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37   The Priority of Education
     The Washington Post, Sunday, March 26, 1967

     As education is the keystone of civilization, it is axiomatic
that we can scarcely invest too much of our resources in teaching the
young.  We have learned the rewards of scientific analysis and
therefore we should perceive that we must subject our educational
policies to the most searching experimental inquiry in order to
learn how to teach properly.

     Education as a panacea for our social ills has been a
philosophical dogma at least since Plato.  This is the same as saying
that bad education is the cause of them, but there is much more
enthusiastic conviction than scientific evidence to support such a
theory.

     Since we are now dedicated to equal opportunity for our citizens
as a matter of government policy, ending disparities in educational
advantages commands a high priority.  Project Head Start is the label
of a budget item, almost half a billion dollars of new obligational
authority, intended to support new initiatives in compensatory, 
pre-school education for children from culturally deprived home
environments.

     The funds are intended to reach 187,000 pre-schoolers for a full
year and more than half a million in summer programs.  In comparison,
there is a total elementary school enrollment of about 37 million
pupils and a total annual expenditure for them of about $25 billion.

     The theoretical objective of Head Start has been to attempt to
break the vicious cycle of cultural deprivation with early
intervention.  The "deprived" home environment insufficiently or
inappropriately stimulates the child for his later adaptations to 
the dominant culture.  Having failed to secrete the necessary
intellectual enzymes, he does not digest the standard educational
fare.  Becoming an educational failure, a dropout, he lags culturally
and economically and creates the same toneless but noisy environment
for his own offspring.

     The pre-school year might be the most critical period for social
intervention, giving, according to the theory, the highest benefit
cost ratio in compensatory education.

     Many programs of social action might have a flimsier theoretical
basis than this one.  But Head Start is especially vulnerable to
scientific criticism for at least two reasons: its >pretensions for
a quickly detectable effect on the exposed children, and its
accessibility to presumably quantitative tests like academic grades
or reading achievement.

     Recently, Head Start has been attacked on the basis of
preliminary studies of its first efforts.  For example, Dr. Max Wolff
found that pre-kindergarten programs in New York had positive effects
that faded after the experimental children had been mixed for a time
in regular classes.  According to further newspaper reports, Prof.
Urie Bronfenbrenner has criticized some details of the methodology
of this evaluation.

     Meanwhile, releases from the OEO head office explain that fading
effects were expected and that no special treatment can compensate
for the general inadequacies of school follow-through programs.

     This is most regrettable, because Head Start has the potential
to make some of the most important education experiments of our time.
It is evasive to simply explain away this fadeout.  The special
argument for pre-school intervention programs was the concept that
the children were at a critical age.

     Some cynics might retort that the real argument was that the
Establishment had full control of the rest of life; pre-school
was the most accessible trough to be filled.  More thoughtful
critics support the hypothesis that the early period is critical,
but wonder whether the four year old is not too old -- already too
engrained by a submissive, hostile, unself-confident subculture.

     Perhaps the main emphasis of any early intervention program
should be on establishing self-esteem and motivation to perform in a
confusing color-mixed world, as a necessary prerequisite to continuing
cognitive development.

     In any case, the great mistake is to regard Head Start as an 
established program rather than a medley of experiments.  Many,
perhaps most, of these will fail to pass examination on their
relative merits and cost-effectiveness.

     By the same argument, the whole Head Start program will be a
failure if its funds and human efforts are dissipated in a fragmented
crazy quilt of incomparable trials beyond systematic evaluation.

     It must make many compromises to the realities of politics,
funds and physical facilities.  Fortunately, it is attracting the
attention of research-minded psychologists across the country, and
with their energetic involvement and some public patience, some clues
may be found to better paths through the maze.

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