As I've previously written on this blog, access to well-planned, high quality preschool, starting at age 3, is an essential precondition to improving the educational attainment of our nation's at-risk children and children in impoverished neighborhoods.

Put differently, the current iteration of K-12 "school reforms" -- like their predecessors -- will fail unless our nation undertakes a 50 state campaign over the next 10 to 15 years to ensure delivery of full-day, high quality early education to, at a minimum, all three and four-year old children residing in poor communities.

It starts with a coherent national policy that -- finally -- unifies federal dollars for Head Start, child care and public school early education under a single program. These combined federal dollars must be distributed conditioned on the states building strong systems of early education delivery at the local level that integrate child care, Head Start and public school classrooms, linked to K-12 achievement standards. Under these state systems, child care and Head Start programs "capable and willing" to meet rigorous standards would recieve significant state funding to agument their budgets meet those quality standards, including small class size, certified teachers, a developmentally appropriate curriculum, and other supports for teachers, children and families. This would include long overdue salary comprability between preschool teachers in public schools and those in Head Start and child care providers.

Pie in the sky? No, the program already exists, at scale. It's New Jersey's acclaimed Abbott pre-k program, named after the NJ's landmark school funding equity case which in 1998 ordered high quality preschool as a required "supplemental" program for all chiildren in 31 of the state's poorest communities.

For more on Abbott preschool, see http://www.edlawcenter.org/issues/preschool.html

Come visit the Abbott pre-k program and see first-hand the early education our most disadvantaged children not only deserve, but must have for them to have any chance of success in school.

Ensuring that all our children are ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten is a tremendous task, made much more difficult in the United States by high levels of poverty and low levels of parental education. One in four preschoolers lives in poverty, nearly half in low-income families. Twenty-seven percent are born to mothers without a high school diploma or GED. Assessments at kindergarten entry show that surprisingly many children from middle-income families are poorly prepared to succeed. There are many public policies that could contribute to reducing this problem, and there is no single solution, but let us consider one that seems obvious and for which there is considerable evidence, public preschool programs.

Public preschool education could be an important part of the solution, but currently it is not given a chance. Ensuring school readiness through preschool education is precluded by low levels of investment and high levels of wishful thinking. Far too many children lack access to preschool education, and it is least available to those who could benefit most. The majority of 3-year-olds in homes where Spanish is the primary language don’t attend any preschool program. Some don’t qualify for publicly funded programs because their parents work long hours to keep them out of poverty. Others live in states that don’t fund any preschool program at all or in neighborhoods that aren’t served. As a nation we spend far more public money on prisons than on preschools. Federal and state governments together spend less on preschool education than Americans spend on pet food.

The latest research on preschool program outcomes to cross my desk is the third grade follow-up of the national randomized trial of Head Start. It is now clear: Head Start produces no perceptible lasting gains in any domain of child development. This does not rule out very small persistent gains, but Head Start is not meeting its goals. Yet, much of the field seems to be in denial, responding that bad public schools erode the effects of Head Start. Somehow they fail to see that even initial gains are quite small and that children in the study made much larger gains in kindergarten and the early grades than they did in Head Start. Other studies confirm that learning gains in kindergarten are much larger than in Head Start. The root of the problem is that Head Start is locked into a program model that fails to focus on intensive education and pays teaching staff abysmally. This model has failed every true experimental test (Early Head Start, the Comprehensive Child Development Program, the Child and Family Resource Centers).

State pre-K programs often are little better than Head Start since they too usually lack the funding and standards of public education for kindergarten. State subsidized child care (as opposed to preschool education) is so poor that it may actually harm child development on average. Clearly, just shifting Head Start to the states is not enough to solve the problem. However, for all the faults of public education, one only has to look at growth curves for learning over time to conclude that if preschool were supported like kindergarten, children would be much better prepared. And, looking at the programs found to produce substantive lasting gains for children in well-controlled studies, the common theme is that they are much more educationally intensive than our current preschool programs. It is time to face facts and change directions.

If the United States is to effectively address the school readiness problem, public preschool programs must provide much more intensive education to many more children. Only public preschool education for all children is likely to achieve this goal. Means-tested programs exclude too many children who need help. The federal government should incentivize states to offer preschool programs that meet a small number of well-defined criteria for quality and set a goal to serve all children by a date certain. Then let states innovate as they have a track record of creating flexible public-private preschool partnerships. The focus of accountability should be on strong teaching and truly substantive gains in broad child development. Head Start should be integrated into public education as a funding stream to enhance the education of young children in poverty so that they start early and receive the best teachers and smallest classes. Once we stop thinking of preschool as charity and start thinking of it as an investment in everyone’s future we might actually do what is necessary to meaningfully improve the education of young children.

This entry cross-posted at NIEER's blog, Preschool Matters...Today!,

Here is a comment from Sara Watson, Executive Vice President, America’s Promise Alliance and Director, ReadyNation:

The past 10 years have seen a dramatic change in the acknowledgement of the impact of quality pre-k, including among experts and policymakers from across the political spectrum. Most everyone now agrees that all kids benefit from quality early education before kindergarten – whether that’s through parent-paid programs, public programs or thoughtful teaching from stay at home parents. The argument for public funding for universal access is political (it can generate broader public support), substantive (there are documented benefits to working-class children who are often omitted from targeted programs) and emotional (whom do you leave out?). The argument for targeted is also political (easier to enact because of lower costs), substantive (greater impacts on individual children) and emotional (how can we justify spending scarce funds on families who can afford to pay when poor children don’t have what they need?). However, in an era of limited resources, in which universal, high quality programs are unlikely to be affordable, here are some suggestions on how states and cities can prioritize:

· First dollars should be targeted for disadvantaged children and grow as resources allow. Children who are most at-risk also need more intensive and extensive services and funding streams need to account for that.

· Programs should start with high quality services, even if that means lower access initially, and grow as the program proves itself. Too often broad-based or even universal programs end up watered down or suffering from poor implementation if they start too big.

· Programs should provide parents with a variety of good options in location, providers, curriculum, etc. so they can have options based on what’s accessible and affordable for them.

Either way, this is an investment we must make. States and cities have tried both approaches and should aim for what will provide the highest quality program to the most children.

As policy makers grapple with difficult decisions and tightening budgets, early education should remain a top priority. Investing in early education is a cost-effective approach to improving both short- and long-term outcomes for children. The question is: Within the realm of early education, how should we allocate scarce resources?

Rigorous research has found positive outcomes for different types of programs -- programs operated federally and by states, programs that target at-risk students, and those that offer preschool services universally. Although each type of program has its merits, the most important determinant in placing limited financial resources should be program quality. In early education, as in most domains, quality matters. For example, the National Study of Early Head Start found that programs where implementation was consistent with program standards had stronger effects on children.

As we know from recent debates about teacher quality in the K-12 realm, quality can be a tricky construct to measure. This is especially true in the realm of early education, where both cognitive and non-cognitive gains, such as empathy and emotional maturity, are likely responsible for effects on longer-term outcomes. Exclusive focus on student test scores as a measure of program quality, for example, could be short-sighted and unintentionally subvert the positive, non-cognitive long-term effects of early education. Rich measures of program quality that incorporate both academic and non-cognitive student outcomes as well as measures of the program learning environment could help ensure that we are getting the best return on investment possible for each dollar spent on early childhood education.

AIR has worked with several states, including Ohio, to improve the quality of their early education services and effectively target resources toward high-performing programs. With the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), we conducted more than 200 observations of early learning environments across the state using the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation Toolkit. With this data, the AIR evaluation team created a range of reports that provided state policymakers, program administrators, and individual teachers with the tailored information they needed to make decisions. Teachers received individual ratings and evidence statements to support the ratings, which showed their areas of strength and challenge; program administrators received a report with an average rating for all classrooms observed, which provided insight into useful types of professional development. The state-level reports, which highlighted the overall effectiveness of the program, informed ODE’s decision to retain the program when faced with budget cuts.

Ohio is just one example. If we want to create a nation of ready-to-learn kindergartners, we need to allocate resources toward evaluating program quality and supporting high-quality programs serving early learners.

I agree that a low-quality pre-K program for all four-year-olds won’t do much to help children learn. States should not sacrifice quality for more access. And when budgets are tight, as they are now, enrolling children from low-income families should be the priority.

But high-quality, universal pre-K for all should be the goal. Not mandatory pre-K for all – parents should have a choice. And not solely provided by public schools, another apprehension. Any early education program that meets the quality standards set by the state or by Head Start should be able to be a state-funded or Head Start-funded pre-K provider. These two concerns often come up during discussions of universal pre-K, and they tend to derail productive conversation about how to open access to more children.

Why universal? Here are three reasons to make programs available to all children regardless of their parents’ income: First, children from middle-income families can benefit from pre-K too, but their parents aren’t always able to afford it. Many think that middle-income parents can afford to pay for pre-K, but research shows they are still much less likely than affluent families to enroll their children in pre-K programs. Children from middle-class families should be afforded the opportunity to benefit from publicly funded pre-K programs too.

Second, while children from poor and low-income families experience the most significant learning gains when attending high-quality pre-K programs, they aren’t the only ones who get a leg up. Studies of Oklahoma’s universal pre-K program as well as other state pre-K programs have found that children from middle-class families also made learning gains as a result of their participation. Additionally, pre-K programs can help to avert special education placement, grade retention and dropping out of school. Even though middle-income children are less likely to be held back, they still make up a large proportion of students who are retained or who do not graduate from high school.

Third, making pre-K universal would enable it to be recognized and supported as “real education,” which it is, more than just babysitting. High-quality programs provide deep, lasting learning opportunities that foster social-emotional development and help set children on the path toward academic success, including reading proficiently by the end of third grade. In a 2008 blog post, Sara Mead, former director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, wrote about what she considered the most compelling argument for a universal pre-K. “We don’t restrict children’s access to K-12 education based on their parents’ incomes. Instead, K-12 public schools are free to everyone. Limiting publicly funded pre-k to low-income students sends the message – to parents, educators, policymakers and the general public – that pre-k is simply childcare help or charity, not real education. And once people start thinking of pre-k as something less than school, then it is natural to expect lower quality.” (It is important to note, however, that even “K-12” schools do restrict access to the “K” grade because they don’t offer a free full day of kindergarten and that young children need effective elementary school teachers to sustain the benefits of attending a good pre-K program.)

In sum, we need high-quality, universal pre-K programs with dedicated funding that are easily accessible for the families who need it most. But that is not what we’ve got in most places.

Take Florida for example. The state is among the leaders when it comes to pre-K access (with about three-quarters of 4-year-olds enrolled), but the quality is not up to snuff. Florida’s program only meets 3 of the 10 quality indicators identified by National Institute for Early Educational Research. The state spends less than $2,500 per year per child. On average, VPK programs operate only three hours per day, and even low-income families are not guaranteed further assistance to pay for connected to wraparound programs. Teachers are not required to have a BA. Professional development requirements for teachers are low. Florida is attempting to tackle issues of quality, but the state’s pre-K accountability plan is missing a close look at the structure of the program itself.

Other states like Georgia, Oklahoma and Illinois have or are working toward (in Illinois’s case) a universal program. But all have experienced funding hits in recent years, making it difficult to maintain quality while serving all children. Illinois launched its Preschool for All initiative in 2006, giving first priority to at-risk children with the goal of fully funding the program by 2012 to allow programs to serve children whether they meet at-risk criteria or not. Due to funding cuts this goal has yet to be realized. But under NIEER’s standards, the quality remains intact.

While I think states should move to make their pre-K programs universal, I realize it may not be possible right now. With limited dollars, state should focus on improving the quality of programs to make sure that the children who need pre-K the most are learning and developing at high levels from effective, well-prepared teachers. The strategy should be this: Prioritize access for those who need pre-K the most, but keep pushing toward universal programs, not income-segregated programs, for the future.

In order to transform education, particularly in Newark, we must start early. We need to make sure that every child is ready for school and that schools are ready for our children. Our goal is to put every child in Newark on a pathway to learn to read by 3rd grade so they can read to learn for future school success. To do this we have to empower parents to be their child's first teacher and best advocate. We must ensure that all children have access to high quality learning environments. Schools need to be transformed to focus on literacy and social and emotional learning in the early grades, K-3, and teachers need to be supported with real-time, job-embedded professional development. Newark is fortunate -- we have the essential building blocks for success including free, universal Pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds, a strong advocacy community that fought hard for the Abbott legislation that made this possible, and a local funding community who are beginning to coordinate their investment strategies around a birth to age 8 continuum. So yes, private philanthropy can play an incredible advocacy role for what a comprehensive system of early care and education can look like in a given community, building on strengths and opportunities. We are working with state, local and philanthropic leaders to begin to tie investments in early learning to improved quality and better outcomes for kids by making sure families have access to the highest quality early care and education regardless of their income and zipcode, by launching a full demonstration of the state's Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in Newark. We're helping the state test both what works and what is sustainable. We're also working with the school district on building an early grades literacy initiative, up and down the continuum. And since learning starts at home, we are also working to help families their child's first teacher and best advocate. Deep, systemic change especially doesn't happen overnight but every day we lose means another child is in jeopardy of being locked out of this 21st century knowledge economy. When yielded responsibly, the power of the purse can be a mighty tool in pushing systemic reforms where they matter the most.

My advice to anyone seeking better education, health, social and economic outcomes is to embrace the fact that education starts at birth — not at age 4, not in kindergarten — at birth. Fully developing the potential in our children and guaranteeing a skilled and productive workforce starts the moment a child is born. Our public policy needs to reflect the new knowledge we have about human development, specifically that waiting until age 4 for pre-K learning is too little, too late. The definition of effective early learning must be expanded to encompass birth to age 5, with a distinct focus on the most critical developmental period—the first three years of a child’s life.

Research conducted by University of Chicago Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman shows that investing in early childhood development from birth to age 5 for disadvantaged children is the best way to prevent the achievement gap and maximize later investments in formal schooling, college and job training. Investing from birth is the only way to achieve the 7-10 percent return on investment that early childhood development delivers through better education, health and social outcomes and the reduced need for social spending.

Ongoing federal budget negotiations provide national policymakers with a small window of opportunity to maximize taxpayer money, reduce debt and generate income. Every dollar invested in quality early childhood education pays dividends to children, families and taxpayers for the life of the child. The earlier we start, the less expensive it will be to prepare children for success in life and the more likely that we will have a nation of independent, capable and productive people. Policymakers, such as Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, business leaders, including Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist J.B. Pritzker and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strongly support using early childhood investments to drive economic growth.

Investment at birth is supported by a better understanding of how skills are developed. Adult capabilities are built on a foundation of cognitive and character skills that are developed early in a child’s life, with skills begetting skills in a dynamic and complementary fashion. In addition, with new research showing that toddlers are capable of thinking logically and abstractly, it is more important than ever that policymakers focus their efforts on a child’s earliest years for the greatest efficiency and effectiveness.

Early childhood programs can give evidence of whether students will graduate from high school before they even step foot inside a classroom. A study highlighted in Paul Tough’s new book, “How Children Succeed” from researcher L. Alan Sroufe found that measures of early parental care, among children as young as 3, could reliably predict high school completion with 77 percent accuracy, illuminating the importance of early learning in shaping better education outcomes. Evaluations of Head Start programs also support the argument for stronger birth to five programs and show that early participation is key to producing better outcomes, with infants and toddlers who receive Early Head Start followed by Head Start or other preschool programs demonstrating cognitive and social gains.

Meanwhile, program models like Educare Schools show policymakers, educators and parents what a comprehensive birth to five system looks like in practice. With all-day, year-round schools providing high quality early education services to disadvantaged children and families in 17 sites across the country, Educare demonstrates that with the right resources and collaboration between public and private partners, the investment in the earliest years really pays off.

According to research conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Educare schools in six cities — Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Omaha, Seattle and Tulsa —showed positive results in preparing disadvantaged children for later academic success. The study revealed that disadvantaged children who enroll in Educare as infants or toddlers entered kindergarten with the same vocabulary and school-readiness skills as their middle-income peers.

Our nation’s future depends on our ability to prepare our children for success. Starting learning at birth will give every child the opportunity to develop to their full potential, strengthen our economy and reduce social spending and deficits. Starting later is too little, too late.

I don't have much new to contribute, except to note that, since I wrote the book our states and districts have been afflicted with major budgetary challenges (as, obviously, has the federal government), and there is much to be said for redirecting existing public pre-K expenditures--Headstart above all--in more promising directions.

It's also worth noting that the Common Core standards kick in in kindergarten and it will soon be more important than ever that kids arrive kindergarten-READY. Which is NOT an argument for universalizing the publicly-financed pre-K experience. It IS an argument for targeting available resources on those youngsters who are least likely, under current circumstances, to be kindergarten-ready. Which unfortunately includes a great many kids who will have passed through existing pre-K programs without having become kindergarten-ready, due in considerable part to the fact that many existing programs--again beginning with Headstart--do not take seriously the cognitive/academic side of their school-readiness obligations.

Besides the book, others might find interesting the Fordham debate/event on this topic (see http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/2009/video-the-cons-and-pros-of-universal-preschool.html) and this Washington Post op ed which summarizes my argument: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051403600.html