Responding to the poor performance of Reading First, and my comment that most educational interventions turn out to be flops, Kevin Drum sighs, "It must be a discouraging field to work in." The big bright spot, it should be said, is universal pre-k, which has not only shown itself to have massive educational benefits, but to be tremendously cost-effective as well. As the conservative economist James Heckman wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “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%.” It's one of the great disappointments of contemporary liberal politics that so many folks who call themselves liberals spend their time arguing about teacher's unions, testing, and merit pay, rather than uniting behind universal pre-k. Educational issues, for reasons I've never really figured out, have become the spot where older liberals mount a superficial display of their independence from party orthodoxy, rather than actually try and figure out, and fight for, the interventions that appear to work. Universal Pre-K works. The only problem is, you don't get to brag about your couraegous break frm the teacher's unions when you advocate for it.
