Answering Jay Mathews: Why Universal Pre-k?

Responding to a reader’s question, Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews asks about the benefits of universal pre-k, versus pre-k programs targeted only to low-income students. Here at Early Ed Watch, we believe there are a number of good reasons to support universal pre-k.

First, there is evidence that quality pre-k programs can produce learning gains for middle-class, as well as poor students. It’s true that the high-quality, randomized controlled trials that demonstrated long-term benefits to participation in high-quality pre-k programs focused on low-income students. But data from more recent evaluations of pre-k programs suggests that these programs also have benefits for middle-class children. For example, a Georgetown University study that looked at children in Oklahoma’s universal pre-k program found that all groups of students participating in the program, including middle class kids, made learning gains as a result, compared to students who didn’t. But the greatest gains were for low-income and otherwise at-risk students. Other studies looking at state pre-k programs have found similar results.

That leads to a second point: Research shows that pre-k programs can reduce the rate of later learning problems—such as special education placement, grade retention, and high school dropout—among at-risk students. But, while family income is a good indicator of risk, it’s not a perfect one. Middle class children may be less likely to be held back or drop out than low-income children, but middle class children account for a substantial percentage of students who are held back a grade, diagnosed with a disability, or who drop out of school. Because we can’t always know at 3- or 4-years-old which children are the most at risk here, extending effective interventions to more of them makes sense.

Third, critics of universal pre-k often argue that the government shouldn’t fund pre-k for non-poor children because “their families can afford it anyway.” But is that really true? Yes, poor children are less likely than non-poor children to go to pre-k. But a closer look at the data shows that a lot of working- and middle-class families can’t afford pre-k either. Research from the National Institute for Early Education Research shows that, currently, children from families with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 are actually less likely than poor children to attend pre-k, and children from families with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000 are no more likely than poor children to attend pre-k. It’s only after family income rises above $60,000 that we see a noticeable uptick in pre-k participation. Thus, if we want to help provide pre-k for children whose families can’t afford it, we should be subsidizing children from families with incomes of up to at least $60,000—not just poor kids.

Finally, we know that how much children learn in pre-k is influenced not just by their teachers, but by their peers. Disadvantaged children who come from home environments where they don’t get a lot of high-quality language stimulation and enter pre-k with weak vocabularies and language skills, can benefit from being exposed to the larger vocabularies and stronger language skills of their peers who do get a lot of language stimulation at home. Building a segregated system of Head Start for poor kids, state funded pre-k for low-income kids, and private nursery schools for middle-class and affluent kids would squander the opportunity to take advantage of these peer effects.

There are also practical reasons to opt for universal, rather than targeted, pre-k. Enforcing income requirements for pre-k participation places an added administrative burden on pre-k providers. Because family income often fluctuates over the course of a year, children may meet eligibility one month but not the next. Such requirements also unfairly penalize parents who get a raise at work, or begin earning additional income. And there are also issues of stigma from participating in a program for “poor kids.” Targeting pre-k programs by geography, rather than family income (for example, funding only pre-k providers located in predominantly low-income neighborhoods) can help address some, but not all, of these issues.

These are all good reasons to prefer universal to targeted pre-k. One reason that I don’t think is a good one is the commonly heard argument that universality is essential to ensure political support for pre-k over the long haul. The 2006 failure of California’s Proposition 82 universal pre-k referendum demonstrates why: Although many Californians voted for universal preschool, many more were concerned about the program’s projected costs and were skeptical about using public funds to finance preschool for affluent families. Middle class families with young children are only a small piece of the electorate.

But what I find the most compelling argument for a universal, rather than targeted, approach to pre-k, is the simple fact that we don’t restrict children’s access to K-12 education based on their parents’ incomes. Instead, K-12 public schools are free to everyone. Limiting publicly funded pre-k to low-income students sends the message—to parents, educators, policymakers and the general public—that pre-k is simply childcare help or charity, not real education. And once people start thinking of pre-k as something less than school, then it’s natural to expect lower quality. But, to achieve good results, publicly funded pre-k should meet quality standards that are just as high as, if not higher than, those of the public schools, whether it’s delivered by a public school, community-based provider, Head Start Center, or even in family home care. Moreover, casting pre-k as school can help support better alignment between pre-k programs and the elementary schools to which youngsters graduate after pre-k—essential for sustaining and building on early learning gains from pre-k. And perhaps most fundamentally, there’s no logical reason why a child’s education should become the state’s responsibility once he turns 5, but parents are on their own until then. Given what we know about children’s cognitive and social-emotional development, if anything we need to shift the balance in the other direction, so that the public provides more help to families when their kids are young, and less when they’re older.

Now, while in an ideal world I’d like to see public funding for universal pre-k, I realize that we live in a world of unlimited desires and limited resources, and given that reality, I strongly believe that states with limited funding should prioritize low-income kids for pre-k first. Further, if it comes down to a choice between more expensive, high-quality pre-k for poor kids, and lower quality, cheaper pre-k for everyone, policymakers should choose quality over quantity. But ultimately we should move towards a place where our investments in kids are such that we don’t need to make those trade-offs.