Kirp on Preschool

Education Sector senior non-resident fellow David Kirp published two articles of note recently. One uses new research to suggest that early-childhood education is even more important than you might have thought, while the other uses Illinois as a case study of the many political obstacles to achieving it.

In "After the Bell Curve," published in last weekend's New York Times Magazine, Kirp brings new research about heredity and environment to bear on the long-running debate about nature and nurture. Several studies of low-income twins and adopted children have complicated the conventional wisdom that I.Q. is almost solely a function of genetic—it appears that for poor children, the detrimental developmental impact of poverty can overwhelm heredity and prevent those children from reaching their genetically-determined intelligence potential. In other words, "how genes are expressed depends on the social context" and "if heredity defines the limits of intelligence, experience largely determines whether those limits will be reached."

Kirp notes, for example, that the average 4-year-old growing up poor has heard a total of 32 million fewer spoken words than the child of professionals. Such a language-poor environment is a serious setback to realization of intellectual potential. Kirp argues that early-childhood education, namely universal preschool, is the way to create a stimulating environment for all children to help them "max out" their I.Q.

In "Sandbox Cum Laude," published in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Kirp and Donna Leff examine the state of preschool education in Illinois in light of Governor Rod Blagojevich's new "Preschool for All" initiative. The article spotlights several successful state- and district-funded pre-K programs for at-risk tots and reviews the research that supports high-quality preschool as a sound investment, such as estimates that the economic return to society of preschool programs is between $7.14 and $17.07 for every dollar invested. But implementation of the Illinois initiative hasn't always been smooth, and several issues remain unresolved, including whether this expensive project will continue to be supported by a governor accused by an opponent of having "policy attention deficit disorder," how it will incorporate existing federally and locally funded preschool programs, and how it will function in an era of high-stakes testing and accountability.

-Laura Boyce