Funding pre-K is sound public policy

Ensuring that all children are entering kindergarten with the foundational academic skills they need to succeed is a priority for the Office of Early Learning and Development and aligns with the state’s goal of ensuring that all students are proficient in reading by the end of third grade. Early childhood education programs show promise toward this goal, contrary to Victor Joecks’ claim in his Jan. 8 ReviewJournal column that, “Pre-K has no effect — or a negative effect — on children’s cognitive and social behaviors.”

Research suggests that participation in a high-quality early childhood education program can enhance children’s development, reduce achievement gaps at kindergarten entry, and have longterm benefits for children’s school trajectories. However, access to high-quality pre-K in the United States remains quite low and highly unequal as a result of two issues.

First, although pre-K attendance has increased in the past two decades, rates of access to early education vary widely as a function of children’s socioeconomic backgrounds: African American, Hispanic and low-income children are less likely to use center-based early childhood education than their white and more affluent peers. Second, the quality of most early education programs — particularly those attended by low-income children of color — are not high enough to substantially improve academic readiness.

Child poverty is growing in the United States. Investing in comprehensive birth-to-five early childhood education is a powerful and cost-effective way to mitigate its negative consequences on child development and adult opportunity. Start at birth, coordinate services into comprehensive early childhood programs and achieve greater economic and social gains.

Economist James Heckman’s latest research, “The Lifecycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program,” shows that high-quality birth-to-five programs for disadvantaged children can deliver a 13 percent per year return on investment — a rate substantially higher than the 7 percent to 10 percent return previously established for preschool programs serving 3- to 4-year-olds.

Heckman and his colleagues — Jorge Luis García of the University of Chicago, Duncan Ermini Leaf of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at University of Southern California, and María José Prados of the Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research at University of Southern California — find that significant gains are realized through better outcomes in education, health, social behaviors and employment.

Nevada currently ranks 40th in the nation in funding invested in state pre-K. Thanks to Gov. Brian Sandoval and the Legislature making early childhood education a priority, many school districts and community-based programs have been able to expand access to quality pre-K for their children. These investments include the state match for our federal Preschool Development Grant, Senate Bill 405 (the Zoom program supporting our dual language learners), and Senate Bill 432 (the Victory program supporting underperforming schools in ZIP codes with the highest poverty).

Nevada’s state pre-K program has more than 15 years of data showed shrinking achievement gaps and positive long-term effects on the student academic skills into elementary school.

New evaluation projects will provide data for decision making and program accountability and indicate the success of these efforts. These projects include the evaluation of children who attend pre-K versus those who do not, program ratings and the kindergarten entry assessment to be implemented next fall.

This supports strong national and state research findings that expanding access to quality pre-K is sound public policy and what is best for Nevada’s children.