Blueprints
Promising Programs Fact Sheets
Program
Overview
The Perry Preschool Project provides high-quality early
childhood education to disadvantaged children in order
to improve their later school and life performances.
The intervention combats the relationship between
childhood poverty and school failure by promoting
young children’s
intellectual, social and physical development. By increasing
academic success, the Perry Preschool Project is also
able to improve employment opportunities and wages,
as well as decrease crime, teenage pregnancy, and
welfare use.
Program Targets
The Project is aimed at low socioeconomic families
who have children, ages 3 and 4.
Program Content
The Perry Preschool Project is a two-year intervention
that operates 2.5 hours per day, 5 days per week,
for seven months per year, and includes weekly
home visitations by teachers. Its success is largely
due to the following components:
- A developmentally appropriate curriculum that views children as active, self-initiated learners.
- Small classrooms of no more than 20 children and at least 2 staff that allows a more supervised and supportive learning environment.
- Staff who are trained in early childhood development and education, who receive supervision and on-going instruction, and who meet frequently with parents and other caregivers.
- Sensitivity to the noneducational needs of disadvantaged children and their families, which includes providing meals and recommending other social service agencies .
- Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of both teachers’ activities and children’s behaviors and development.
Program Outcomes
Evaluations have demonstrated a wide range of successful
outcomes for Perry Preschool children, compared to
those who did not receive intervention, including:
- Less delinquency, including less contact with juvenile justice officials, fewer arrests at age 19, and less involvement in serious fights, gang fights, causing injuries, and police contact.
- Less antisocial behavior and misconduct during elementary school and at age 15.
- Fewer lifetime arrests through age 40 (36% vs. 55% with 5 or more arrests); fewer arrests for violent crimes (32% vs. 48%), property crimes (36% vs. 58%), and drug crimes (14% vs. 34%).
- Higher academic achievement, including higher scores on standardized tests of intellectual ability and higher high school grades.
- Fewer school dropouts at age 19 (33% vs. 51%), and higher rates of high school graduation.
- Greater commitment to school and more favorable attitudes about high school.
- More employed at age 27 (69% vs. 56%) and age 40 (76% vs. 62%); higher median annual earnings at 27 ($12,000 vs. $10,000) and 40 ($20,800 vs. $15,300).
- Greater economic independence and less reliance on public assistance, including welfare usage.
- Fewer pregnancies and births for women at age 19.
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