社区黑料

New York City鈥檚 popular 3-K-for-All program was supposed to offer free preschool to all of the city鈥檚 3-year-olds. But last fall, Mayor Eric Adams鈥檚 administration tabled plans to continue expanding the program, suggesting that when it came to early education, helping low-income families would be the city鈥檚 priority moving forward. 鈥淲here we do have limited resources, we鈥檙e going to focus those on the communities and the families that tend to get locked out of opportunities,鈥� the first deputy schools chancellor told the New York Times.

The tension between 3K-for-All鈥檚 ambitious goal and its political and economic realities underscores a central question facing every fledgling public preschool program: Should the program be 鈥渦niversal鈥� 鈥� available to all 鈥� or 鈥渢argeted鈥� to the families who need it most?

in the peer-reviewed empirical microeconomics-focused Journal of Human Resources has a ready answer: Preschool programs reserved for poor children aren鈥檛 nearly as effective as universal ones.

Elizabeth Cascio, the study鈥檚 author and an economist at Dartmouth College, was once among the many who suspected that targeted preschool programs offered the most learning bang for the buck. In 2013, Cascio and the economist Diane Schanzenbach of Oklahoma and Georgia鈥檚 preschool programs which found that the universal programs had a significant, positive impact for disadvantaged children. It did not have an impact for children from higher-income families, who would have otherwise likely been enrolled in private preschool paid for by their parents. For those families, the free program acted mostly as a cash transfer, said Cascio. 鈥淚n the conclusion, we were really tempted to say, why don鈥檛 we just do this in a targeted way, because you can get the same results with lower costs?鈥� she remembered.

But there was one big, potential caveat to that recommendation: Targeted preschool programs made the most financial sense unless 鈥� for some reason 鈥� the wildly positive results for children from lower-income families depended on the programs being open to families of all economic strata.

To test whether that was the case, Cascio used survey data from the national Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to compare test scores of thousands of 4-year-olds in more than 30 states, some which offered targeted state preschool programs, others universal, yet others none. Across the board, poor children in states where preschool programs also welcomed children from other economic backgrounds showed far better reading test score gains when they became eligible for and enrolled in public preschool than children in states with programs targeted to disadvantaged children. This held true even when Cascio adjusted for factors such as class size, spending per pupil, teacher training and education in the state programs, as well as children鈥檚 alternate care arrangements. Effects on math scores were also higher for disadvantaged children in states with universal programs, though not high enough to be deemed significant.

With such pronounced, positive effects in universal programs, Cascio determined that the universal programs were also more cost effective. Universal programs 鈥渃ost more overall鈥� because they serve more children, said Cascio, but their return 鈥渋s more per dollar spent.鈥�

The key takeaway? To reap the greatest positive benefits for children from low-income families, explained Cascio in a phone interview, 鈥測ou have to pay for the kids who aren鈥檛 disadvantaged.鈥�

The study was not able to determine why, exactly, the universal programs worked so much better, but Cascio and other researchers have offered possible explanations. Universal preschool programs may be operated or designed in ways that focus more on kindergarten readiness, leading to higher test scores, said Cascio in a phone interview.

Alternately, higher income families generally have not only more social capital, but sometimes a heightened sense of entitlement, which could prompt them to hold programs more accountable, leading to higher quality. 鈥淢aybe higher income parents feel more like their voices will be heard and are sort of more empowered to make their opinions known and have the privilege to do it,鈥� said Cascio.

Or it may be that mixing children from different economic backgrounds鈥揺ven if only slightly different鈥搃s key. Economic integration has been found to be beneficial for older children鈥檚 learning, but there is scant research on economic integration among young children, largely due to a lack of opportunity to study it. Because most early education is private, programs typically segregate by what parents can afford. But research has been able to establish that higher skill sets in preschoolers strongly correlate with higher income families. And in preschool, kids learn as much, if not more, from playing and interacting with each other as they do from teachers 鈥� what researchers call 鈥渢he peer effect.鈥� It goes to reason, then, that in economically mixed classrooms, the skills of more economically privileged children can influence other kids, potentially leading to the higher test scores. In other words, paying for those kids鈥� presence might be what makes universal programs so effective.

Whatever the reason, the finding that universal programs are both more impactful and cost efficient than targeted programs flies in the face of decades of policy assumptions and decisions in the U.S. Historically, most government funding for early education has targeted economically disadvantaged families, with the idea being that affluent families already pay for preschool.聽As the historian Elizabeth Rose details in her book The Promise of Preschool, ever since President Richard Nixon vetoed a national plan for universal child care in 1971, Americans grew used to the idea that preschool should be paid for privately. This led to 鈥渟tronger political support for using public dollars for low-income children聽who clearly 鈥榥eed鈥� it than for building a bigger and more expensive system,鈥� wrote Rose.

This, in turn, helped to cement economic segregation during the early years, which some researchers believe has only fueled the achievement gap between children from low- and higher income families 鈥� a gap which arises long before children step foot in kindergarten. 鈥淚t is exciting to think that a [universal preschool program] could address that,鈥� said Cascio.

Universal programs also have other benefits鈥搃n many places, they鈥檝e increased mothers鈥� participation in the workforce and generated significant tax revenue. But in the absence of federal funding, state and city leaders continue to face tough choices as they struggle to foot the bill for truly universal programs.

Cascio鈥檚 research should tip the scales, the economist Diane Schanzenbach said back in 2017, when Cascio revealed the study鈥檚 early findings in a working paper. Given the research, Schanzenbach , 鈥淚 think this means we have to support universal pre-k programs, and the large price tags that go along with them.鈥�