Study: People who attended preschool benefit as adults

by David Safier

A long term study published in "Science" adds to the evidence that benefits from going to preschool stay with people into adulthood.

A group of 900 Chicago children — low income, mostly African American — who attended the Child-Parent Center Education Program were studied for up to 25 years and compared to 500 similar children who didn't attend preschool. The result, according to the study: "Better jobs, less drug abuse and fewer arrests" for those in the preschool program.

The findings agree with other studies indicating preschool and the quality of the first few years of K-12 education can make a significant difference in children's lives. Even when the differences aren't reflected in raised IQ or achievement scores, studies have indicated, children who received a strong early educational foundation develop a mindset which can result in higher average income, less criminal behavior, even  longer lasting marriages and fewer teen pregnancies. That often maligned concept of "self esteem" appears to result in lifelong benefits, especially for children whose ethnic and economic standing create barriers to achievement.

I would love to stop here and leave readers with a happy glow, but it's important to put a damper on what sounds like an affirmation of the value of quality education on children's lives. The truth is, the children in the study who attended preschool still ended up with very low average incomes and too-high incarceration rates. But they were both measurably better in both areas than those who didn't attend.

To be sure, the challenges facing the children in both groups were still insurmountable to many. As adults, the average annual income for those who went to preschool is less than $12,000 and almost half of them had been arrested as adults. As dismal as those outcomes, the numbers were still better than for the group that didn't attend preschool. And experts not involved in the study called the results impressive.

To recap: The good news is, early education can make a difference for people whose family and community situations are less than ideal. The bad news is, the statistical difference is still pitifully small. So long as this country has major pockets of poverty and chronic unemployment combined with the sense of hopelessness that accompanies "underclass" status, we will continue to have large numbers of children born into poverty who follow in their parents' footsteps no matter what we do on the education front. Without social change, educational enrichment can do so much.