Anya Kamenetz of National Public Radio reported a new study of pre-K that reached surprising results. Most policymakers who support the expansion of early childhood education expect that it gives young children an early start with academics and leads later to narrowing of the achievement gap between different groups of children. But that’s not what this study found.
Kamenetz wrote:
Dale Farran has been studying early childhood education for half a century. Yet her most recent scientific publication has made her question everything she thought she knew.
“It really has required a lot of soul-searching, a lot of reading of the literature to try to think of what were plausible reasons that might account for this.”
And by “this,” she means the outcome of a study that lasted more than a decade. It included 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee who applied to free, public prekindergarten programs. Some were admitted by lottery, and the others were rejected, creating the closest thing you can get in the real world to a randomized, controlled trial — the gold standard in showing causality in science.
Farran and her co-authors at Vanderbilt University followed both groups of children all the way through sixth grade. At the end of their first year, the kids who went to pre-K scored higher on school readiness — as expected.
But after third grade, they were doing worse than the control group.And at the end of sixth grade, they were doing even worse. They had lower test scores, were more likely to be in special education, and were more likely to get into trouble in school, including serious trouble like suspensions.
“Whereas in third grade we saw negative effects on one of the three state achievement tests, in sixth grade we saw it on all three — math, science and reading,” says Farran. “In third grade, where we had seen effects on one type of suspension, which is minor violations, by sixth grade we’re seeing it on both types of suspensions, both major and minor.”
Farran is rethinking her own preconceptions about what constitutes high quality pre-K.
Low-income children get programs that are regimented and prescriptive, highly disciplined and controlled. Affluent children, however, are usually in play-based schools, where they learn socialization skills, art, music, and make decisions. For poor kids, school is drill and practice. For their affluent peers, it’s fun.
Farran says that pre-K is not a magic bullet thatproduces miraculous results.
She concludes:
We might actually get better results, she says, from simply letting little children play.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m sure its no secret to anyone reading this blog but why do we always try to reinvent the wheel. Are young children in Tennessee really that different from Finish children? How about this seems to be working why not try that? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-schools-play-europe-top-education-system-finland-daycare
Yes! I read about Finland’s style of teaching, many, many years ago. Seems we prefer to keep beating our heads agains a wall, while we stick pencils in babies hands and drill, drill, drill!
AMEN! Let the children play. Free the children!! Society will never be just if it doesn’t foster and protect the natural and true needs of its children.
We are fools to not “let kids be kids”. . . without constant supervision depending upon the age.
Maybe the name should be changed from “pre-K to free-floating.
Pre anything usually implies “prep”, which in today’s schools implies prep for tests.
Not free floating, free-play
Autocorrect strikes again!
Thanks for posting this.
I’m not understanding what is supposed to be the great mystery here. Give poor kids additional supports early on (in the form of preK), and there are improvements for a time. But then, over time, with less in the way of additional support (in the form of wrap-around services), the gains are overtaken by the issues endemic to living in poverty, like stress at home, inability to afford proper eyeglasses and medical care, food insecurity, etc.
Ofc, it should be obvious that very young children need nurturing and play and the socialization that comes with these. But I don’t think that this is the knock-down argument for that. As is often the case with studies in education, there are too many significant and uncontrolled-for determining factors in play. To call such studies “scientific” is laughable.
And, among these factors, is that this study once again, like so many others, relies upon state standardized test scores as the measure of achievement–scores on tests that are invalid, extraordinarily crude measures, especially in reading/ELA. See this:
Yes, I do recognize that the study discusses some other measures, as well, such as retention and frequency of disciplinary action. But again, does anyone actually doubt that there are other determining factors involved? Seriously?
The real issue is poverty. And this is getting dramatically worse right now, as food prices and apartment rents SOAR.
Ofc, there’s never been a better time for sellers of luxury goods. You name it: It’s a great time to be selling yachts, watches that cost $400K and up, $10,000-dollar handbags, $500-dollar scarves:
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/10/21/2317973/0/en/Herm%C3%A8s-International-3rd-quarter-2021-sales.html
Ofc the real issue is poverty, but ALL small children deserve to learn through play in a safe and nurturing environment free of “demands”. There is a published study that speaks in our favor for once. Can we just be allowed to revel in the glory for one small moment?
Point well taken, Lisa.
I see what you mean, Lisa. You are right that the study compares poor kids in the program with poor kids who didn’t get into it. My apologies!!!
Evidently, the full study will not be available until 01/10/2023.
And this came out several weeks ago. Did you actually read it? They were comparing poor kids with other poor kids. Those that won the lottery for preK and those that didn’t. An apples to apples study that showed the bad effects of a structured learning environment on poor children compared to children in some kind of unstructured/ home based environment. Teacher Tom was all over it.
I will read the study. Thanks for this, Lisa.
And here is an article about the HeadStart program in PG Co MD that lost millions in grant $$$$ because of the abuse of poor children. I know it’s from 2016 but this happens more often than one would think in PreK settings where employees are untrained, overworked and underpaid. Not gonna lie….I’m not a fan of “structured” PreK or even full day Kindergarten.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/prince-georges-county-head-start-program-loses-6-5-m-grant-after-federal-investigation/152794/
!!!!!!
Headstart hired many parents and for them, it was a jobs program. They were uncertified and paid less than regular teachers. Headstart’s biggest flaw was its reliance on untrained, uncertified teachers. The Tennessee study had certified teachers.
How do you define poverty, not having as much as someone else or not having enough?
Not having enough to meet basic necessities–food, shelter, healthcare, a living wage, clean water, a decent school, clothing and shoes and books for the kids.
Met a 3 y.o. hanging in the corridor outside one of these “worksheet” preschool classrooms. He had turned the hallway water 💦 fountain into a water table. Floating tiny, folded, paper boats 🚤 across the waves and the spray.
When I inquired into his work, he replied, “I’m not going back into that damn place. You can’t make me.” I told him to pace himself and time it out so that he returned just BEFORE they came looking for him. He stared back at me in grim agreement.
Here, the full force of developmentally inappropriate hit at 2nd grade. Rage and fury in full bloom at an educational childhood stolen by adults expert at their technologized form of Jim Crow curriculum.
exactly
That’s a fierce 3 year old stating, “I’m not going back into that damn place.” Have to say it made me giggle reading it.
The “bubble strategy” speaks volumes. (yes, pun intended)
It’s all about control – – and this is what a majority (not all) of charter schools proudly advertise to parents in the guise of “a safe school” well beyond preK… until the student misbehaviors accumulate and parents are “counseled” they might want to enroll their child elsewhere.
As for academic effects of preK — this study validates what we knew (with data) in the ’90s.
Let them play!
“Let them play, run wild and free!” Please teach Kinder for a full academic year, and tell me that again like you really mean it. Play is extremely important, but in a school setting, there has to be boundaries and children need to learn how to play with others; especially after the lockdowns due to the pandemic. For the last couple of years, many children have not had the opportunity to interact with other students, and appreciate the value of cooperation and being respectful. What about the parent factor? In more affluent families it would seem parents spend more time with their children (and/or provide tutoring as well). The transition from primary to upper grade elementary is a difficult one, regardless, but I wonder if there’s any research that shows the effect of quality time spent with family members (and without devices) as a factor in student success.
No one is suggesting just letting them run free and do whatever. No one. Straw man argument.
What you describe is socialization – and yes, play is part of it. They learn by interacting.
Watch a playground – for hours.
There are boundaries and kids figure things out – they navigate and negotiate – they solve issues – all with adults watching closely and teachable moments.
Drill – skill – bubble tests – bubbly mouths – silence – “good and bad” etc. is not what a 4 year old needs – rural – suburban – urban
yes, yes, yes
Stopping by School on a Disruptive Afternoon
after decades of test-driven education “reform”
Whose schools these are, I think I know.
His house is near Seattle though.
He will not see me stopping here
to watch what kids now undergo.
My better angels think it queer
to see a place so void of cheer
what with the tests and data chats,
the data walls with children’s stats.
Where are the joys of yesterday—
when kids would draw and sing and play?
The only sound I hear’s defeat
and pencils on the bubble sheets.
Disrupters say, unflappable,
“We’re building Human Capital!”
Such word goes out from their think tanks,
as they their profits build and bank.
“Music, stories, art, and play
won’t teach Prole children to obey
with servile, certain, gritful grace
and know their rightful, lowly place.”
The fog is heavy, dark and deep.
Where thinking tanks, Deformers creep
and from our children childhood steal
and grind them underneath the wheel.
Wonderful, Bob. This is why there is an exception in copyright law for derivative works.
Kind of you to say, Mark. Much appreciated.
For the last couple of years, many children have not had the opportunity to interact with other students, and appreciate the value of cooperation and being respectful.
Well observed!
Rhee Ali Tee-
“without devices”-
Tech tyrants like Bill Gates spend massive amounts of money to shape and steer public education (schools funded by main street’s dollars not the dollars of the rich). Predators from Silicon Valley and Wall Street will never promote less technology, they are driven by opportunities to profit off of children.
These results are not surprising. My diverse district implemented a Reading Recovery program for first graders that were deemed “at risk.” Reading Recovery is an intensive reading program administered individually. At first the results were terrific. What was found was diminishing gains over time. By third grade these students were in the bottom quartile of their class for reading scores. By middle school these students remained in the bottom quartile, and these students were even lower in the bottom quartile of reading scores.
What these students had in common was poverty. It is difficult try to overcome it. School is an even greater challenge for them when the program makes more cognitive demands on them in middle school. Poor children do not have the same nutritional, experiential and language base as middle class students. They often do not have access to books or technology and as much parental support as middle class students. Their disadvantages generally weigh these young people down and inhibit their learning.
Not surprised. As an undergrad College of Ed student at Temple in the early 60s, I recall the same result in one of the professional course we took. I don’t recall the rationale, but I’m left to believe that the problem is continued poverty as a life experience. I don’t know why academics has to be the main focus in Kindergarten. Play is the answer for children to learn how to interact with others. Goodness knows this is what we need most today and it starts as early as possible. Just because the upwardly striving white collar parent is so happy to tell others that their child can read at 2 or 3, doesn’t mean every child has to do that. Children living in a culture of poverty certainly need the safety and sustenance of school, including preschool. We have a very good friend who is the principal of a Kindergarten. My wife and I have visited it, a lot of fun to do. She says they believe that children need to be free, to play, and they do. It’s easy to agree with that. At the same time, Japanese mother’s are expected to teach their children how to read Katakana, one of the written forms of Japanese, before they enter school. We are not Japanese.
Children living in a culture of poverty certainly need the safety and sustenance of school, including preschool.
Amen
Here’s another article on the same study in Psychology today. Let’s hope that this study causes people to rethink what early ed should be. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/202105/the-case-against-universal-preschool
For all children, but especially for the one for whom learning to read is going to be difficult, early learning must be a safe and joyful experience. Many of our students, in this land in which nearly a third live in dire poverty, come to school not ready, physically or emotionally or linguistically, for the experience. They have spent their short lives hungry or abused. They lack proper eyeglasses. They have had caretakers who didn’t take care because they were constantly teetering on one precipice or another, often as a result of our profoundly inequitable economic system. Many have almost never had an actual conversation with an adult. They are barely articulate in the spoken language and thus not ready to comprehend written language, which is merely a means for encoding a spoken one. They haven’t been read to. They haven’t put on skits for Mom and Dad and the Grandparents. They don’t have a bookcase in their room, if they have a room, brimming with Goodnight, Moon; A Snowy Day; Red Fish, Blue Fish; Thomas the Tank Engine; The Illustrated Mother Goose; and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. They haven’t learned to associate physical books with joy and closeness to people who love them. In the ambient linguistic environment in which they reached school age, they have heard millions fewer total numbers of words and tens of thousands fewer unique lexemes than have kids from more privileged homes, and they have been exposed to much less sophisticated syntax. Some, when they have been spoken to at all by adults, have been spoken to mostly in imperatives. Such children desperately need compensatory environments in which spoken interactions and reading are rich, rewarding, joyful experiences. If a child is going to learn to read with comprehension, he or she must be ready to do so, physically, emotionally, and linguistically (having become reasonably articulate in a spoken language). Learning to read will be difficult for many kids, easy for others. And often the difficulty will have nothing to do with brain wiring and everything to do with the experiences that the child has had in his or her short life. In this, as well as in brain wiring, kids differ, as invariant “standards” do not. They need one-on-one conversations with adults who care about them. They need exposure to libraries and classroom libraries filled with enticing books. Kids need to be read to. They need story time. They need jump-rope rhymes and nursery rhymes and songs and jingles. They need social interaction and socialization in safe environments, using spoken language. They need books that are their possessions, objects of their own. They need to memorize and enact. And so on. They need fun with language generally and with reading in particular. They need the experiences that many never got.
How about we’re still looking in the wrong place! The most important early education is at home…before children go to any program–public or private. At home, where parents or grandparents or foster parents or whoever is caring for children get to speak to them, read to them, sing to them, play with them. Etc. As I see it, that 1995 study which found a 30 million word gap (even if the numbers don’t hold up–the reality does) between poor and rich children by the time they go to school–that is where we should put our money, focus, love, and care. Preschool is too late– Why is our government still focused on more programs? Why not on helping parents be the child’s best first teachers?
If we want to make a meaningful difference in the lives of poor students, we should make the child tax credit permanent. Education cannot compensate for basic needs. It takes money!
Too many poor children live in homes with a single mother who works in a low wage job. Our tax laws give billionaires all types of tax write-offs including the cost of private jets. We need to improve the health and well-being of our most vulnerable students and invest in the schools they attend. Then, perhaps we will see a positive difference.
we should make the child tax credit permanent
YES!!!!
We can’t make sure that our nation isn’t full of hungry children, but we can ensure that there are Teslas in space and that Bezos has a yacht the size of a small European country.
Well, because parents need to get their butts back to work! And, then get their butts to their second or third job!
Let the children play. Let them explore. Let them have hands on experiences…in and outside the classroom. Let them socialize with their peers. Let them hear good childrens’ literature read well. Let them build and have opportunities to use their vocabulary. Teachers of early childhood should provide the materials and experiences. They should be guides and observers. EC teachers should not be standing over children taking copious notes and having children do pen and pencil assessments. Watch each child blossom at their own pace. Some children may need intervention, but they need time to grow, learn and have fun.
Yes, yes, yes! Well said!
Well said. One of the reasons early assessments are inaccurate is because children are not widgets. They develop at their own pace. Sometimes, late bloomers turn out to be good students. Einstein was a late talker, but he was super bright. We need to let the little ones discover the world on their own terms. https://medium.com/all-things-motherhood/is-your-child-a-late-talker-1040c4bcdc0a
On the other hand, as long as SCORES
are used to maintain/refresh
“brand equity”, the potential to
END the test score
“bag of tricks” remains unchecked.
Then again, if you’ve been
score proofed (score based avatar),
score based certification,
captured by the score based bamboozle,
is it simply too painful to acknowledge,
that you’ve been taken?
Once you give SCORES power over you,
you almost never get it back.
One concern that i have with this article is the way it was written. I am afraid that, if you only read the first couple paragraphs, it will become fodder for people who don’t believe in early childhood programs or are too stingy to pay for them. I felt like the first 5 paragraphs were a tease to get liberals riled up so they would keep reading to the main point which is that there is a huge gap in pre-k quality and poor kids get the short end of it.. so much so that these poor quality programs do damage when compared to kids who got nothing.
Rather than a journalistic tease, I would have much preferred a more direct statement about the point of the article – Heckman’s research that investment in early childhood is still incredibly impactful, but it can’t just be table scraps.
Yep!
Funny how every affluent kid I know has some sort of 4 year old “school” experience.
Anyone remember the 92nd Street Y pre-school scandal where some hedge funder got in trouble for making a huge donation to get his twins admitted?
If this study was legit, it would have also seen if affluent students who didn’t have any schooling at all under they entered Kindergarten were better off than those who did.
But then again, any study would have to FIND a group of affluent students who remained at home with their parent or caregiver and were never dropped off for any formal preschool at all.
Such study would have to find affluent kids whose first day of being separated from their parent or caregiver for any school did not happen until the first day of school.
I suspect once the actual study is released, there will be a lot of flaws in how it was done.
And no one said universal pre-k should not be play! It should be the same type of introduction to schooling that every affluent parent pays for their kid to have.
I suspect the comparison is kids who got chosen for universal pre-k to kids who didn’t, but those who did not included many who paid for private pre-k.
My daughter and her husband met at Stanford where they graduated, and they live near Stanford today, years later. When their first child, a boy, turned three during the pandemic, they enrolled him in a private preschool (pre K) that focuses on EQ, play and social interaction, not academics and test taking.
I think academic, obsessed test focused pre-schools that target children that live in poverty are just more racist divisive moves from the fascist extreme right OR greedy corporations hell bent to profit off of everything in site including the public sector.
IQ tests measure your ability to solve problems, use logic, and grasp or communicate complex ideas. This is no different than high stakes tests to prove nothing and get in the way of real learning.
EQ tests measure your ability to recognize emotion in yourself and others, and to use that awareness to guide your decisions.
Another day, another litany of the outrageous, expensive, extensive, abusive, failed practices in many of our public schools. But let’s not have ANY discussion of how we could design a legitimate form of public school reform and choice, with funding that follows the student, and allows families to escape this insanity and abuse.
Many comments here bemoan the absence of play, but Waldorf and Montessori schools have been practicing sound, child centered education for a century. Some of us remember experiencing public school before the obsession with fake tests, phony “accountability,” and “targeted” “help” replacing art, music, gym and recess.
Diane’s other post this morning is about Mayor Bloomberg’s takeover of NYC schools in 2003, his lack of success, and the desire of many parents now to reinstate a school board. All of which reminds me of the leaky roofs, asbestos, mold, violence, educational failures and “Death at an Early Age” accounts that preceded Bloomberg’s failed reforms.
However, considering how a JUST system of school choice might be developed–as opposed to the current usurpation of the concept–is verboten here. Apparently the present state of educational child abuse is not that bad after all.
(Cue the echo chamber to shout “liar”, “troll”, “agenda”, “disingenuous” etc. etc.)
And what choice model has produced excellence for all the students as opposed to a small number of them? So far, choice has given us a lot of stories of success, but more of schools choosing who might succeed as opposed to the advancement of general success.
Roy, I agree completely. And your second sentence brings to mind public schools and districts (from NYC to my local rural district) who do the same thing: choose who gets into certain schools and programs.
Agree 100%. People wouldn’t have to seek a “choice” for their children if the public system returned to a child centered environment. The standardized testing industry is the Hydra to be killed….do that and the rest will fall into place.
The original concept of the charter school is that it would be an alternative program WITHIN the school, granted a charter for a time to pursue an innovative pedagogical and/or curricular concept on a trial basis.
Do you follow this blog? Have you seen what happens with vouchers and “choice” . . . lots of corruption . . . not a lot of stellar results.
We need a free, public (and like others have said) child centered, well staffed and funded system – run by professionals who care about children, child development, learning, education and the greater society.
What we don’t need is to treat professional teachers and young children as pawns in a game to funnel $$ to private interests.
Also, could the common contributing problem of both parents having to work, and single parents working 2 or 3 jobs– thus not being able to act as parents–have anything to do with the phenomenal wealth of our present day titans of industry???
This wealth comes NOT from their inventions, but DIRECTLY and PRIMARILY from working families via two other sources: corrupt tax laws and usurping MUCH more than their share of what their workers produce. Readers may remember that until recently it was official Walmart policy to advise their workers to apply for welfare in order to improve their compensation.
I do agree that overworked parents is not helping the situation.
And how could we forget the wonderful Jeff Bozo, who was lauded for raising his workers to $15/hr!! ….yet still has money to build spaceships!
I don’t normally dive into the comments section, but I am confused by the stance of one of the commenters above.
Mark I find your support of school choice in light of your other statements pretty surprising…
– the wealthy don’t pay enough back to society – I agree
– the wealthy don’t pay enough to their own employees – I agree
– liberals avoid talking about how bad things were before the current reform movement – I agree
… and then
– funding that follows the student – I don’t see how this helps unless that funding were adjusted for the student’s needs… and even then it troubles me.
At the moment we have a market place of charters and other non-neighborhood schools like magnets that are all vying for the easiest kids. Difficult kids either get screened out or run out – leaving the neighborhood schools with the most challenges and a total lack of resources to meet their needs. Try recruiting or nurturing a great team of neighborhood school teachers with those headwinds.
If we were going to provide truly adequate funding for each student’s needs that would help the neighborhood schools tremendously and maybe reverse the market forces where charters seek out the easiest kids.
So I am willing to have the conversation about ways that market forces could work. But the cynic in me could see the market shift to mining data about the kids so that “smart” charter operators figure out which kids are over priced for their needs and seek them out, or worse figure out ways to skimp on services for those kids. I am left with the idea that not everything needs a market to fix it. Schools just need better funding and a more sane approach to accountability, probably not unlike what what rich people’s schools have.
Regimented, pencil and paper, test-oriented approaches are highly inappropriate – play is the work of children. A high quality program would recognize this.
Politics is a major problem in that it is very reactionary and attempts to solve problems from an adult point of view. We need to get politics (and religion) out of public education.
It seems logical to realize that those children who started receiving such a stifling, inappropriate education at such a young age are much more likely to react negatively as they get older and wiser (yes, wiser).
“Play is the work of children” – yes!
“We might actually get better results, she says, from simply letting little children play.” My wife (MEd) and I, preschool and kindergarten teachers for many years, have been saying just this for decades! The damage of demanding academic performance too early is especially seen with our boys.
Mr. Rogers said it best; for children, play is learning. My apologies to Mr. Rogers for paraphrasing.
Not surprised by this study – but so happy it’s being reported and read.
No duh Sherlock. This is not new. Early childhood educators have long called such academic programs as developmentally inappropriate (DIP). Play programs have been shown time after time to be developmentally appropriate (DAP), Dippy fits the academic programs to a t.
Dale Farran was on my radio show/podcast talking about her study here: https://talk-out-of-school.simplecast.com/episodes/a-conversation-with-dr-dale-farran-pre-k-study-and-design The scary thing is that in NYC, DOE is absorbing more and more early childhood programs, which could put pressure on these programs to become more academic in focus.