Here's what preschool advocates will always tell you -- early education is the most effective way to close the achievement gap, changing the arc of children's lives. The advocates are right: I wrote a book, The Sandbox Investment, that demonstrates that these small miracles do happen.
But here's what doesn't get said nearly as often -- to have this kind of impact, preschool has to be really good, with a well-trained teacher, a small class and materials that enable kids to become little explorers. If a teacher doesn't have a clue about how kids think and feel -- if she's winging it -- then early education becomes glorified babysitting. In the worst instances, children may actually be worse off from the experience, having learned only that they must be aggressive if they're going to survive.
The critical importance of giving kids high-quality early education is what underlies the Obama Administration's new initiative to strengthen Head Start, the $8 billion federal program for nearly one million kids from America's poorest families. There are nearly 1,600 Head Start and Early Head Start centers. When they're run well, the kids gain and those gains stick, but when the program is shoddy the kids are the losers. Until now, bad programs could stay in business forever. Now the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers Head Start, is taking a close look at what's happening in centers across the country. The big change is that centers that don't meet quality standards will have to compete if they want to stay in business. They may well lose out in the competition as if another organization -- a nonprofit or a public school -- appears likely to do a better job, it will take over the program. To make sure that the promise of quality is met, the centers will be reviewed every five years.
As you might imagine, there's lots of grumbling among those who now run these programs. That's no surprise, especially since it's estimated that as many as a third of all centers will have to compete in order to have a chance of keeping its doors open. But Head Start was never meant as a Full Employment Act for the adults who work there. It's the kids who matter and the new rules mean they'll be better off.
I know that Head Start can work wonders. That's why, as a member of President Obama's Transition Team in 2008, I argued hard to include $2.1 billion for the program in the stimulus package. But I also know that Head Start can get a whole lot better. The new federal rules are a smart start down that road.