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Does putting young children in a preschool setting harm them? Opponents of publicly funded child care and early education have touted a new study out of Tennessee as proof that, yes, public preschool is bad for kids. But there are many reasons why Tennessee鈥檚 program may have had adverse effects鈥攁nd that make it a big outlier. On the whole, the evidence points to important academic and behavioral gains to be achieved from public preschool, so long as it鈥檚 designed and run well.

The from Tennessee followed 2,990 students who either did or did not attend the state鈥檚 voluntary pre-K program in 2009 and 2010 through the end of sixth grade in a randomized control study, comparing children who were randomly selected to attend to those who applied but didn鈥檛 get in, a high quality way to assess the impacts of policy. It found that children who were randomly assigned to the pre-K program ended up with lower test scores, more disciplinary problems, lower attendance and more referrals to special education by the end of sixth grade. It corroborated from the same team that used a different, less robust way to measure outcomes and found that positive initial impacts of attending the pre-K program faded out by first grade and turned 鈥渟lightly negative鈥� by fourth.

The findings are clearly alarming for the parents of children who attended the state鈥檚 preschool program. But experts warn that inferring larger lessons about preschool as a whole鈥攖hat it鈥檚 bad for children and leads to harmful effects later in life 鈥� makes no sense. 鈥淭here are no other programs for which we found this pattern of results,鈥� pointed out W. Steven Barnett, co-director and founder of the National Institute for Early Education Research. 鈥淭his is unique.鈥�

So why did researchers find such harmful effects in Tennessee? First and foremost, it just doesn鈥檛 appear to be a very high-quality program. In a 2015 , the author of the study herself said the state didn鈥檛 have 鈥渁 coherent vision鈥� and left teachers 鈥渢o their own devices鈥� to develop a pre-K program on their own. The program to meet all the basic benchmarks of quality set by the National Institute for Early Education Research, and in 2014 of observed classrooms were found to be less than good quality. Eleven scored below minimum quality. In a , Tennessee showed some of the smallest initial positive effects on young kids.

Quality may have improved since the program was studied. Lawmakers in 2016 specifically to increase it, and the state now allocates funding to providers based on quality and has partnered with outside evaluators to measure how it鈥檚 doing.

But Tennessee also simply spends far less on its program than other states with public preschool. In 2009 it spent , an amount that much over the years. New Jersey, which runs a preschool program in 31 high-poverty districts that has been to have academic benefits for children who attend that don鈥檛 fade out over time, spends per child.

The problem with making sweeping judgments about whether attending preschool is good or bad from Tennessee鈥檚 study is that we don鈥檛 know for sure why there were negative effects.

Barnett noted that while children who attended Tennessee鈥檚 pre-K program had better test scores initially in Kindergarten, more of them were put into special education. 鈥淲hy would they do that?鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat suggests there鈥檚 some kind of selection in what schools do with the children that鈥檚 based on whether they went to pre-K.鈥� Given that the program isn鈥檛 universal, and is only targeted at at-risk children, it鈥檚 possible that teachers 鈥渦se pre-K as a marker,鈥� Barnett said, and end up discriminating against those children, whether consciously or not, by assuming they have lower skills, which puts them on a failing track from the start. Conversely, if teachers are under pressure to maintain high test scores among their students, they may focus more on helping children coming in without preschool experience, assuming that they have more catching up to do, resulting in teachers ignoring the pre-K graduates.

Another possibility, he said, is that the parents of the children who applied but didn鈥檛 get into the program鈥攖he control group in the study鈥攅nd up feeling a need to compensate for it and put in more effort to nurturing and supporting their children鈥檚 academics. Or, perhaps, the preschool programs are enriching, but are so different than the rest of school鈥攚hich might be more rigid and strict鈥攖hat it鈥檚 too much culture shock for the preschool kids when they enter school and they end up turned off from it.

One of the study鈥檚 authors that the problem lies in the teaching in Tennessee鈥檚 program being too didactic and rigid, full of worksheets and lectures, instead of play-based and child-centered. But if that were true, Barnett asked, 鈥測ou have to ask why you don鈥檛 see it in other places, in other studies.鈥�

鈥淭he only way to figure this is out is to study it,鈥� Barnett said, rather than 鈥渏ust guessing or letting our biases dictate what the answer is.鈥�

In the meantime, there are plenty other studies that help point to reasons why Tennessee鈥檚 program didn鈥檛 deliver the benefits others did. Those other programs tend to have more funding, have higher quality, and, importantly, are universal, open to all children no matter their backgrounds. In general, Tennessee appears to be a huge outlier in the entire body of research.

While the study design for the Tennessee program is robust, there are others that have used the same method and come to completely opposite conclusions. A recent study that examined a public preschool program in Boston, which used the same randomization as in the Tennessee study and followed students even further into their lives, found few educational impacts between the early years and high school years鈥攁lthough it did find better disciplinary outcomes in that intervening time鈥攂ut found that children who attended the public preschool program were more likely to graduate high school, take the SAT and score in the top quartile. They were also more likely to enroll in college as well as to graduate.

But Boston鈥檚 program looks very different than Tennessee鈥檚. It鈥檚 universal, staffed by teachers who have to meet the same requirements as those in later grades, and are ranked as very high quality.

Another out of Indiana found that its pre-K voucher program led to students being better prepared for Kindergarten and scoring slightly higher on tests. Students who attended Georgia鈥檚 public pre-K program to be as much as twice as likely to meet academic standards in grades fourth through seventh. There have also been positive impacts found from programs in , North Carolina and .

Head Start, which provides early childhood education to low-income families, to have long-term benefits for children who attend.

Quality does matter. But, Barnett said, 鈥淓ven the mediocre programs鈥�do not harm children.鈥�

The of American pre-K programs that found Tennessee among those with the smallest initial effects still had a clear takeaway after reviewing the available experimental and quasi-experimental research: it found 鈥渓arge positive effects鈥� of public pre-K programs on test scores. An from 2007 of programs in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia found that they all had positive effects on children鈥檚 cognitive skills, although the magnitude varied from state to state. Yet another that looked at 15 studies of public preschool programs mostly positive effects.

We don鈥檛 just have our experience in the United States to look at, either. A of robust studies of preschool programs in Europe found that high-quality, universal preschool benefits disadvantaged children. More advantaged children didn鈥檛 necessarily benefit the same way, but preschool didn鈥檛 harm them.

Of course, not all preschool programs are created equal. Besides variation in quality, there鈥檚 also variation in design. Tennessee鈥檚 program is targeted, aimed only at low-income and otherwise disadvantaged children. But there鈥檚 evidence that universal programs are much more effective. found that universal preschool programs generate 鈥渟ubstantial鈥� test score gains, and the gains for means-tested ones are smaller. That study found that universal programs benefit low-income children without much impact on higher-income ones. Still, those higher-income families may also benefit in important ways, such as 鈥渉elping them through an economically stressful period of life,鈥� noted Aaron Sojourner, associate professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied early childhood education. 鈥淔amilies with young children struggle under a dual burden of care and earning, and we ask the most of families when they have the least.鈥�

鈥淭he Tennessee story adds an important piece of evidence to a much larger set of evidence, but people are training it like it鈥檚 the only evidence we have,鈥� Sojourner said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not new, the idea that there鈥檚 different states, different programs, different quality levels, different populations served鈥� I don鈥檛 know why we would expect they would all produce the same effects.鈥�

鈥淭he body of evidence suggests that high-quality pre-K that鈥檚 universal tends to have positive effects on kids鈥� development,鈥� he added.

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 麻豆精品. Learn more here.