Study: Pre-K programs do little for blacks

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 3 (UPI) -- Universal pre-kindergarten programs have less benefit for black youngsters than for whites in the United States, a study released Wednesday said.

Elizabeth Cascio, an economist at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire, said the racial disparity may be because state-funded pre-kindergarten programs tend to draw black students away from high-quality programs like Head Start.

Cascio examined data from 24 states, most of them in the south and west, where universal kindergarten was introduced after 1960. She found white students with access to pre-K programs were more likely to finish high school and less likely to be imprisoned as adults. There was also a small increase in college attendance.

"Even a weak program may be better than no program at all, as can be seen in the results for whites," Cascio wrote. "When alternatives already exist for many disadvantaged children, however, universal programs may not yield additional benefits for that group."

Even for white students, benefits were limited. Cascio found pre-K programs had no measurable impact on whether the students went on welfare as adults or on their earnings.

The study was done for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.