The Case for Integration

07/30/2007

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.
Sophocles

Preschool Matters (July, 2007; www.nieer.org) reported encouraging results from a Connecticut study of the impact of integrated preschool classrooms. The study followed 274 children from low- and middle-income families. Some of the children were in integrated high-quality pre-K classrooms and some in high quality programs serving only children from low-income families. Children from low-income families who attended the integrated programs achieved an average of seven points higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than did the children in the segregated programs. As a result, the children from low-income families in the integrated programs moved from below the national norm in the fall to just above it in the spring. When results were compared by language spoken, the difference was even greater: children from low-income families who spoke English as their primary language and attended the integrated program gained an average of 10 points on the Peabody Test, putting their gains in the same league with their middle-income classmates.

Editor's Note: It is not our practice to insert our views in ExchangeEveryDay, but this time we can't resist. While these findings are very interesting, one can't help but wonder what the results of integration were for the children from middle-income families. Hopefully the goals of classroom integration are not so narrow (nor so arrogant) as to focus solely in the impact on one segment of the population. Clearly this was beyond the scope of the study, but provides opportunities for further research and consideration.

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