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January 2006 > School News
PACE Study Has Policy Implications for Universal Preschool
Young children from poor families experience twice the gains in early language and mathematics learning, according to a new Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) study of more than 14,000 kindergartners nationwide.
The report, co-authored by UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller and child development research scientist Margaret Bridges, also examined whether long hours in preschool centers lead to diminishing returns in children's early development.
The most surprising finding, according to the researchers, is that the social skills of white, middle-class children suffer — in terms of cooperation, sharing and engagement in classroom tasks — after attending preschool centers for more than six hours a day, compared to similar children who remain at home with a parent prior to starting school.
Hispanic children with at least basic English proficiency "displayed the strongest cognitive gains after attending preschool with no detrimental effects on their social development," said Bridges. "This may be due to strong socialization practices inside Hispanic homes, or, perhaps these families enter quality preschools tightly regulated under growing state and federal initiatives, like Head Start."
"The biggest eye-opener is that the suppression of social and emotional development, associated with long hours in preschool, is felt most strongly by children from better-off families," said GSE professor Fuller.
On average, the report finds that the earlier a child enters a preschool center, the slower his or her pace of social development, while cognitive skills in pre-reading and math are stronger when children first enter a preschool program between the ages of two and three.
"Our results for the intensity of attending a center program — measured in hours per week and months per year — are worrisome, although they vary across different types of families and children," Bridges says.
Policy Implications
The study, entitled, "How Much is Too Much? The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children's Development Nationwide," was released November 4, and comes at a time when a growing number of states are considering making large investments to offer free, publicly-supported preschool for all children. In California, a June 2006 ballot initiative would tax the wealthiest Californians to fund preschool for all who want it.
But according to Fuller, “The report’s a bit sobering for governors and mayors — including those in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina and Oklahoma — who are getting behind universal preschool.”
Overall, the researchers say it is good news for middle-class parents that their children, on average, benefit cognitively from moderate exposure to preschool centers. Most prior research has focused on preschool’s effects on poor children.
But the UC Berkeley-Stanford team says it is bad news that universal access would not likely close early learning gaps. “The magnitude of benefits for poor children is simply insufficient for them to catch up," the report says. “Instead, extending free preschool to all children — certainly a well-intentioned goal — threatens to reinforce disparities in early learning until resources are more carefully targeted on low-income communities.”
Beside Bridges and Fuller, the study’s authors included Stanford economist Susanna Loeb, UC Santa Barbara economist Russ Rumberger and Stanford doctoral student Daphna Bassok, who helped analyze data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the study is tracking children’s health, early care and preschool, and elementary school experiences. The main study began in fall 1998, with a sample of about 23,000 kindergartners from about 1,000 kindergarten programs. The youth will be followed through fifth grade.
PACE work on how preschool and home experiences shape children’s cognitive and social-emotional development will also be aided by a recent award of $400,000 from the Spencer Foundation for a study entitled “Effective Preschooling for Latino Children — Identifying Discontinuities between Home and Preschool.”
The new preschool report is available online.
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