Early Childhood Education: Do Enthusiast Exaggerate What It Can Do?

Ron Haskins and Art Rolnick address the limited success of most early childhood education programs and discuss evidence showing that high-quality programs can dramatically and positively impact a child’s future success in school and life. Rolnick then offers a proposal to make high-quality early childhood education available to high-risk children through an endowed scholarship fund. Both Rolnick and Haskins emphasize that any future programs must be market based.

Dr. Haskins is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Department at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Dr. Rolnick is senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.