September 14, 2009 3:08PM # Early Education: Lots of Noise, Little to Hear By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE ![Media Name: 200909_blog_mccluskey1.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/172395922072/200909_blog_mccluskey1.jpg?itok=Ceye1ssf) This weekend, the *Detroit News* ran a [letter to the editor ](http://www.detnews.com/article/20090912/OPINION01/909120312/1008/OPINION01/Rebuttal--Early-education-reduces-social-costs)taking issue with a [piece I wrote ](http://www.detnews.com/article/20090829/OPINION01/908290308/1008/OPINION01/Student-loan-fix-will-prove-costly)about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsbility Act (SAFRA). Strangley, though the main part of SAFRA deals with higher education loans; the bill contains new spending all over the education map; and I made no specific mention of early-childhood education in my piece (though there is an early-ed component in the bill); the letter is all about pre‑K education. That the pre‑K pushers even saw my op-ed as something to write about illustrates how [very agressive they are](http://www.hoover.org/publications/books/online/44003827.html). Unfortunately, the letter also demonstrates how dubious is the message that they are so loudly and energetically proclaiming. Here’s a telling bit: > Economists, business leaders and scientists all know from cold, hard data that high-quality early education provides a significant return on investment in terms of education, social and health outcomes. Whether pre‑K education is worth even a dime all depends on how you define “high quality.” As Adam Schaeffer lays out in his new [early-education policy analysis](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10384) — and Andrew Coulson reiterates in an [exchange with economist James Heckman](https://www.cato.org/2009/09/10/nobel-laureate-james-heckman-responds-to-cato-stimulus-analysis/) — the “cold, hard data” say only that a few programs seem to work, and most don’t. Pronouncements about the huge returns on pre‑K investment are almost always based on very small, hyper-intensive programs that would be all but impossible to replicate on a large scale. And the programs that do function on a large scale? As Adam lays out, they provide little to no return on investment. The early-education crowd is very good at getting out its message. Too bad the message itself is so darn suspect. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).