How little Diamond Foster-Graham–an impressively bright but maddeningly defiant 4-year-old–fared in her South Side preschool might appear to be a trivial question.
But as new research published Wednesday underscores, putting Diamond on the right path now may improve her achievement over her entire school career–and even beyond. That raises critical issues for Illinois’ schools, including whether public education should include universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
For decades, a debate has raged over whether high-quality preschool programs can make a lasting difference in academic performance, especially for children from low-income families.
Now, a comprehensive and long-term study of a 33-year-old intensive preschool program in Chicago adds dramatic information to that debate. The research calls into question the prevailing approach to early childhood schooling, urging educators to bring far more children into the classroom at age 3 instead of 5.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, indicates preschools such as the Wheatley Child-Parent Center, which Diamond and other needy 4-year-olds attend each day, have made headway in reversing a wide array of the most troubling school problems.
The study, led by Arthur Reynolds, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, underscores that it is in classrooms like the one where Diamond learns simple words and basic addition that hopes arise for the solutions to America’s ailing schools.
The research comes at a critical time for Illinois. Responding to mounting evidence of the impact of quality preschool programs at earlier ages, Gov. George Ryan has just set up a task force to study the feasibility of universal preschool. His proposal is likely to be hotly debated given the high cost of adding two more years of school.
Since 1967 the 23 child-parent centers across Chicago have tried to chip away at a mountain of school and social problems for children in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Their remedy is an unusual mix of a structured early childhood education beginning at age 3, coupled with an intense family support network.
Differing in important ways from the federally funded Head Start program, the child-parent centers provide extensive family services, and many of the child-parent center sites continue those supports beyond preschool to the 3rd grade. Currently, about 2,500 children are enrolled in the child-parent centers.
Like many of the centers, Wheatley Child-Parent Center has become a refuge for parents struggling with poverty, drug abuse and crime. The center sits inside theAltgeld Gardens housing complex, a 2,000-unit development on the Far South Side with two-story red brick apartments, scores of boarded-up windows and bottles strewn over tiny patches of grass.
Ninety-nine percent of Wheatley’s students are African-American children from low-income households. Most parents are single mothers in their early 20s.
And it’s a neighborhood where priorities sometimes seem out of whack. Diamond’s principal was forced to downplay kindergarten graduation ceremonies because so many parents were buying $200 tuxedos and gowns for the kids, figuring their children may never make it to another graduation day.
But inside Wheatley, there’s a race under way to overcome the disadvantages, challenging children like Diamond in new ways.
After attending a preschool classroom for 3-year-olds at Wheatley, Diamond entered teacher Aver Defell’s class for 4-year-olds with an attitude.
Even the simplest requests could set her off. Asked to sit quietly in a circle with other children or share a book with a classmate, Diamond would grimace and fold her hands across her chest. Ordered to the time-out table to calm down, she would throw a tantrum or simply stand there, a tiny figure with the iron will of an army general.
She stood out as one of the brightest children there and seemed quick to master new skills. She had picked up the alphabet, colors and shapes and could write her name even before meeting Defell. Before long, she started adding simple numbers with ease.
But some critical skills were lacking: Diamond had trouble controlling her emotions, following a teacher’s orders and getting through the day without pouting and throwing a tantrum of “fake crying.”
When she acted up in class, she was sent to the time-out table with the bright blue chairs. After about five minutes, most children would announce they were ready to return to the group. But Diamond could sit there for a half hour, lips pursed.
“Her way of getting back at me was to just sit there,” Defell said.
But Diamond wasn’t the only pupil who needed help. At nap time on a recent day, with their tiny cots lined up across the room, a handful of children repeatedly tested Defell’s patience, tugging on her pant leg to ask to go to the bathroom or sip some water. Few fell asleep easily. One little girl kept shouting out, “Ms. Defell!” but never asked her a question.
Defell does her best to keep things positive. A fresh coat of canary yellow paint covers the walls; bulletin boards are blanketed with pictures of such African-American role models as Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks.
And when a child seems down, she gives them the Defell pep talk. “Where’s that smile?” she demanded of a sulking Diamond one afternoon. “You gotta pull down to your shoes to get that smile.”
By mid-year, the students are already working out addition problems. Nightly, they take home a sheet or two of homework. Defell’s goal is to have them master kindergarten-level work. “If you have no expectations for them, they’re not going to give you anything,” she says.
Study began in 1986
In classrooms much like Defell’s, Reynolds launched the Chicago Longitudinal Study 15 years ago. He has followed 900 low-income children who participated in the Chicago Public Schools child-parent center program and 500 low-income children with similar backgrounds who went to other early childhood programs.
The results are astounding to many educators.
Reynolds found child-parent center pupils at age 5 had the equivalent of a 10-point increase in IQ scores compared with the control group.
At age 20, 23 percent of those who had attended child-parent centers had been held back a grade, compared with 38 percent for the comparison group. Boys from the child-parent centers, in particular, showed dramatic gains in high school completion.
And some of the most dramatic findings came when the children left high school.
In the first large-scale study to document the impact of intervention programs on crime, Reynolds also found that former child-parent center pupils had a 33 percent lower juvenile arrest rate.
Reynolds’ findings offer hope for solving an array of pressing problems in education, with 1 out of 3 children entering kindergarten with nonexistent reading skills, 40 percent of 4th graders not able to read at grade level, half of the nation’s elementary school pupils displaying classroom behavior problems–a leading cause of teacher burnout and exodus–and 42 percent of Chicago public school students never finishing high school.
“This just reinforces the point that these investments in the early years of life can have tremendous payoffs to society,” Reynolds said. “This means the investment we make in schools and other early programs in education can really have a very positive long-term payoff, 15 and 20 years after being in the program.”
Reynolds’ work feeds into a national push to get more children into school earlier, regardless of income. In 1995, Georgia became the first state to pay for high-quality prekindergarten care for all 4-year-olds in the state, rich and poor alike, out of lottery money.
“We’re a funny society,” said Yale University’s Edward Zigler, the founder of Head Start and a fan of Reynolds’ study. “The minute a kid turns 5 and goes to kindergarten, this country is willing to spend an average of $5,700 a year on him all the way through 12th grade. But the years from birth to 5, which are so critical to get a kid ready for school, we spend next to nothing.”
Parental involvement is key
A key to the child-parent centers’ success is engaging parents.
Diamond’s mother, LaMonica Foster, is among the most involved parents at the school. For LaMonica, keeping her daughter at the top of preschoolers her age is an all-consuming goal, so she shows up at the school’s parent resource center nearly every day, sometimes bringing her 2-year-old daughter along for the day.
For Foster, it’s about breaking a cycle of poverty and frustration that she’s been fighting–with limited success–for years.
Foster grew up in poverty; her mother acknowledges using drugs and doing jail time and says Foster’s father–Diamond’s grandfather–had limited contact with his daughter. Foster lived with an aunt and uncle until age 3.
Foster, 27, has spent most of her life in dead-end, low-paying jobs. She took five years to finish high school after ditching too many classes, then worked as a cashier before packing boxes into trucks. When she injured herself on the job last year, she went on public assistance and hasn’t had a job since.
She wants more for her daughters. Foster dreams of her daughters growing up to own a home, even a simple one, but one with a back yard and a swing set. Already, though, Diamond’s childhood is less than ideal. Her mother and father never married, and Diamond’s contact with her dad is limited to occasional visits.
Through the Wheatley workshops, Foster says she has learned a lot about being a better parent. Picking up on advice she got there, she spends nearly every night in her kitchen going over simple math and language problems.
“TV can’t teach a child,” she says matter-of-factly. “Channel 11 can’t do it all.”
In academics, her work appears to help. Diamond seems to relish time with the books. Now 5, she’s starting to read beginning words.
One recent afternoon, she pulled out her homework just 20 minutes after walking in the door. “I can spell with my eyes closed,” she bragged.
Defell says Diamond breezes through some of her work so quickly that she’s often asked to tutor classmates.
But on the emotional end, it’s still a battle, despite some steady improvements.
“She has no problem doing her work, but some days she will not work at all,” Defell wrote in a report card issued in April.
In the “social/emotional milestones” section, Diamond scored poorly in four of eight areas.
Differences can be subtle
Sometimes the impact of the child-parent centers can seem subtle. A little girl who sat in the back of the classroom all year suddenly learns the alphabet. A painfully shy boy recites a story from memory in the final weeks of class. A grandmother who barely read to her children before the program now takes regular trips to the library.
And then there’s Diamond.
Despite the disappointing recent report card, Diamond’s teacher was encouraged by the girl’s behavior in the final weeks of school. One recent spring day, Diamond entered class jumpy and talkative. After she kept shouting out and interrupting her teacher, Defell sent her to the time-out table.
For a few moments, Diamond stalled. Then slowly, she walked over to the chair, slouched down and briefly stuck her thumb in her mouth. Moments later, she rejoined the group.
Later that week, the girl who sometimes balked when asked to sing along with classmates marched onto the stage of the school gym for a schoolwide assembly.
With her mother looking on, Diamond–dressed in braids, pink pants and a T-shirt covered with hearts–stood proudly in the front row, belting out the song “Oh, What a Miracle Am I.”
