-risk children?” He replied, “There's been a lot of discussion about this
point. I think the evidence is very strong that family background is a major
predictor of future behavior of children. So a disproportionate number of
problem kids come from disadvantaged families. The simple economics of
intervention therefore suggests that society should focus its investment
where it's likely to have very high returns. Right now, that is the
disadvantaged population.” He goes on to say,  “It is foolish to try to
substitute for what the middle-class and upper-middle-class parents are
already doing.”

In other economic analyses, Lynch (Economic Policy Institute
http://www.epinet.org, 2004) also cited the research on the Perry Preschool
and other preschool projects as supporting the importance of  preschool
programs. Lynch noted that many of these early education childhood programs
" also provide adult education and parenting classes for the parents of
young children." (p vii). This suggests that perhaps a significant
percentage of the benefits that early childhood education programs produce
might result from the effects of adult parenting and literacy education
activities that take place in these programs.


This idea is supported in a new book, The OBAMA Education Plan: An Education
Week Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2009. The book provides a summary of the Obama
administration's plans for education. It includes early childhood, K-12,
preventing dropouts, and access to colleges and post-secondary education.
In the chapter on early childhood education, comments are made that are
consistent with the position  that much of the benefits that have been
measured in longitudinal studies from early childhood education programs
appear to reflect, at least to a certain degree, the effects on the
parenting behaviors of parents whose children participated in these
programs.


The book includes a piece by Lawrence J. Schweinhart, one of the co-founders
of the Perry Preschool project in which he identifies ingredients for
long-term effects and returns on investments in the Perry Preschool
project. He notes that in the Perry Preschool program teachers spent 
“
substantial amounts of time with parents, educating them about their
children’s development and how they can extend classroom learning
experiences into their homes. All the programs in the long-term studies [of
early childhood education] worked with parents. In fact, in the High/Scope
Perry Preschool program, teachers spent half their work time engaged in
such activities. “

In keeping with this role of the effects of preschool programs on parents,
Morrison, Bachman, & Connor (Improving Literacy in America, Yale University
Press, 2005) have questioned the effectiveness of both childcare and
preschool programs that do not focus on improving parenting skills.
Concerning childcare, they say, "Overall, parenting appears to be a more
important source of influence on children’s development than is childcare.

 the contribution of parenting was about three to four times greater than
that of early childcare. 
high-quality childcare will not offset the
negative effect of poor parenting, and poor-quality childcare will not
prevent success for children with effective parents." (pp. 48,49).

Given this emerging understanding of the role of the education of the adults
who were parents in the various preschool projects, it seems reasonable to
consider the hypothesis  that instead of, or perhaps in addition to,  the
teaching of children that preschool programs do, a great deal of the
long-term changes in children that has been found results from the changes
made in the very highly disadvantaged, poor parents of the children. This
would help explain how it is that a somewhat short term education program
of children could sustain them through primary, middle, secondary school,
and into adulthood long after they had completed their preschool.
Throughout all this time, parents who grew in their education about and
behaviors in parenting during the preschool project could have offered
better supports for the children as they grew up. It would also help
explain why the programs are likely to have a greater effect on
disadvantaged families than more highly advantaged families who, as Heckman
concluded, already do what is taught to parents in preschools.

Considering the evidence on the role of parenting education in preschool
programs, and following Heckman’s recommendation, if we treat disadvantaged
children different from advantaged children by focusing preschool
investments on them and their parents, we may more efficiently move toward
closing the achievement gap between poor children and their more advantaged
peers. In short, if we want children to achieve similarly, we need to treat
them differently.

Thomas G. Sticht, tsticht at aznet.net