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Part II:
Status of Research-Based Programs
Preschool: Ages 4 and 5
The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation's Perry Preschool Project
Ypsilanti, Michigan
The following review was provided by Benard and is reprinted here with her permission.
The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation's Perry Preschool Project is one of a handful of long-term follow-up evaluations of an actual prevention intervention. It began in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1962 as a longitudinal study of children from poor African-American families who attended a preschool program at ages 3 and 4 that focused on their cognitive, language, social, and behavioral development. The High/Scope model emphasized active child-initiated learning, problem-solving, decision-making, planning, and a high degree of interaction between adults and children and among the children themselves. In addition, teachers conducted weekly home visits and encouraged parents to be involved as volunteers in the classroom (Berruta-Clement et al, 1984).
As Berruta-Clement and colleagues reported in 1984, children who participated in the program showed the following outcomes at age 19 compared to a control group:
- Increases in cognitive gains
- Improved scholastic achievement during school years
- Decreases in crime/delinquency
- Decreases in teen pregnancy
- Increases in post-secondary enrollment
- Increases in high school graduation rate
- Increases in employment rate
- Benefits exceeded costs sevenfold
Furthermore, in a follow-up study of this population at age 27, Weikart and Schweinhart (1993) found that project participants have made the transition to adulthood far more successfully than adults from similar backgrounds. They have committed far fewer crimes, have higher earnings, and possess a greater commitment to marriage.
A related High/Scope study (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1986) compared 15 year olds who participated in the High/Scope model with those from a traditional nursery school approach and a direct instruction, academic focused approach. The study revealed that students from the High/Scope and nursery school groups reported engaging in:
- One-half as many acts of personal violence
- One-fifth as many acts of property violence
- One-half as many serious offenses
- One-half as many acts of drug abuse
- More sports and after-school activities
In addition, their families reported regarding them more favorably.
A follow-up (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997a, 1997b) to age 23 of this preschool comparison study found that children in the High/Scope program, which gives children multiple decision making over their class activities, or a play-oriented nursery school, committed fewer crimes, had better success on the job, and maintained healthier relationships than those who received direct instruction in which teachers led the activities, workbooks were the only classroom materials, and the acquisition of academic skills was the prime objective. This new research confirms many experts' beliefs that the best preschools offer a child-directed curriculum in which teachers let children's interests guide the learning. According to a spokesperson for the National Association for the Education of Young Children, "If we don't work at helping kids learn self-control, it gets difficult later on."
[Note: The Perry Preschool Project has been credited with reducing the cost of delinquency and crime by approximately $2,400 per child (Barnett & Escobar, 1990).]
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