If you’re a 4-year-old in America, it’s a safe bet you’re in school, writes USA Today’s Greg Toppo, who describes “a quiet but steady rise in the number of children in preschool” over the past two decades.
The most recent federal statistics show that more than 1 million children were enrolled in public programs in 2005, up 63% from 1995. Forty percent of four-year-olds are enrolled in public programs; 35% privately, USA Today reports. Only one in four do not attend preschool at all. “It’s what we do with children now,” says Joan Lord of the Southern Regional Education Board.
“What’s behind the increase? A bigger share of working mothers and a shift in thinking: States increasingly finance preschool programs, citing research that says kids are ready for school at an earlier age,” writes Toppo, who himself cites a RAND Corp. study out today describing “a growing body of research that shows funding pre-K pays off in the long run, saving money by reducing social services later in life and by increasing tax revenue from higher earnings when students grow up.”
That study, “The Economics of Early Childhood Policy: What the Dismal Science Has to Say About Investing in Children” is available here. RAND’s press release is here.
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