The Importance of Pre-K

During parent education, teacher conferences and staff meetings, the teachers and I have all discussed the importance of pre-K education. This year, more than ever, parents everywhere have understood how important it is for children to be with other children, learning, playing and growing.

This week, long-term study results were released by the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative by the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This week, I wanted to do something a bit different by sharing the salient points of the study in the blog, which highlights and justifies further the work being done by schools’ such as ours. These results are also timely with the renewed discussion of Universal Pre-K that is happening in our country.

In this study, children entered a public pre-school in Boston through a lottery system and were tracked through high school for long-term outcomes.They saw that the children who were enrolled in a pre-K program were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college. Interestingly, the short-term impact on test scores was minimal. However, the greatest impact was on student behavior.

The study for us shows the importance in pre-K education more for the intangible benefits it will provide later in life, beyond test scores and “academics”. A one-page summary of the study can be found below, as well as a link for the entire study for those interested.

Full Study