Progressives are longtime advocates of public preschool, which they see as a salve for inequality. Recent experimental evaluations are not encouraging, however. The latest example comes from Georgia, where researchers exploited the state’s lottery-based admissions for public preschool to measure the effect of the program. They found essentially no lasting differences in outcomes between students who entered the random lottery and won a slot compared with those who entered and lost. Lottery winners had higher math and reading scores upon entering kindergarten, but that advantage disappeared by first grade. No differences in disciplinary issues were observed, and attendance appeared to improve among lottery winners by only about one day per year.
For simplicity, I have elided some study details that specialists will find interesting, including the challenges to randomization and the differential effects on demographic groups. More important, here is the bottom line: Georgia’s preschool program appears to have little or no overall benefits for participants. Elsewhere, Tennessee’s program has also failed to show benefits when subjected to experimental evaluation, as has the federal Head Start program.
Nevertheless, the Biden White House made universal preschool a central component of its Build Back Better agenda. In discussing preschool’s “lifelong educational and economic benefits,” the White House repeated the oft-heard talking point that the program will more than pay for itself. Such claims typically come from small demonstration projects started during the Kennedy and Nixon administrations. The modern research, despite being far more robust and relevant, doesn’t seem to matter as much to politicians. Similarly, soon after the federally funded Head Start Impact Study found basically no benefits in 2012, the Obama administration proposed increasing funding for Head Start, touting the program’s “success” and the “historic investments” that made it all possible. The research again mattered little.
Admittedly, pointing out the disconnect between research and advocacy these days seems almost trite. (Politician ignores data — story at 11!) But the debate over preschool contains some important lessons. The research suggests first and foremost that our ability to remediate inequality through social programs is limited. Even for children’s most formative years, the government struggles to develop policies that improve their long-term academic and behavioral outcomes. The debate over preschool also suggests that, for progressives, the conceit that government can do such things if only the right buttons are pushed and the right levers are pulled, is nigh unshakeable.