Britain's War on Poverty

4. Investing in Children in the Early Years

Chapter 4 Investing in Children in the Early Years t he third leg of the British reforms was a set of investments in chil­ dren. These investments were seen as essential not just in helping to reduce income poverty for children today but also in preventing poverty when the current generation of children becomes adults. If to­ morrow’s parents were to have a better chance of raising their children on incomes above the poverty line, a key step was to equip low­income chil­ dren with more of the skills and experiences that middle­class children typically had. In particular, this effort required improving the quality of care that children received in early childhood and the quality of instruc­ tion they received in school. This chapter presents the reforms in services for preschool­age chil­ dren, and the succeeding chapter reviews the education reforms and other policies for school­age children. What both sets of reforms have in com­ mon is the assumption that investing in children—from birth to adult­ hood—is critical. This component of the British antipoverty program is reminiscent of the U.S. War on Poverty of the 1960s. Breaking the inter­ generational cycle of poverty by raising the skills of the next generation was a key goal of that initiative as well, although one that proved difficult to achieve.1 the importance of the earLy yearS At the time when New Labour came into office, scientists from a range of disciplines were emphasizing the importance of early experiences in de­ termining children’s later trajectory and adult outcomes. In particular, psychologists, pediatricians, and neuroscientists drew attention to the processes of early brain development and the role of early experiences in shaping that development. This evidence was summarized in Neurons to Neighborhoods, the report of a commission on the science and ecology of early childhood development convened by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.2 investing in chiLdren in the earLy years 79 A striking finding from the National Academy of Sciences report and other studies of early child development was that a good deal of inequal­ ity in children’s health and development already existed before children entered school.3 At the same time, economists stressed the cumulative na­ ture of learning and the extent to which early learning, and disparities in early learning, laid the foundation for knowledge later in life. As the Chi­ cago economist James Heckman, who would later be awarded the Nobel Prize, argued: “Learning begets learning.”4 Heckman also pointed out that it was generally much more difficult and costly to improve children’s position later in childhood: “Like it or not, the most important mental and behavioral patterns, once established, are difficult to change once children enter school.”5 A further impetus to invest early was evidence that, without early in­ tervention, children from low­income families would fall further behind more­advantaged peers. Using data from Britain’s birth cohort studies, Leon Feinstein—in a graph that was later cited repeatedly by policymak­ ers—showed that high­income children with lower initial ability levels had caught up to low­income children with higher initial ability levels by age five and had overtaken them by age ten.6 Feinstein’s graph made it clear that without some intervention to support low­income children in early childhood and the first few years of school, even those with high initial ability were going to be on a trajectory toward a future of low edu­ cational attainment and low income. At the same time, evidence from countries such as Denmark that provided more extensive early childhood education suggested that preschool could be a factor in equalizing school readiness and school achievement across social class groups.7 Together, the scientific evidence pointed to education as a key factor in tackling poverty and to early childhood as a critical time period in which to invest. These two emphases are reflected in the chronology and nature of the reforms. the firSt nationaL chiLd care Strategy In May 1997, shortly after coming into office, the Labour government an­ nounced Britain’s first National Child Care Strategy. The signature ele­ ment of the strategy was a commitment to provide universal—and free— preschool for all four­year­olds by September 1998 (a commitment that was extended to three­year­olds in April 2004). This new entitlement, which was enthusiastically taken up by parents, moved Britain from hav­ ing one of the lowest preschool enrollment rates...