Preschool Study: No Evidence of Lasting Benefits

Adam Schaeffer writes on Cato-at-liberty that a recent study of universal preschool only shows what critics of government-run day care have been saying: that they offer only short-term gains.

Oklahoma’s achievement scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, AKA “the nation’s report-card”) suggest that the state’s universal preschool program is at best ineffective and at worst harmful to student achievement.


Oklahoma, “where state-funded pre-kindergarten has been in place for 18 years — and offered universally for nearly a decade,” has slipped below the national average on math and reading scores for both the 4th and 8th grades since it began expanding government pre-K in the 1990’s.