The Promise of Preschool: Journalist John Merrow Weighs The Merits of Preschool Education For Lower, Middle And Upper-Class Families

A Forum — September 30, 2002

Co-Sponsored by The Trust for Early Education

At today’s forum, journalist John Merrow, Executive Producer, The Merrow Report, presented another of his well-known documentaries on education, this time focused on The Promise of Preschool. After the presentation Merrow and Lynn Mitchell, Director of Federal Affairs, The Trust for Early Education, discussed the documentary and replied to questions.

The Promise of Preschool documentary poses the question, “should there be universal preschool?” The film examines whether a system without universal preschool is inherently unfair and whether it is possible to provide quality preschool to all children even within a universal system.

The increasing need for child care, advancements in brain research, ambitious goals of raising academic achievement, and comprehensive advocacy efforts have led to a national focus on early childhood education both for less privileged children and for children from financially secure families. While some policymakers and others have questioned the funding of universal preschool before ensuring the quality of the public K-12 school system, others feel universal preschool is essential to boosting children’s achievement.

Since 1964, the federal government has supported preschool for children in poverty through “Head Start.” However, Merrow made a bold assertion that Head Start has failed to equalize early educational opportunities for poor children because (1) there are not enough Head Start programs (they serve only half of all eligible children); (2) they do not put enough emphasis on academic achievement; and (3) middle and upper income families can afford higher quality preschool. Merrow agrees with the administration’s call for increased academic achievement in Head Start programs, although he suggests that more money is needed to expand the program. While he concedes that some Head Start programs are excellent, Merrow cites one evaluation of Head Start indicating that after 9 months children had not progressed beyond the letter “A” in the alphabet. [Other views about Head Start’s success were expressed at the forum and are included at the end of this forum brief.]

Merrow says that family income is the strongest indicator of the quality of the preschool children attend and a contributor to the uneven patchwork of preschool in the United States. The vignettes in the documentary demonstrate the experiences of families with very different incomes with their child’s preschool and show that middle and upper class parents compete to find the highest quality preschools for their children.

Even if Head Start were available to all eligible children, Merrow says that there are vast variations in the educational value of the preschool experience (from merely babysitting to high quality instruction); the education and salaries of teachers; program costs; whether the program is public or private; and other factors. He says there is truly a “nonsystem” of preschool in the United States, in contrast to countries like France that has a true preschool system that equally benefits poor and rich families. In France nearly 100 percent of 3- to 5-year old children attend public preschool and the quality does not vary between schools serving children with different family incomes. Quality control ensures that all preschool teachers have Masters degrees, are paid the same as elementary school teachers and receive training.

The Promise of Preschool notes that a few states have embraced universal, free preschool. In 1996, Georgia was the first state to act; today 70 percent of the state’s 4-year-olds attend publicly supported preschools and 60,000 Georgia families are taking advantage of the program. Former Georgia governor and U.S. Senator Zell Miller suggests that “preschool is more important than the 12th grade in high school.” However, despite a universal system, the preschools are uneven in quality. Better off parents know the better schools and work hard to get their children into them.

Merrow suggests that the nation is going in the wrong direction to merely graft more preschool on to the existing non-system. He suggests creating a new system that is good enough for middle and upper income families, but is available to everyone. While it would be expensive, from $30 to $100 billion per year depending on whether it reaches only families with incomes under $30,000 per year or all families, he argues that the incredible benefits of preschool education in the long-term make a large early investment worthwhile.

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Another interpretation of the findings of Head Start research on letter recognition was offered by a forum participant from the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. One study showed Head Start children 9 random letters of the alphabet and found that they could identify 1 or 2 letters. However, another study showed Head Start students learned 4 letters by the end of the year in 1997 and 5 letters by the end of the year in 2000, combined with the letters they already knew they knew an average of 7.2 letters in 1997 and 8.9 letters in 2000. In 1998, Congress mandated that Head Start graduates should know 10 letters. Importantly, there is no national data on how many letters of the alphabet the average preschooler can identify by name.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredits preschool programs. They caution that early learning standards should be part of a comprehensive, high-quality system of services that emphasizes developmentally appropriate content and attention to all domains of early development and learning. Additional information can be found at www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements.

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