Recent studies, some of them initiated over thirty years ago but which are just now providing meaningful statistics show an amazing result. Not the result most of us would expect, which is that pre-school can help ready a child for regular school, but unforeseen results ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road or more.
In two controlled studies, one conducted in North Carolina, the other in Michigan, control groups of kids with and without pre-school were monitored for IQ, school performance, college entry, and much later life experiences. Perhaps to be expected, the pre-school group did consistently better in school. Perhaps more surprising, the pre-school group maintained a higher tested IQ through grammar and high school. And truly amazing, the pre-school group ended up with half the incarcerations, half the teen pregnancies, and four times the graduation rate from four-year colleges. Their incomes were 50% higher, their auto and home ownership rates were way above the control-group, and their divorce rates were way less.