And the crime rate between the two groups, the
randomized group and the control group, goes down by 50%. So those looked like
pretty good outcomes! They became what we think of as model citizens in our
country, despite their modest beginnings.
And those outcomes equal hard dollars. The program was expensive. But
economists calculated the benefits: the Perry students were more likely to stay
on track in school, have higher skilled jobs and contribute more in taxes, and
less likely to incur the social costs of welfare and prison. The youngest
children of the Perry Preschool studies are now 52 and the oldest children of
the Perry Preschool studies are now 56. So we've been following children from
the Perry Preschool experiment for 50 years.
What did we learn? Many things. It's very
successful in terms of the economic performance of the children. For each
dollar invested, you get back somewhere between7% and 10% per annum over the
lifetime of the child. Which is a huge rate of return. Narrator That translates,
depending on the study, to a payoff of $ to $ for every dollar spent on the
program. What we found is some of those same traits that are starting to be
fostered early in life - solving problems but also getting along with others
and basically planning in a wise way - pay off, and pay off substantially. Yet,
despite the benefits, today, public investment in affordable, high-quality
programs like Perry is so low, only a fraction of our children can attend them ( raising children).
But up north, just across the U.S. border, one
place took note of the lessons offered by the Perry model. Twenty years ago,
Quebec was the poorest province in Canada. It was stuck in a recession, and
one-quarter of its citizens lived in poverty. The Prime Minister was alarmed by
skyrocketing social welfare costs. He asked psychologist Camil Bouchard to head
a task force to come up with solutions. Bouchard and his friend Lyse Brunet, a
feminist and political activist, became allies in a growing political movement ( raising children).
Brunet In those days in Quebec, there was a lot of
marches in the street, and it was a context, I think, where the women's
movement was very strong, and it was really the women who put forward the
daycare issues. Nine years later, investments in high quality early childcare
programs became central to Bouchard's strategy for reining in Quebec's rising
social costs. His team was inspired - ironically enough - by research coming
out of the United States. Bouchard found the evidence compelling. And not just
Perry Preschool, but also Abecedarian, an intensive experiment like Perry, this
one in North Carolina, which ran for five years. It provided infant and toddler
care, as well as preschool ( raising children).
This is Adam Norman, a 30-year-old father and a journalist. I consider being a father as my full-time duty, which comes before my actual job of journalism. As a father, there will always be new challenges for me to face everyday while raising my kids. This is where the idea of this website came from. I wanted to give out my experience, along with the experience of others, to all parents out there who need an advice with raising their kids.
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