Taking Preschool Education Seriously as an Economic Development Program: Effects on Jobs and Earnings of State Residents Compared to Traditional Economic Development Programs

Universal, high-quality preschool education in the United States has recently been advocated by many groups, including the Committee for Economic Development, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the group Pre-K Now (e.g., see CED 2002, and websites at ced.org, pewtrusts.org,and preknow.org).The case for universal preschool education is based in part on rigorous research that shows that high-quality preschool has large positive effects on participants and society, including reductions in special ed costs and costs from students having to repeat grades, reductions in criminal activity, increases in educational attainment, and increases in earnings (Schweinhart et al. 2005; Belfield et al. 2004; Reynolds et al. 2002).A prominent recent argument to promote preschool education expansion is that preschool programs may be superior in achieving economic development goals to traditional economic development programs.An early prominent argument in this vein was made by Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewald, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: "The conventional view of economic development typically includes company headquarters, office towers, entertainment centers, and professional sports stadiums and arenas... Early childhood development programs are rarely portrayed as economic development initiatives, and we think that is a mistake.Such programs, if they appear at all, are at the bottom of the economic development lists for state and local governments.They should be at the top" (Rolnick and Grunewald 2003).Rolnick and Grunewald's argument has been widely cited by preschool advocates and scholars.More recently, the CED has published a paper elaborating on Rolnick