Research Shows Lasting Gains of Preschool Programs

According to Education Week, "The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project is perhaps the best-known study of the long-term effects of a high-quality prekindergarten education.

"The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation tracked, from age 3 or 4 through age 27, a group of 123 African-Americans who were living in poverty at the start of the study. The study provided a comprehensive evaluation of the lasting impact of prekindergarten on the lives of those students."

The study showed that, among other things:

• By age 27, more than a third of the children who attended the Perry program owned their own homes, compared with 7 percent of the control group.
• Four times as many Perry students were earning at least $2,000 a month compared with the control group.
• Two-thirds of the former Perry kids graduated from high school on time, compared with less than half of the control group.
• Only 15 percent of the Perry kids required special-education services, compared with more than a third of the control group.
• The Perry group was also less likely to receive welfare or be arrested for a crime, and the women were five times as likely to be married and less likely to have out-of-wedlock births.