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Introduction

Should legislators expand the public school system to

include three- and four-year-old children?  Should school-

ing for preschool-aged children be compulsory as it is for

most five- and six-year-olds?  Legislators across the

country are debating those questions, and several states

have already made decisions.

Georgia and New York legislators implemented universal

preschool for four-year-olds in 1993 and 1997, respective-

ly, and Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Kentucky have taken

steps in that direction.  The California Department of

Education has recommended that public preschool be made

available to all three- and four-year-olds, and appropriate

legislation has been introduced.  And in 1998 Vermont

state legislator Bill Suchmann proposed a study of the

cost of compulsory preschool for all three- and four-year-

olds, saying that compulsion is the only way to guarantee

that children have an equal opportunity for education.1

Supporters of universal preschool frequently argue

that most parents fail to provide their children with the

experiences and environment necessary to promote their

healthy development.  Suchmann explains, "Many children do

not have parents available at home or even capable of

appropriate intellectual stimulation."2   The result is that

many children are not "ready to learn" when they enter

kindergarten.  Consequently, those children perform at a

substandard academic level, which leads to long-term prob-

lems including low educational attainment and juvenile

delinquency.  Proponents of preschool believe they can

prevent those problems by intervening before children enter

kindergarten.  The California Department of Education's

Universal Preschool Task Force puts it this way: "The con-

cept of universal preschool recognizes that before children

enter kindergarten, much of their potential for learning

and healthy growth has already been determined. . . .

Effective early childhood education is crucial to chil-

dren's later success and well-being."3

Whether or not one agrees with the advocates' premises,

experience shows that there is little reason to believe

universal preschool would significantly benefit children.

Since the 1960s hundreds of privately and publicly funded

early intervention programs have failed to significantly

benefit participating children.  The largest and best

known early intervention program, Head Start, has been a

failure.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

synthesized the findings from the impact studies on Head

Start and concluded that the program had no meaningful,