The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project

1 Department of JusticeOffice of Justice ProgramsOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency PreventionJohn J. Wilson, Acting AdministratorFrom the AdministratorThe more we learn about risk factorsfor delinquency, the more obvious itis that effective prevention programstargeting children at risk can providebenefits far beyond their cost. ThisBulletin revisits a time-tested earlychildhood education program andlooks at the results to date from anongoing, well-designed study of 40 years ago, the High/ScopePerry Preschool Project developed ahigh-quality educational approachfocusing on 3- and 4-year-olds at riskfor school failure. The longitudinalstudy has found that not only was theproject effective as an educationalintervention, it also demonstratedother positive outcomes, including asignificantly lower rate of crime anddelinquency and a lower incidenceof teenage pregnancy and welfaredependency.

2 By the age of 27, pro-gram participants were nearly threetimes as likely to own their ownhomes than the control group andless than half as likely to be receivingpublic Bulletin explains how and whythe Perry Preschool Project wassuccessful, presents two positivecost-benefit analyses, and examinesthe implications for future policydecisions. One conclusion is that aneffective prevention strategy requiresboth quality programming and anadequate commitment of J. WilsonActing AdministratorOctober 2000appear to vary according to a child s stage ofdevelopment and may be reduced with ap-propriate preventive measures. These devel-opmental differences for risk factors indicatethe need for targeted interventions that ad-dress specific age-related factors (Wassermanand Miller, 1998).

3 Given this link betweenearly risk factors and later delinquency, it isimportant for practitioners to plan interven-tion programs for high-risk youth early in ayouth s life so that he or she can developa strong foundation for later High/Scope Perry Preschool Project ,which began in 1962, is the focus of an on-going longitudinal study conducted bythe High/Scope Educational ResearchFoundation of 123 high-risk AfricanAmerican Participants were of1 Unlike primary prevention programs, which aredirected at the general population, secondary preven-tion programs target children at risk for school failureor High/Scope PerryPreschool ProjectGreg ParksThe Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin-quency Prevention (OJJDP) recently pub-lished Costs and Benefits of Early ChildhoodIntervention (Greenwood, 1999), a FactSheet reviewing the benefits of early child-hood intervention in the prevention oflater delinquency.

4 Among the most notableand longstanding secondary preventionprograms considered was the High/ScopePerry Preschool Project of Ypsilanti, Bulletin examines this successfulprogram model, which demonstrates apotential link between early childhood in-tervention and delinquency High/Scope Perry Preschool Project is awell-established early childhood interven-tion that has been in operation for almost40 years. A review of the program s findingsis useful at this time in light of the field sgrowing knowledge of risk factors associatedwith juvenile delinquency, including earlychildhood risk factors that may be dimin-ished by secondary prevention programstargeted at high-risk populations. Juvenilejustice research has made great strides inidentifying risk factors that may be precur-sors to delinquency.

5 Although the prob-ability of delinquency increases with thenumber of risk factors, specific risk factors2 The original Perry Preschool no longer exists, but theHigh/Scope Educational Research Foundation foundedin 1970 by Perry Preschool researcher David Weikart continues to collect followup data from the participants ofthe 1962 study . The foundation is an independent organi-zation dedicated to nonprofit research, development,training, and public advocacy. Its principal goals are topromote the learning and development of children world-wide from infancy through adolescence and to supportand train educators and parents as they help childrenlearn. In a High/Scope program, students should learnthrough active involvement with materials, events, andideas.

6 The Foundation disseminates the High/Scope Pre-school model This Bulletin reviews the programoutcomes, describes the early childhoodrisk factors that can be targeted with inter-vention, and explores the relationship be-tween program components and risk OutcomesOutcomes of the High/Scope Perry Pre-school longitudinal study can be dividedinto three major categories: social respon-sibility, scholastic success, and socioeco-nomic success (Schweinhart et al., 1985).Social responsibility variables include de-linquency, marital status, and success is determined by anumber of factors including graduationrate, grade point average, and postsecond-ary education, whereas socioeconomicsuccess is measured in terms of employ-ment, earnings, and welfare is included as an additionaloutcome because of the long-term savingsto society as a result of program ResponsibilityDelinquency.

7 Data collected from policeand court records show that juvenile de-linquency was significantly lower for theHigh/Scope Perry Preschool program groupas compared with the control group, in-cluding fewer arrests and fewer juvenilecourt petitions (Schweinhart, Barnes, andWeikart, 1993; Schweinhart and Weikart,1995). Only 31 percent of the programgroup had ever been arrested, comparedwith 51 percent of the control group. Inaddition to police and court records, datacollected from respondents at age 19 wereused as an overall indicator of study participants were 19 yearsold, researchers found significant differ-low socioeconomic status, had low IQscores (between 70 and 85, the range forborderline mental impairment) with noorganic deficiencies ( , biologically basedmental impairment), and were at high riskof failing school.

8 Fifty-eight of these 3- and4-year-old children were assigned to theprogram group, and 65 of these childrenwere assigned to a control group that didnot go through the program. The groupswere matched according to age, IQ, socio-economic status, and gender. There wereno differences between the groups withregard to father absence, parent educationlevel, family size, household density, orbirth order. Researchers collected follow-up data annually when the children werebetween ages 4 and 11 and at ages 14, 15,and 19 and collected age 27 data from 1986to 1991 (Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart,1993; Schweinhart and Weikart, 1995).3 The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project shigh-quality educational approach is basedon an active learning model that empha-sizes participants intellectual and socialdevelopment.

9 Children attended the pre-school Monday through Friday for per day over a 2-year period. Duringthat same period, a staff-to-child ratio ofone adult for every five or six children en-abled teachers to visit each child s familyin their home for hours each week. Inaddition, parents participated in monthlysmall group meetings with other parents,facilitated by program it was initiated as an educationalintervention, the High/Scope Perry Pre-school Project has demonstrated a numberof other positive outcomes, including a sig-nificantly lower rate of crime and delin-quency and lower incidence of teenagepregnancy and welfare dependency. Over-all, the program group has demonstratedsignificantly higher rates of prosocial be-havior, academic achievement, employ-ment, income, and family stability as com-pared with the control group.

10 The successof this and similar programs demonstratesintervention and delinquency preventionin terms of both social outcome and cost-effectiveness and has a number of usefulimplications for policy, practice, and ongoingences between the program and controlgroups. The program group had fewer ar-rests overall than the control group (aver-ages of versus arrests per person),fewer felony arrests (averages of ver-sus arrests per person), and fewer ju-venile court petitions filed (averages of petitions per person).Like the criminal record data, a miscon-duct scale based on teacher-report dataand self-report data from the 19-year-oldrespondents demonstrates a significantdifference between the program and con-trol groups, as reflected by the followingresults for the program group:uLower overall scores for total miscon-duct and serious misconduct at ages15 and incidence of fighting and otherviolent incidence of property police collected from respondents at age27 indicate significant differences be-tween the program group and controlgroup for adult arrests: the control groupunderwent more than twice as many ar-rests as the program group (averages versus arrests per person).