Parents, Taxpayers Deserve to Know if Preschool, Head Start Programs Work

Dan Lips / January 06, 2010

Writing in the Carolina Journal, John Hood of the John Locke Foundation takes up the story of the overdue report on the national Head Start evaluation:

For decades now, both liberal and not-so-liberal politicians in Washington and Raleigh have clung to the plausible and promising notion that spending tax money early on early childhood education can save money in the long run by boosting high-school graduation rates and reducing rates of future crime, joblessness, and welfare dependency.

The notion is plausible in part because some early laboratory experiments of preschool intervention demonstrated long-term benefits with a few dozen test subjects. And it’s promising because so many other attempts at improving the lives of disadvantaged students – ranging from in-school reforms to various public-assistance programs – have proven to cost more and deliver less than expected. (more…)