23/09/2015
Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects:
Research and Policy Implications W. Steven Barnett, National Institute for Early Education Research
Introduction
Rapidly evolving preschool education poses challenges for local,
state, and federal education policy. In 1960, just 10% of the nation’s 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in any type of classroom. Less than a half century later, nearly three-quarters of children enroll in a preschool classroom at age 4 and about half do so at age 3.
1 These trends have been accompanied by growth in private preschool education and child care, state-funded pre-K, preschool special education, and the federal Head Start program.
2 Public programs currently enroll about half of those in
programs at ages 3 and 4. Children are therefore served by programs that vary widely in enrollment, program design and operation, and this is true across and even within states. Issues of quality also arise out of this miscellany.
A recent study in California, for example, revealed that statepre-K offered the highest educational quality, but that educational quality
averaged across all programs, public and private, was relatively low.
3.This policy brief summarizes research regarding the short- and
long-term effects of preschool education, with particular attention given to what is known about influences on program effectiveness. This information is relevant to public policy makers who must decide whether and how much to support various types of preschool programs, what standards to set for public programs, and how much funding to allocate.
