WSJ Article Gives Unwarranted Boost to Universal Pre-K
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
8.9.2007
A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal (“As States Tackle Poverty, Preschool Gets High Marks,” August 9, 2007) gives a largely uncritical review of recent efforts of activists, academics, government officials, charitable foundations, and business to enact universal preschool programs at the state and federal levels. The arguments made by preschool supporters and the research which they cite, however, are hugely flawed. Sadly, the Journal article made little attempt to analyze rigorously the claims made by pre-K boosters. A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal (“As States Tackle Poverty, Preschool Gets High Marks,” August 9, 2007) gives a largely uncritical review of recent efforts of activists, academics, government officials, charitable foundations, and business to enact universal preschool programs at the state and federal levels. The arguments made by preschool supporters and the research which they cite, however, are hugely flawed. Sadly, the Journal article made little attempt to analyze rigorously the claims made by pre-K boosters. For example, the article pointed to Oklahoma’s universal preschool program, supported by wealthy oilman George Kaiser who says that children in preschool “will end up as productive citizens rather than in the correctional system.” The article further cited a 2003 Georgetown University study that showed a short-term rise in test scores for students going through the Oklahoma preschool program. There are major problems, though, with these assertions and research. First, as pointed out in Pacific Research Institute’s 2006 report “No Magic Bullet: Top Ten Myths about the Benefits of Government-Run Universal Preschool,” the Georgetown study does not offer any proof that a universal preschool program will result in long-term benefits to all children. The Georgetown study found that, “For children ineligible for free or reduced price school lunch (i.e., students from higher socio-economic bracket), there are no effects.” [emphasis added] In other words, according to the study’s author William Gormley, “no net [test-score] gain was apparent” in middle- and upper-income children. Gormley, in a later study of the Oklahoma program, acknowledged the uncertainty in the research saying, “A universal pre-K program may or may not be the best path to school readiness.” Further, as the Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell has observed, Oklahoma is the worst state in terms of increasing fourth-grade reading scores from 1992 to 2005, actually decreasing by four percentage points on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. Snell noted that Oklahoma’s reading scores dropped “despite the fact that all children that took the 2005 [NAEP] reading tests were eligible for universal preschool.” She also pointed out that none of the states that made the biggest gains in fourth-grade reading from 1992 to 2005 had implemented universal preschool. Mr. Kaiser, therefore, may want to think harder about all the millions of dollars that he and his family foundation have sunk into promoting universal preschool in Oklahoma. The Journal article also focuses on Federal Reserve Bank economist Art Rolnick’s use of a 1960s study of a Michigan preschool program to claim that for every dollar spent on preschool, society would receive $16 in benefits in the form of lower crime, fewer welfare payments and higher earnings. The Journal article, however, fails to mention that the results of the Michigan study have never been replicated. This key fact has caused even well-known preschool proponents like Yale professor Ed Ziglar, a founder of the federal Head Start preschool program, to criticize the methodology of the Michigan study saying that the students in the study were unrepresentative of both the disadvantaged and mainstream student populations. In addition, the Michigan study looked only at a tiny sample of poor African-American children. To show that middle-class children also benefit from preschool, the Journal article quotes economist Stephen Barnett, an oft-cited preschool super-booster, who claims that preschool helps middle-class children because most of the children “who drop out of school or fail a grade are middle class.” However, the reality is that there is no evidence that universal preschool programs result in any long-term benefits to non-poor children. A 2002 study published in the American Economic Review, which is the only study that has examined the long-term effects of preschool on non-poor students, found that non-poor children were no better off when it came to high school or college completion, earnings, or criminal justice system involvement than those not going to any preschool. Also, whatever short-term benefits may accrue from preschool often fades as students go through poorly performing public K-12 schools. A 2006 study by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) found that long-term testing data showed that “the achievement impact of preschool appears to diminish over time.” The UCSB researchers warned that without improving K-12 schools, preschool would have limited effect in improving achievement gaps. Finally, as opposed to the Journal article’s assertion that “few organizations are pushing the case against preschool,” the fact is that public policy think tanks like the Pacific Research Institute, the Reason Foundation, and the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, plus business organizations like the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Business Roundtable, and local chambers of commerce have been in the forefront in making the case against universal preschool. Also, legions of private preschool providers, plus pro-family organizations have strongly opposed expansion of government-run preschool. In the end, the push for universal preschool is another attempt to avoid the hard work of improving the nation’s K-12 schools in favor of an easy panacea. But just like other magic bullets, universal preschool is just another education misfire.
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