A new study was recently released about the academic benefits of pre-K. It directly refutes the Trump administration’s determination to demolish Headstart.

Elizabeth Heubeck and Jennifer Vilcarino wrote in Education Week about a new study of pre-K:

The study asked and answered this question: Does pre-K give kids a lasting academic boost?

This question has plagued early education researchers for years, yielding widely mixed results. Some studies show decidedly positive outcomes, others find that initial benefits fade by 3rd grade, and still others show worse academic outcomes for children who attended pre-K over peers who didn’t.

Findings from the latest study to examine this question, conducted by Florida International University and George Mason University researchers and published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, boosted the case for public pre-K attendance. It found that poor children in a large urban community in the Southeastern United States who attended public school pre-K performed better academically in 3rd grade than their peers who attended either center-based care or family childcare as 4-year-olds.

“The take-home point is that kids who went to public school pre-K do better in 3rd grade compared to those who went to center-based care, who did better than those who went to family childcare,” said Adam Winsler, a professor in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University and an author of the study.

These latest findings come at a pivotal time for early education. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle many of the regulations that guide Head Start, the decades-old federally funded program serving over 700,000 low-income children from birth through 5, and to cap individual programs’ administrative budgets at 5%, down from 15%. At the same time, several states are pushing to increase access to publicly funded preschool or have already done so.

Given the current spotlight on preschool, policymakers and district officials are eager to understand the effects of pre-K on students long-term—especially as they pertain to children from lower-income families, whom researchers say have the most to gain from early formal education. While there doesn’t seem to be any clear path to long-term academic success, this and other related studies offer clues to a path forward. 

Study background and findings

This study collected information between 2002 and 2007 on an estimated 30,000 students, mostly from low-income households, in Florida. Among the students, 60% were Latino, 33% were Black, and 7% identified as white/other. A partnership with the Miami-Dade County public schools allowed the researchers to access data on academic outcomes in 3rd grade from 4-year-olds who had attended either public pre-K, family childcare in a provider’s home, or center-based care.

Students who attended public pre-K had higher GPAs and scored better on 3rd grade reading and math tests. Also, pre-K attendees were 35% less likely to be retained in 3rd grade than those who attended family childcare. Researchers did not evaluate behavioral outcomes.