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Office of Justice Programs, Innovation - Partnerships – Safer Neighborhoods
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Serving Children, Families and Communities
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Perry Preschool Project

OJJDP
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Intervention:
The goal of the Perry Preschool Project is to improve disadvantaged children’s capacity for future success in school and in life. The intervention seeks to break the link 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 designed to improve employment opportunities and earning potential and to decrease crime, teen pregnancy, and welfare dependency later in life.

The primary target population is African American children ages 3–4 living in poverty and at high risk for school failure. Children in poor families are at greater risk for referral to special education or remedial classes, as they frequently do not perform at grade level. This may cause disengagement from school and, for many students, can lead to school dropout and increased risk for delinquency and exposure to violence. Without a solid educational foundation, these children are often unqualified for higher-paying jobs as adults, and may be at increased risk for criminal behaviors, including aggressive and violent acts.

The core belief of the Perry Preschool Project is that strong preschool programs can help children in poverty by providing them a better start in life and helping them to break the cycle of poverty. The underlying assumption is that family poverty and its associated hardships leads to poor intellectual performance in school, which then instills a negative disposition toward learning and further failure in school. The Perry Preschool Project intervenes early in a child’s life to affect their attitude and disposition toward school and learning. It is believed that changing a child’s attitude toward education is more important and has longer-lasting effects than focusing on immediate improvements in school achievement (Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart, 1993). Early success and encouragement may engender higher motivation, better performance, and a higher regard for teachers, classmates, and education in general.

The program consists of a 30-week school year. During that year, there is a daily 2½-hour classroom session and a weekly 1½-hour home visit for each child. The home visits are a way to involve the mother in the educational process and enable her to provide support to her child. Teachers also help mothers deal with any problems that arise during the home visits. There is about a ½ hour of preparation for teachers before the initial home visit to figure out how to extend and replicate the classroom experiences to the home setting. Teachers organize group meetings of mothers and fathers with children in the program.

The school curriculum, originally called the “Cognitive-Oriented Curriculum” and currently named the “HighScope Curriculum,” emphasizes an open approach to learning, where children are active participants. There is a consistent daily routine within the classroom, which involves a “plan–do–review” sequence of learning activities. Children’s cognitive and social skills are built and supported through individualized teaching and learning. Children are encouraged to engage in play activities that involve making choices and solving problems that contribute to their intellectual, social, and physical development. These components of the program are heavily influenced by research in child, educational, and developmental psychology, which notes that children’s innate curiosity and exploration should be incorporated into a formal learning environment (Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart, 1993). As such, lesson plans are constructed around developmental goals and incorporate the needs and interests of individual children. Teachers structure lesson plans and activities around key experiences. These key experiences are:
  • Creative representation
  • Language and literacy
  • Social relations and personal initiative
  • Movement and music
  • Classification (detecting similarities and differences)
  • Seriation (creating series and patterns)
  • Number, space, and time
Within each one of these key experiences are more specific objectives and activities. For example, creative representation includes the following:
  • Recognizing objects by sound, touch, taste, and smell
  • Imitating actions and sounds
  • Relating pictures, photographs, and models to real places and things
  • Role play and pretending
  • Making models out of clay or blocks
  • Drawing and painting
These activities are incorporated into a consistent structure of child-planning time, work time, cleanup time, recall time, snack time, small-group time, outdoor time, and circle time. Within this structure of events, if specific children need more instruction with an activity, they receive it.
Evaluation Methodology:
Study 1
Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart (1993) reported findings from a follow-up evaluation that looked at the sample of children from the HighScope Perry Preschool study originally conducted from 1962 to 1965. Researchers collected follow-up data annually when the children were between the ages of 3 and 11, and then at ages 14, 15, and 19. This report includes the study findings collected when the sample of children reached age 27.

Children were initially identified after a fall survey, conducted each year from 1962 to 1965. Project staff created pairs of children matched on initial Stanford–Binet IQ tests, and randomly assigned each pair to one of two undesignated groups. Then they exchanged several similarly ranked pair members so the two groups would be matched on socioeconomic status, intellectual performance, and percentage of boys and girls. Once the two groups were identified, they were randomly assigned, through the flip of a coin, to either the program condition or no-program condition.

The total number of study participants was 123. Fifty-eight children were assigned to the program group; 65 were assigned to a control group that did not participate in a preschool program. They were all ages 3 and 4, African American, and of low socioeconomic status. They had low IQ scores (between 70 and 85, the range for borderline mental impairment), with no organic deficiencies (i.e., biologically based mental impairment), and were at high risk of failing school. Approximately 58 percent of the sample was male. There were no differences between the groups with regard to father absence, parent education level, family size, household density, or birth order.

Attrition in the sample was extremely low at each follow-up period. At the follow-up for this study, 95 percent of the original sample (117 out of 123) was interviewed, including 56 program group members and 61 control group members. The study participants were 60 percent male; their ages ranged from 26 to 30 at the time of the interview, with an average age of 27.7 years.

The primary outcome of interests of the study included intellectual performance, school success, delinquent and criminal activity, socioeconomic success, and personal development. The age-27 data was collected from four sources: interviews with study participants, school records, crime records, and social service records. The study relied on chi-square analyses for simple comparisons of the program group with the control group without statistical adjustments to compensate for effects of background covariates.

In a more recently published monograph, Schweinhart and colleagues (2005) reported the findings of program effects through age 40 on education, economic performance, crime prevention, family relationships, and health. The same sample and procedures were used for this follow-up study.
Evaluation Outcome:
Study 1
Educational Performance
Perry Preschool Project participants in the Schweinhart, Barnes, and Weikart (1993) study significantly outperformed their no-program peers in a range of educational measures, including various tests of intellectual and language performance from after the first preschool year up to age 7, a school achievement test at age 14, and a literacy test at age 19. By age 27, the program group had completed a significantly higher level of schooling than the no-program group (11.9 years versus 11.0 years). The group also had a significantly higher rate of regular high school graduation (66 percent versus 45 percent) and a nearly significant rate of regular high school graduation or the equivalent certification (71 percent versus 54 percent).

Delinquency and Crime
Delinquency and crime rates for the program group were significantly lower than for those in the no-program group. At the 27-year follow-up, the program group, compared with the no-program group, averaged a significantly lower number of lifetime (juvenile and adult) criminal arrests (2.3 arrests versus 4.6) and a significantly lower number of adult criminal arrests (1.8 arrests versus 4.0). There were significantly fewer program group members who were frequent offenders (arrested 5 or more times) by the time they were in the 27- to 32-years-old range, compared with the no-program group (7 percent versus 25 percent). Males in both groups were arrested more frequently than females, but, compared with no-program males, program males on average were arrested significantly fewer times over their lives (3.89 arrests versus 6.1, with 12 percent versus 49 percent arrested 5 or more times) and as adults (3.0 arrests versus 5.4, with 12 percent versus 43 percent arrested 5 or more times as adults).

Economic Status
At age 27, the program group, compared with the no-program group, had higher earnings. Specifically, the program group had significantly higher monthly earnings (an average of $1,219 versus $766, with 29 percent versus 7 percent earning $2,000 or more). The program group’s employment rate was noticeably, but not significantly, higher than that of the no-program group (71 percent versus 59 percent). The groups did not differ noticeably in rate of employment over the previous 5 years or in months of employment during the previous 2 years. Compared with the no-program group, the program group had fewer members who received social services in the previous 10 years.

Program Effects Through Age 40
Schweinhart and colleagues (2005) found similar impacts on measured outcomes when the sample of preschool children reached age 40. For education, the program group significantly outperformed the no-program group on the highest level of school completed (77 percent versus 60 percent graduated from high school). In addition, the program group had significantly fewer lifetime arrests than the no-program group (36 percent versus 55 percent arrested 5 or more times), as well as significantly fewer arrests for violent crimes (32 percent versus 48 percent ever arrested). Finally, a significantly larger portion of the program group was employed at age 40 compared to the no-program group (76 percent versus 62 percent), and the program group had significantly higher median annual earnings than the no-program group ($20,800 versus $15,300). These outcomes continue the trends that were found at age 27.
Other Information:
Costs: A comprehensive benefit–cost analysis of the Perry Preschool Project was conducted, using data from the 27-year follow-up study (Barnett 1996). The analyses concentrated on program costs, elementary and secondary education costs, and costs related to employment, crime, and welfare assistance. The preschool program’s estimated net benefits were $19,570 for participants only, $76,077 for the general public (taxpayers/crime victims), and $95,646 for society as a whole.

A recent cost–benefit analysis conducted with data from the 40-year follow-up study (Schweinhart et al., 2005) found that in 2000, the economic return to society for the Perry Preschool program was $244,812 per participant on an investment of $15,166 per participant. This amounted to $16.14 saved for each dollar invested. Of the public return, 88 percent ($171,473) came from crime savings, 4 percent ($7,303) came from education savings, 7 percent ($14,078) came from increased taxes due to higher earnings, and 1 percent ($2,766) came from welfare savings.

Implementation: Information on training and conferences, as well as required materials, can be found at the HighScope Web site: http://highscope.org/index.asp
References:
Barnett, W. Steven. 1996. “Lives in the Balance Age-27 Benefit–Cost Analysis of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program.” In Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, No. 11. Ypsilanti, Mich.: High/Scope Press

Parks, Greg. 2000. “The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project.” Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/181725.pdf

Schweinhart, Lawrence J. 2007. “Crime Prevention by the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program.” Victims and Offenders 2(2):141–60.

Schweinhart, Lawrence, J., Helen Verdain Barnes, and David P. Weikart. 1993. “Significant Benefits: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 27.” In Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, No. 10. Ypsilanti, Mich.: High/Scope Press.

Schweinhart, Lawrence J., and David P. Weikart. 1995. “The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 27.” In Robert R. Ross, Daniel H. Antonowicz, and Gurmeet K. Dhaliwal (eds). Going Straight: Effective Delinquency Prevention and Offender Rehabilitation. Ottawa, Ontario: Air Training and Publications, 57–75.

Schweinhart, Lawrence J., Jeanne Montie, Zongping Xiang, W. Steven Barnett, Clive R. Belfield, and Milagros Nores. 2005. “The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40: Summary, Conclusions, and Frequently Asked Questions.” In Monographs of the High/Scope Education Research Foundation, No. 14. Ypsilanti, Mich.: High/Scope Press.

Weikart, David P., Dennis J. Deloria, Sarah A. Lawser, and Ronald Wiegerink. 1970. “Longitudinal Results of the Ypsilanti Perry Preschool Project.” In Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, No. 1. Ypsilanti, Mich.: High/Scope Press.
 
Program Specification:
New Rating:
Effective
Re-reviewed Date: June 2011
Program Type:
Academic Skills Enhancement
Classroom Curricula
Cognitive Behavioral Treatment
Conflict Resolution / Interpersonal Skills
Parent Training
School/Classroom Environment
Ethnicity:
African American
Gender:
Both
Age:
3 - 4
Target Settings:
Suburban
Urban
Problem Behaviors:
Academic Problems
Family Functioning
Risk & Protective Factors:  
Risk
Community
Economic deprivation / Poverty / Residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood
Family
Broken home
Family management problems / Poor parental supervision and/or monitoring
Low parent education level / Literacy
Individual
Cognitive and neurological deficits/Low intelligence quotient/Hyperactivity
Mental disorder / Mental health problem / Conduct disorder
Peer
Association with delinquent and/or aggressive peers
School
Low academic achievement
Negative attitude toward school / Low bonding / Low school attachment / Commitment to school
Protective
Family
Good relationship with parents / Bonding or attachment to family
Opportunities for prosocial family involvement
Individual
Healthy / Conventional beliefs and clear standards
High individual expectations
Perception of social support from adults and peers
Positive / Resilient temperament
Positive expectations / Optimism for the future
Self-efficacy
Social competencies and problem solving skills
Peer
Involvement with positive peer group activities
School
Strong school motivation / Positive attitude toward school
Additional Information:
    OJJDP: Blueprints
    SAMHSA: NREPP
    NIJ: What Works
    HHS: Surgeon General
Status:

Program is in operation at this time.

Performance Measures:
Suggested OJJDP Performance Measures for the Program Types(s):

Delinquency Prevention
Academic Skills Enhancement
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
School Programs
Academic Skills Enhancement
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
Delinquency Prevention
Classroom Curricula
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
School Programs
Classroom Curricula
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
Mental Health Services
Cognitive Behavioral Treatment
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
Delinquency Prevention
Parent Training
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
Mental Health Services
Parent Training
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF
School Programs
School/Classroom Environment
Logic Model: PDF
Performance Matrix:PDF

Contact Information:
Program Developer:
Gavin Haque
 High/Scope Educational Research Foundation
 600 North River Street
 Ypsilanti, MI 48198–2898
 Phone: 7344852000
 Fax: 7344850704
 Email: Click Here
 Website: Click Here

Program Locations:
Staff
 High/Scope Foundation
 600 North River Street
 Ypsilanti, MI 48198–2898
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