Will Congress Heed Evidence Government Preschool Is Worthless?

spectator.org

On the theory that more government programs can solve any public-education problem, bipartisan policymakers have embraced government-funded pre-K programs as the current fix. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act dangles multiple incentives, including new Preschool Development Grants, to coax states into taking more young children from their families and enrolling them in government preschool. Advocates claim the $7.6 billion spent on state pre-K programs will result in improved academic achievement and a multitude of societal benefits.

But a new study from the center-left think tank Brookings douses these claims with a splash of reality. The Brookings study analyzed each state’s level of enrollment in its government pre-K program and correlated that enrollment with scores, five years later, of the state’s fourth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The conclusion: “[I]ncreased investment in state pre-K… does not enhance student achievement meaningfully, if at all.”

The only positive correlation found between pre-K participation and later NAEP scores was a statistically insignificant association when the scores were adjusted for different demographics within states. Brookings found no association between general NAEP performance and having attended government-run pre-K, and no correlation between increases in pre-K-enrollment levels and increases in later NAEP scores.

“Under the most favorable scenario for state pre-K that can be constructed from these data,” the study concluded, “increasing pre-K enrollment by 10 percent would raise a state’s adjusted NAEP scores by a little less than one point five years later and have no influence on the unadjusted NAEP scores.”

For this, we’re spending $7.6 billion?