Research on the long-term effects of early childhood programs indicates that children who attend good quality child care programs, even at very young ages, demonstrate positive outcomes, while children attending poor quality programs show negative effects. Typically, high quality child care can predict academic success, adjustment to school and reduction of behavioral problems for children in first grade. Early childhood studies are well documented and far reaching.
Numerous studies prove that early childhood education works.
Of the children studied, those who attended a high-quality, active learning preschool program at ages three and four had half as many criminal arrests, higher earnings and property wealth, greater commitment to marriage, and higher graduation and college attendance rates. Another study, the Carolina Abecedarian Project confirmed that academic failure is strongly associated with poverty. Within months of the intervention and preschool care, the children scored higher in intellectual development than when previously tested. By age eight, program children scored higher on intelligence standardized tests in reading and math and were less likely to be retained in their first three years of school. The positive effects preschool could be observed as the children entered teenage years.