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Pre-School Valentine's Party by hubertk
A new report published in Science found that benefits for early childhood education are substantial and long lasting. From the abstract:
We report the effects of the Child-Parent Center Education Program on indicators of well-being up to 25 years later for more than 1400 participants. This established, publicly funded intervention begins in preschool and provides up to 6 years of service in inner-city Chicago schools. Relative to the comparison group receiving the usual services, program participation was independently linked to higher educational attainment, income, socioeconomic status (SES), and health insurance coverage, as well as lower rates of justice-system involvement and substance abuse. Evidence of enduring effects was strongest for preschool, especially for males and children of high school dropouts.
The study found that the children who received preschool were more likely to finish high school, less likely to be arrested and make more money.
In addition to preschool clearly making these individuals better, it must have had an impact on the federal and local budgets. Higher incomes means more tax revenue and less spending on social services/incarceration.
Looking at this data if our politicians were actually was concerned about our long term deficit clearly the first thing to do would be to take advantage of the government’s ability to borrow really cheap at this moment and invest in universal preschool. The extremely modest cost of providing children with preschool would be returned many times over in the following decades through higher tax payments and reduced social service utilization.
It is quite possible the best financial, not to mention moral, invest our country could make at this moment given that ten year treasury bonds yields under 3 percent. It would be a move that would immediately create a large number of new jobs, improve people’s lives, and reduce our deficit over the long term. It is win-win.
Of course the so called “deficit hawks” will refuse to even consider it, because current deficit hysteria has nothing to do with government debt. It is just about creating a crisis to justify forcing austerity on regular people.
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frist = zed + 1
Let’s look at this from the perspective of our permanent ruling class.
higher educational attainment = more resistant to propaganda, less likely to support wars, more likely to vote. These outcomes are highly undesirable.
higher income and socioeconomic status = more spare time for people to educate themselves and involve themselves in politics. Doubleplusungood.
lower rates of justice-system involvement and substance abuse = less profits for the private prison industry and fewer people permanently deprived of voting rights. Again, undesirable outcomes.
Anything, absolutely *anything*, that inures to benefit of the serfs is, a priori: BAD, very very very very BAD!!!!! And the super wealthy Plutocrats can neither “afford” it, nor will they countenance their serfs getting anything more than mere crumbs & bones.
Educating the serfs? Why, sir, you must be crazy.
To read the full report requires a subscription.
But my major question would be if they looked at the socio-economic status (SES) of the those studied.
Not saying it wouldn’t help. But like education, SES has significant effects on everyone, but especially children.
If this was middle class kids, then it shows that it does help. But what about a SES breakdown? I wouldn’t be surprised if the low SES ones performed less well in the study.
And this was an observational study??? ie. looking back?
25 years ago was the mid 80s, approximately.
Comparing that time and now would be like comparing apples to oranges.
Science is considered a top journal, I suspect their methodology is rock solid.
Science !
OT but… Jane is on Cenk!!
Whew Jane hit the weinerdog issue right on the nail!!
Yes, but how much credibility can a study in a publication named “Science” carry with Republicans. After all they have their ideology and damn the facts.
Science rawks out at the highest order. It has maintained its standards when Scientific American and other journals sold out to the “New World Order” dumb-ification and War_Without_End program of Wall Street/Mayfair and their “hothouse
flowervenus flytrap,” the MIC. Here are more insights on the topic of education from thinkers like Bill McKibben who hosted the Jan, 22, 2011 FDL book salon for author, Mark Hertsgaard.Great post.
The latest research in neuroscience shows that the human brain does most of its developing by the age of 6. The basic components of the personality, morality and the capacity for learning are still growing and malleable at this time. We should be POURING resources into the support and nurture of young children in all areas of life, physical nourishment, medical care, social and educational enrichment. Waiting until age 6 to begin education is not smart. Putting a lot of resources into high school is just foolish and wasteful. The mold was formed before the child was out of the first grade. If we made sure that every child got everything he or she needed from pre-natal to age 10 (enough food, medical care,psychological and social support, educational enrichment and mentoring) we would produce a generation that would blow the top off of the whole higher education system.
All the foolishness about re-designing the education system would take care of itself. The kids would be so smart and eager to learn that we would not be able to keep up with them. But then, maybe, this is what some people want to prevent from happening so they can reserve the best places for their own “special” children.
Keep hitting investing in education Jon. A great post.
I was at a gathering tonight of students who are considered the brightest 1% in our nation and the next generation of inventors, engineers and scientists. It was a casual setting and the discussions that broke out centered on the failure in our country to understand the stimulus benefit of investing in education. The parents of the students at this event fear the US going through severe brain drain in the next five-ten years and see their children getting swept into the drain.
One of the students discussed the educational trends at the turn of the last century and how a cultural climate that valued education for all, regardless of race, creed or financial standing, led to a time in history of rapid invention and innovation…stimulus. The conversation turned to noticing that the Wright Brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar went to the same school and that both of their mothers expressed and pushed the value of education.
These graduating high school seniors,from conservative and liberal family backgrounds, were taking the same stand on the need for the US to build a cultural climate of valuing educational opportunity and to make more investment in our nation’s brain trust. Not one of them liked how teachers are being attacked. How public and private schools are being pinned against each other through concepts like a voucher program.
Universal preschool was mentioned as a start. A less selfish collective conscience was also noted.
By the way, this group of kids, age 17-18, are all STEM volunteers and spend time volunteering in classrooms. Thus, they were speaking from a personal value that is not just “talk” for them.
It may surprise some, but the Minneapolis Fed has taken a long standing interest in early childhood education and its value to the economy: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/studies/earlychild/
Here’s an earlier (2007) but related study by the same authors using what’s apparently the same data: http://www.preschoolcalifornia.org/resources/resource-files/effects-of-a-school-based.pdf
Great post, Jon. Totally agree.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were a long-term budget proposal that actually called for funding universal pre-K at $81 billion/year and rising, and affirmed that “this investment has arguably the highest return of any investment a society can make”?
What’s that? There is a plan like that?
http://www.rooseveltcampusnetwork.org/blog/budget-millennial-america
You might want to read it sometime.