The Power of Preschool

The other day in my daughter’s doctor’s waiting room, I read a fascinating study about the effectiveness of preschool in drastically cutting the costs of educating children over the course of their public education. I figured I’d jump up online and find it right away to refer a bunch of people I know to it, but alas: days get away from me and I can’t remember the title, just the gist. However, my quick web search turned up dozens of similar studies. Essentially, it can cost as much as 10 times less to educate children over the course of their 12 year public education, if we simply provide a preschool program for them. I found a press release from a CT politician citing similar figures:

“…national and state studies had shown that $1 in preschool spending saved up to $6 in future spending for special education, social services, and court and prison costs. He estimated that putting all of Connecticut’s children in preschool would save $425 million over the course of their lifetimes. “

And here I thought this was news! Turns out there’ve been dozens of studies, for decades, which prove that offering preschool not only saves the taxpayers educational dollars, but also lowers crime rates, and improves students’ lifelong prosperity outlook.

(Stephen Barnett, PhD from the National Institute of Early Childhood Research brings together much of this compelling research in a PowerPoint presentation you can find at http://nieer.org/docs/index.php?DocID=60)

But sigh. Like so many clearly demonstrated educational resources, taxpayers don’t want to pay now for something that might cost them less later. My town, which is one of those stereotypically well-off CT towns, has 20 preschool spots a year, 10 of which are for special needs kids (the other children primarily serve as role models for the others, meaning that the program doesn’t benefit them all that much). We have two preschools “in town”, one of which is Montessori and costs about $7-10 thousand dollars for half days during the school year only. The other is a few thousand for four hour days during the school year, and is considered quite good, but has a waiting list at least a year in advance. And we are lucky that around here, most moms can pay these prices and have the time (or nanny), to shuttle kids around to the odd-hour schedules–as neither has a childcare component that accommodates working parents.

Yet somehow I know the parents of these middle class & wealthy children will be the very same complaining about the tax-cost of educating the few kids who fall behind each year, as well as bemoaning the cultural cost of the area’s less educated kids, once they get a bit older and begin to impact other aspects of the workforce (and yes, crime rates).

While it is certainly important to begin by helping the neediest children–intellectually and economically–we must invest in all children, in providing all of them with the “head start” to begin their education at a time when they are most able to learn to value a lifetime of learning, in these preschool years.