Is the Reynolds study saying that providing access to not only child but comprehensive family services early on the key to provoke parental engagement?

"When you follow people for more than two decades, an understanding of how early experiences shape later development can be achieved," Reynolds notes. "A chain of positive influences initiated by large advantages in school readiness and parent involvement leads to better school performance and enrollment in higher quality schools, and ultimately to higher educational attainment and socioeconomic status."

Findings demonstrate that effects of sustained school-based early education can endure through the third decade of life. Previously, Reynolds and colleagues documented the cost benefits of early education, demonstrating an 18 percent annual return on investment for society. However, policy has yet to support the kind of early interventions needed to solve persistent societal issues.

"Unfortunately, we still spend very little on prevention," says Reynolds. "Only 3 percent of the $14 billion dollars allocated to school districts to serve low-income children under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act No Child Left Behind goes to preschool. Yet preschool programs are one of the most cost-effective of all social programs."

He explains that since about half of the achievement gap between children from higher and lower economic statuses at age 10 already exists at age 5, education interventions need to start even earlier. "State and federal policies don't reflect the knowledge of how much earlier these gaps appear, and therefore the need to start as early as possible," he says.

Based on this and earlier studies, Reynolds and Temple say the key to CPC's success lies in both the quality of the program and its teachers, the opportunity for more than one year of participation, small classes, comprehensive family services, structured activity-based curricula focusing on language and literacy, and attention to continuity of learning from preschool to the early school grades.

More from the Tennessean...

(link...)

The question should be where would these at risk children be if not for Pre-K? If they are on grade level, this is better than they would have been. Catching up is success in this situation.