Rising enrollments in preschool programs and the growing use of non-parental child care are arguably among the most significant global trends of the past two decades. The demand for preschool services has also been driven by a greater understanding of the importance of the early years of life, as well as concerns about the high proportion of children who do poorly in school. It is generally accepted that the nations that make up the European Union have some of the most developed early care and education (ECE) systems in the world and some of the best empirical evidence on the effects of preschool experiences on development and well-being. of the kids. During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a huge expansion of pre-school programs for children from the age of three to compulsory school age (between five and seven years), and about half of EU countries now have Publicly funded preschool places for 79% or more of children in this age group. Of course, as a result of the increased dominance of the free market economy, many countries feel pressured to reduce social benefits in order to become more “efficient”; in this context, continued support for quality preschool programs may depend on compelling evidence of their cost. effectiveness and not on their popular support. The information presented here may be useful to US policymakers, researchers, early childhood educators, and advocates seeking evidence of the effectiveness and outcomes of the ECE program.
International research provides considerable evidence that high-quality early childhood programs can substantially improve children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Furthermore, it shows that such programs are especially beneficial for children in poverty, that some of the benefits are impressively long-lasting, and that the long-term benefits of effective programs can far outweigh their costs. Many countries are far ahead of the United States in making available free or low-cost preschool programs for children ages three to six, although ECE services for younger children remain more expensive and less available. In France, a Ministry of Education survey of sixth-grade students found that each year of preschool at ecole maternal reduced the probability of school failure, especially for children from the most disadvantaged households. (The French ecole Maternelle is fully funded by the national government and offers free full-time programs with a national curriculum developed by the Ministry of Education; teachers at the ecole Maternelle earn a salary comparable to primary school teachers) . In the United Kingdom, comparisons between children who attended playgroups, public or private nurseries, or who did not attend preschool indicated that experience in any preschool program contributed to cognitive development and school performance at ages five and ten. (Public investment in full-day childcare is limited in the UK and many families rely on individual childminders, who may or may not be registered with the government.) where 56% to 69% of children between the ages of three and six attend government-provided half-day preschools at no cost to parents, produced similar results. Preschool experience influenced grade retention rates, special education placement, and other school outcomes more consistently than any other factor studied. In Sweden, children with extensive preschool experience (in centers or family child care) performed significantly better on cognitive tests and received more positive ratings from their teachers on both school achievement and social and personal attributes than children with Little or no ECE experience. In fact, children placed in out-of-home care before the age of one year received the most positive ratings for verbal ease, persistence, independence, and confidence, as well as the lowest ratings for anxiety. The positive effects of the nursery persisted throughout the primary school period. (In Sweden, local governments provide carefully supervised, subsidized child care through family child care centers and homes to about half of the country’s children between birth and school entry at age seven.) Although specification of the crucial components of program quality continues to elude ECE researchers, most would agree that a high-quality preschool program should be based on a variety of developmentally appropriate activities that engage children. For example, the French ecole mère curriculum includes emergent literacy and other activities designed to acculturate children in a formal school setting, but pays equal attention to cultivating curiosity, creativity, psychomotor development, and social skills. of the kids. Some quality indicators considered essential by US evaluators, such as class size and child-to-staff ratio, are less important in Europe. However, EU programs have well-trained staff, although training requirements vary from one nation or system to another. Not surprisingly, in countries with high proportions of well-trained teachers and caregivers, salaries tend to be relatively high and staff turnover relatively low. In both Europe and the United States, parental involvement in their children’s preschools is often posited as an important element of program quality. While there is little empirical evidence to support claims about the benefits of parental involvement, preschool programs in European countries engage parents to varying degrees and forms.
Efforts to use the preschool system to reduce early school failure rates and the large inequalities between children from different social backgrounds are generally based on one of two general strategies: (1) provide preschool programs as universal rights, ensuring that programs are of high enough quality to be supported and used by high- and low-income families alike (a strategy used in France and Sweden); and (2) develop compensatory preschool programs targeted specifically at children in poverty. Programs targeting children from poor or immigrant families include home-based “enrichment” programs. In Europe, as in the United States, preschool seems to have a greater impact on the lives of poor children than on more advantaged children. In the French and British studies discussed above, the preschool experience was found to be most beneficial for the most disadvantaged. A recent German study on the effects of kindergarten (publicly funded preschool for children aged three and above) on children’s school results shows similar results. While participation in preschool did not significantly improve enrollment in an academic high school or in the high school curriculum for native German children, it did increase the likelihood that children of guest workers or recent immigrants would achieve at an advanced level. highest educational. The United States has invested more than any other nation in rigorous research on the effects of preschool programs and has produced strong evidence of the long-term benefits of high-quality programs, especially for children in poverty. Yet our nation continues to have one of the most fragmented, inconsistent, and incomplete ECE systems in the world. This is due in part to our ambivalence about large public investments in “other people’s children” and, perhaps, our reluctance to learn from the experiences of other nations. This must change. Although much remains to be done in conceptualizing and evaluating the quality of EU programs, the studies reviewed here provide valuable insights for US policymakers, educators, and other stakeholders. failure to provide high-quality early childhood programs (higher costs for education, social services, police and prisons, and lost productivity and tax payments) are much higher than the costs of these programs . The long-term benefits of current European preschool policies and programs are not conclusively proven, but the results so far show the plausibility of a number of policies and services that deserve more serious consideration in this country. The question is how a shift toward universal access to high-quality preschool programs can be made compatible with American individualism, suspicion of government interference in family affairs, and demands for choice and free association. The action plan developed by the EU that tries to combine unity of purpose with the accommodation of national and intra-national diversity, which provides for ECE systems that are coherent but flexible, that offer programs and services to all families but that allow choosing between them seems to violate no important American values and may be a lesson from Europe that Americans can accept.