Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten

Abstract

Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten by Robert G. Lynch, PhD, Washington DC, Economic Policy Institute, 2007, 134 pp, Paperback, $14.95. Despite gaps in population-based comprehensive interventions for children living in poverty, the cumulative evidence indicates that early intervention, Head Start, and quality early childhood experiences significantly contribute to children’s readiness for school, educational success, social competencies, and adult outcomes.1–4 Most recently, economists have examined how investments in young children promote developmental and social-emotional competencies. In Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation, Robert Lynch reviews model studies and gives economically based recommendations for publicly funded high-quality prekindergarten programs. His short monograph reviews four model prekindergarten programs and uses cost-benefit analysis to examine the impact of targeted versus universal prekindergarten programs. The Introduction describes compelling evidence for the necessity of high-quality, publicly funded early childhood development programs in the US. Lynch provides an analysis of the shortcomings of the US system in implementing effective health and educational policies. He demonstrates that how missed opportunities cascade into educational underachievement and adverse health outcomes. He describes the significant impact that high-quality early childhood programs have on school preparedness, graduation rates, special education requirements, teenage pregnancy, and incarceration. Chapter 1 describes characteristics of high-quality prekindergarten programs by analyzing four model programs: the Perry Preschool Project in Michigan, the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention in North Carolina, Head Start, and the Chicago Parent-Child Centers. Lynch places specific emphasis on the Chicago Parent-Child Center program, with recent outcomes to age 24 in which long-term benefits include positive outcomes to individuals, as well as high returns on public investments.4 The subsequent chapters delve into a detailed analysis of the long-term effects of either targeted or universal high-quality prekindergarten programs on government, crime, and the economy. Lynch demonstrates that a targeted program serving the poorest 25% of 3 and 4 year olds would have an extremely high cost-benefit ratio. It would be less expensive to implement, take fewer years to show a net return, and might lower the achievement gap between rich and poor. A universal program for all children, regardless of income, would take longer to have a positive return, but would have larger net benefits in the long-term because of a broader impact on a larger number of children. Lynch asserts that this kind of program would be likely to have greater public support and would benefit both children at highest risk and those without risk. Lynch’s analyses include comprehensive tables and charts that specifically illustrate state-specific costs and benefits of such programs as well as net economic and crime benefits over time. While written from the perspective of an economist, Enriching Children, Enriching the Nation is a succinct and readable review of critically important research. Though at times repetitive and data-laden, Lynch provides compelling evidence for public policy changes that have potential to significantly shape child and family outcomes in the US. This monograph is complimentary to important textbooks of Guralnick,5 Shonkoff and Meisels,6 and Gross et al7 as well as recent writings by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman8 and should be required reading of all child health professionals. Lynch asserts on economic grounds that investments in high-quality prekindergarten programs would powerfully impact all generations and all children regardless of socioeconomic status by improving educational achievement, increasing worker competitiveness, and decreasing adolescent and adult crime rates. Lynch drives home the lesson that currently, as a country, we have not ensured that all children will enter kindergarten ready to learn and that high-quality early childhood intervention is essential to address if we wish to reverse this condition. Sarah Dilley, MS Michael E. Msall, MD Kennedy Research Center on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities University of Chicago Comer and La Rabida Children’s Hospitals Chicago, IL