James Heckman and Universal Early Childhood Education

There is a Nobel Prize-winning economist named James Heckman who has been at the University of Chicago for many years during which time he has labored mightily to make the strongest possible case for the economic and social value of Universal Early Childhood Education. He led the team that reanalyzed the data of a famous longitudinal study called the Perry Preschool Project which originally seemed to show that high quality early childhood programs didn't make much of a long-term difference, especially when relying on cognitive measures such as IQ. But what Heckman found using econometric tools he created is overwhelming evidence that early childhood education is correlated with long-term changes in such positive social behaviors as persistence, focus, and collaboration that lead to much higher than expected economic success, family harmony, and vocational stability.

Heckman has convincingly demonstrated that:

High quality Early Childhood Education is strongly correlated with positive social behaviors that lead to economic success.

The poorest families have the least access to high quality Early Childhood Education.

By increasing the availability of high quality Early Childhood Education to children from low income families, the return on investment from economic growth and in reduced costs for special education and incarceration is at least 7 dollars for every 1 dollar spent. 

With the support of high quality Early Childhood Education, very young children can better develop key aspects of their characters that include: drive, cooperation, attentiveness, self-discipline, and delaying gratification. When these qualities are combined with nurturing key cognitive abilities, children not only do better in school, they do better in life.

In other words, early childhood education pays big dividends. The evidence is therefore more than strong enough to support President Obama's proposal to make Early Childhood Education a priority.

All of which leads indisputably to one conclusion. We have a wonderful opportunity to invest in our future by fully funding Universal Preschool Education. If we do it, the result will be one of history-making proportions. If we don't, we will be destroying the futures of many of most vulnerable children and in the process losing an important chance to create a society that as Jimmy Carter used to say is worthy of the generosity and compassion of the American people at their best.