It’s hard not to think about how far back the real problem goes when you walk through any neighborhood school that isn’t getting enough money. The paint is peeling, the classrooms are overcrowded, and teachers are trying to make every dollar count. Not when kids first walk through those doors at age six. Not even when they are four years old and some are lucky enough to get into preschool. Researchers have been saying for decades that birth is the real beginning.
Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman at the University of Chicago has spent much of his career making a case that sounds almost too simple: if the US wants to cut its deficits, it should spend a lot of money on kids before they turn five. Not out of kindness. In terms of economics. His research, which he did with psychologists, neuroscientists, and statisticians, shows that the brain builds its core structure between the ages of birth and five. This includes not only cognitive skills but also impulse control, focus, and the ability to work with others. These are the personality traits that turn intelligence into real skills.
The math behind his argument makes it very hard to refuse. Heckman studied the Perry Preschool Program and kept track of its participants for decades. He found that each child’s returns were seven to ten percent per year, when he or she took into account less time spent in jail, better job prospects, and less need for social services. A more recent look at the Abecedarian program, which helped kids from birth to age five with all kinds of early childhood needs, put the number even higher: about 13% per child per year. You don’t usually hear those kinds of numbers when people talk about public policy, and it’s still not clear why they haven’t had a bigger impact on the national conversation.
It looks like one part of the answer is that the benefits are spread out and take time to show up. Election cycles are hard for politicians. Budgets are arguments every three months. Even when the data is clear, it’s really hard to get lawmakers to spend money now so that a two-year-old has a better chance of staying out of prison when they’re twenty-five. The way we think about social spending is something we’ve been taught to do, and it costs a lot to keep that way of thinking.
The people who gain the most are also the ones who have the least political power. Heckman’s research shows over and over that kids from poor families are less likely to get the early developmental help that sets them up for success. They don’t have enough money to pay for reading tutors or enrichment programs. Years later, what they usually get is a child who is having trouble in school, going through a lot of different types of remedial education, and ending up as a statistic in health care or criminal justice costs, which are the public’s fault.
Heckman’s work strongly suggests—and it’s really hard to argue against—that cutting programs for adults who are having a hard time is not the best way to reduce deficits. It stops the things that lead to those struggles in the first place. These aren’t soft, feel-good programs: parent coaching, home visitation programs, and good care from birth. They’re the kind of structures that can hold up decades of results.
Education in the U.S. is often funded like a building that is only fixed up when it’s already falling apart. The evidence here points in a different direction—towards the foundation, the first years, and the idea that the smartest thing for the country’s finances would be to put a lot of money into kids who haven’t even started kindergarten yet. Honestly, it’s not even close to clear if that argument will ever be strong enough in politics.
