By
Kathy G.
Max reports the cheering news that the state of Virginia is seriously considering a proposal for universal pre-K. Of all the social programs the U.S. could possibly institute, universal pre-K is perhaps the most important. It is that rare initiative that meets the gold standard of public policy by simultaneously fulfilling the goals of equity and efficiency. Equity, because preschool and other early education programs have a lasting, powerful and well-documented positive impact on the outcomes of poor children. And efficiency, because it is extremely cost efficient. Few if any government investments produce a higher rate of return. No one has been more instrumental in establishing the social science case for early childhood education than the economist James Heckman. Heckman is a quant god and he won his Nobel for his econometric work. (Statistics nerds know him for the “Heckman two-step,” an econometric technique that controls for selection bias. Though whenever I hear “Heckman two-step” weird images of Fred Astaire pop up in my head. Anyway . . .). Heckman is a University of Chicago economist in every sense of the word – a very conservative dude. But he’s done phenomenal work showing that investment in children pays off in very substantial ways. As he wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year (subscription only), “There are many reasons why investing in disadvantaged young children has a high economic return. Early interventions for disadvantaged children promote schooling, raise the quality of the work force, enhance the productivity of schools, and reduce crime, teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency. They raise earnings and promote social attachment. Focusing solely on earnings gains, returns to dollars invested are as high as 15% to 17%.”
