HUFFINGTON
08.26.12
SMART START?
problems later in life. This idea has
become commonplace in the world
of educational studies, but that
wasn’t always the case. Until recently, the mind of the young child
was as obscure as a distant galaxy.
People who believed in the importance of preschool had little hard
evidence to back up their convictions. The field is still a “frontier,”
as one advocate put it, but advances
in brain science and data collection
have made it possible to venture
far deeper into this frontier than
ever before. Some scientists now
test the brains of young children for
cortisol, a hormone associated with
stress that is believed to interfere
with normal brain development.
Others slow down videos of infants
to the point that every little eyelid
flutter, every twitch of the lip can
be coded and interpreted.
As a result of these advances and
discoveries, and of the advocacy
groups that promote them, many
states around the country have
taken it upon themselves to provide
preschool services for free. To gain
the political support they need, the
architects of these programs have
argued that preschool helps not
only poor people, but people in general. They cite the work of the economist James Heckman, invariably
mentioning his Nobel Prize before
noting that, according to his recent
research, every $1 invested in preschool turns into $7 to $9 when the
program’s graduates complete their
education and start contributing to
the economy. Advocates also point
out that many state programs actually improve the quality of private
childcare by requiring hybrid centers like Ms. Sabrena’s to meet a
set of statewide standards in all of
their classrooms, public and private. And they make the case that
every kid in a public-school class
benefits when the teacher doesn’t
have to spend hours dealing with
complex cases like Nawal’s.
Last spring, Steve Barnett, the
head of the National Institute for
Early Education Research at Rutgers University, released a report
Kate
Gallagher is
the director
of the
preschool at
Frank Porter
Graham Child
Development
Institute.