Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40

December 31, 2015
The Perry Preschool Study through Age 40 broke new ground in understanding the impact of early childhood education. Perry demonstrated the likely benefits of quality preschool in the lives of “at-risk” children. Perhaps the most well-known of all the HighScope research efforts — the study examined the lives of 123 children. What they all had in common was their birth into poverty, placing them at high risk of failure in school.

The first phase of the research,from 1962–1967, occured when the children, were ages 3 and 4. One group of randomly divided subjects received a high-quality preschool program. At the same time, the other comparison group received no preschool program. 36 years later, when the original study participants were 40 years old, they were interviewed again. Additional data were gathered from the subjects’ school, social services, and arrest records.

The Perry Preschool Study found the adults from the preschool group had higher earnings, were more likely to hold a job, had committed fewer crimes, and were more likely to have graduated from high school than the adults who did not have preschool. MORE.