S. HRG. 101-298 THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND HEALTH OF THE JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES ONE HUNDRED FIRST CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MAY 1, 1989 Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 21-864 WASHINGTON 1989 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congrescional Sales Office US. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITrEE (Created pursuant to sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Cong.) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SENATE LEE H. HAMILTON, Indiana, PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland, Chairman Vice Chairman AUGUSTUS F. HAWKINS, California LLOYD BENTSEN, Texas DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JAMES H. SCHEUER, New York JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico FORTNEY PETE STARK, California ALBERT GORE, JR., Tennessee STEPHEN J. SOLARZ, New York RICHARD H. BRYAN, Nevada CHALMERS P. WYLIE, Ohio WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., Delaware OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine STEVE SYMMS, Idaho HAMILTON FISH, JR., New York PETE WILSON, California FREDERICK S. UPTON, Michigan CONNIE MACK, Florida JOSEPH J. MINARIE, Executive Director RICHARD F KAUFMAN, General Counsel STEPHEN QUICK, Chief Economist DAVID R. MALPAss, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITEE ON EDUCATION AND HEALTH HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SENATE JAMES H. SCHEUER, New York, Chairman LLOYD BENTSEN, Texas AUGUSTUS F. HAWKINS, California JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine ALBERT GORE, JR., Tennessee HAMILTON FISH, JR., New York PETE WILSON, California (11) CONTENTS WITNESSES AND STATEMENTS MONDAY, MAY 1, 1989 Page Scheuer, Hon. James H., chairman of the Subcommittee on Education and Health: Opening statement . ........................................................... 1 Green, Hon. Bill, a U.S. Representative in Congress from the 15th Congres- sional District of the State of New York: Opening statement ............. ............... 8 Koch, Hon. Edward I., mayor, New York City ........................................................... 9 Green, Richard R., chancellor, New York City Public Schools ............................... 23 Murphy, James P., executive vice president, New York State Bankers Asso- ciation ........................................................... 36 Serrano, Hon. Jose E., New York State Assemblyman ............................................ 47 Stavisky, Hon. Leonard P., New York State Senator ............................................... 58 Berger, Stephen, executive director, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey............................................................................................................................. 68 Campbell, Robert A., deputy director, African and Caribbean Overseas Pro- gram, Operation Crossroads Africa, Inc ........................................................... 71 Bronfenbrenner, Urie, professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University ........................................................... 77 Galinsky, Ellen, project director, work and family studies, Bank Street Col- lege. Doyle, Frank P., senior vice president, General Electric Co., and member, board of trustees, Committee for Economic Development ................................... 111 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD MONDAY, MAY 1, 1989 Bronfenbrenner, Urie: Prepared statement ........................................................... 84 Responses to additional written questions posed by Representative Scheuer ........................................................... 117 Campbell, Robert A.: Prepared statement................................................................. 74 Doyle, Frank P.: Prepared statement. ........................................................... 113 Galinsky, Ellen: Prepared statement ........................................................... 97 Responses to additional written questions posed by Representative Shur ................................................................................................................... .............................121 Green, Richard R.: Prepared statement ........................................................... 25 Response to Representative Weiss' query regarding the number of 4-year- olds attending classes in New York City ......................................................... 32 Koch, Hon. Edward I.: Prepared statement................................................................ 11 Murphy,Murphy, James James P.:P.: Pr~epae Prepared statemtae entet39 ...................................................................... ..............................3 Scheuer, Hon. James H.: Charts reflecting a comparison of non-Head Start and Head Start statis- tics; and Head Start enrollment per 100 poor children, ages 3 to 5 years old, 1978-87 ........................................................... 4, 5 Article entitled "Many Americans Fear U.S. Living Standards Have Stopped Rising' ........................................................... 60 Serrano, Hon. Jose E.: Prepared statement................................................................ 52 Stavisky, Hon. Leonard P.: Prepared statement ........................................................ 61 (III) THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION MONDAY, MAY 1, 1989 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND HEALTH OF THE JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in the Educational Alliance, Inc., New York, NY, Hon. James H. Scheuer (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Scheuer, Green, and Weiss. OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE SCHEUER, CHAIRMAN Representative SCHEUER. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Education and Health of the Joint Economic Committee hearing on the economic and social benefits of early childhood education will come to order. We have a wonderful program this morning, and I'm sure you'll all enjoy it. The mayor is due to arrive here in the next few minutes, and in order to save the mayor's time and our own time, Congressman Green and I are going to make our opening statements so that when the mayor comes here, we can begin promptly. I am pleased to note that one of the stars of this hearing and of the Head Start Program is sitting in the front row. Mr. Urie Bron- fenbrenner, who 24 years ago in 1965, was one of the intellectual architects of the Head Start Program. I remember him well ap- pearing before the House Education and Labor Committee of which I was then a freshman member, and convincing us of the merit of this program. Little did we know that this program would end up being the jewel in the crown of the poverty program. We have seen some spectacular results of the Head Start Pro- gram. Let me go over a few of them. On chart 1, the white lines are the kids who did not get the bene- fit of Head Start; the black lines are kids who benefited from Head Start. As you can see, over twice as many kids who did not have Head Start ended up in the mentally retarded category-35 per- cent of them, as compared to only 15 percent of the kids who had the benefit of an enriched preschool experience known as Head Start. That is an incredibly dramatic example of how Head Start enables the community, mothers, teachers, and so forth to galva- nize the kids and to help them to develop all of their latent poten- (1) 2 tial and to avoid the waste of the child who turns out to be a non- achiever. The other statistics are equally impressive: 51 percent of stu- dents who didn't attend Head Start became school dropouts com- pared to only 33 percent of those who did attend Head Start. Fifty-one percent of non-Head Start kids were arrested at some time in their lives, compared to only 31 percent of kids who had the benefit of Head Start. Thirty-two percent of the non-Head Start kids ended up on wel- fare, compared to only 18 percent of the Head Start kids. Sixty-one percent of the Head Start kids were illiterate, while only 38 percent of the non-Head Start kids ended up being illiter- ate. Thirty-two percent of the non-Head Start kids-less than one- third-were ever able to get continuous, systematic employment. Fifty percent of the Head Start kids ended up being employed a decade and a half or two decades later. Twenty-one percent of the non-Head Start kids went to college or vocational school. Thirty-eight percent of the Head Start kids a decade and a half later either went to college or to some kind of vocational school. We could stop the hearing right now as far as I'm concerned. We don't need any more proof than what this single chart tells us about what a small investment in a child's future is able to achieve in terms of a spectacular record of success. In 1965 we may have thought that Head Start was an experimen- tal program. It was not. I'm a Head Start kid, even though I was in Congress and helping to write the Head Start Program in 1965. So you might ask me, "What do you mean? You're an imposter. You didn't go to Head Start. You helped write the Head Start Pro- gram. But I was in a Head Start Program. We didn't call it Head Start in 1923 when I went to an enriched preschool program. We either called it prenursery school or prekindergarten or something of the kind, but it was an enriched, preschool program and the last 75 years at least, middle-class and upper middle-class kids have been getting it. Kids who come from homes who are education factories in and of themselves have received