SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Being Thankful for Small Mercies

Wondering how likely current proposals to expand free early education are to yield positive results, Elizabeth U. Cascio took advantage of an unusual historical phenomenon to study the long-term effects of universal kindergarten programs. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, many American states began to offer kindergarten for the first time, leading to dramatic increases in kindergarten enrollment over a very short period. Dr, Cascio decided to look into whether the cohorts who had access to kindergarten did better than the cohorts who had not. She examined some key outcomes for both groups, including high school dropout rates; earnings; public assistance receipt; completion of some post-secondary education; employment; and incarceration. 

It turns out that the kindergarten cohort did exactly the same as the non-kindergarten cohort - except for two small effects (white children were 2.5% less likely to drop out and 22% less likely to be incarcerated). There were no positive effects whatsoever for black students. 

In the researcher’s words, “Though there are clear limits to the generalizability of these findings, they do provide some tentative lessons for policymakers. On one hand, the higher rates of preschool participation among children today suggest that any positive long-term effects of extending universal public schooling to four-year-olds may be even smaller than those estimated here for kindergarten. On the other hand, the universal preschool programs being proposed today have a more academic orientation than kindergarten has had, and may therefore have larger impacts on long-term well-being…“

However, in contrast to the Americans’ approach to academically-oriented preschool programs, the full-day kindergarten programs currently being envisaged in Ontario do NOT have a more academic orientation - meaning that there is no counter-balancing hopeful element for Ontario children. It seems highly likely that full-day kindergarten will have little or no effect on student outcomes.

At least we can take some comfort from the fact that universal kindergarten didn’t actually worsen outcomes.