You might find people willing to fight against having quality, accessible preschool services for children nationwide. Just don't expect to find many kindergarten teachers leading the charge. Or, for that matter, many researchers.

Both here and abroad, AFT members now teaching kindergarten stress that what happens--or doesn't happen--in those crucial first years of a child's life has a major impact on their classrooms. And a growing body of studies suggests that solid preparation for preschool children can pay handsome dividends for students not only in the early grades but for many years down the line.

Almost all of Michele I. Gary's kindergartners this year have been to preschool, and it makes a huge difference, the AFT member from Perth Amboy, N.J., says. "They come in excited about school. Many know their letters and colors, and some even come in able to print their names." (It was much different several years ago, before a court decision on school equity prompted Perth Amboy and other districts to institute universal preschool.) Before the decision, many children entered Gary's room with no exposure to a structured learning environment. "I'd say, 'On your desk you'll find a crayon,' and they'd look at me thinking, 'What's a crayon?' They'd never held a pencil. They didn't know what scissors were."

Helping students adjust to rules and class routine also can take much longer when a kindergartner's first day really is his first day--in any education setting. "There's a difference between sitting in a group listening to a story and sitting on your parent's lap listening to a story," explains Elaine T. Robaczewski, a kindergarten teacher and AFT member in Chicago who also worked for several years in the city's Child-Parent Center (CPC) program, one of the nation's oldest federally funded programs for preschool and early elementary students.

"Quality preschool is important not only academically but also socially," says Robaczewski, who is certified as an early childhood/generalist by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

"I had about a half-dozen [students in the 2001-02 school year] with no preschool. It was pretty obvious from their ability to sit and listen to a story, or what they knew about letters and sounds."

Lynn Audet has seen it from both ends as well. A kindergarten teacher and AFT member in Perth Amboy, Audet also has taught preschool for eight years and knows that quality preschool gives students "a level of maturity and independence" that helps them adjust quickly in kindergarten. "When it comes to rules, we went over them the first week of school [and] pretty much don't have to repeat them." For the two children in her kindergarten class this year who didn't have preschool, the transition was tougher. "It took longer for them, even for just the little things like sharing," she remembers.

Once children reach kindergarten, the difference between kids who didn't attend a quality preschool and those who did "can be just unbelievable," she explains.

Many of these concerns are reflected in a nationwide survey of almost 3,600 teachers released in 1998 by the National Center for Early Development and Learning. Thirty-one percent of teachers said that at least half of their class lacked the formal preschool experience needed for a successful transition. "In addition to the individual child's readiness and the kindergarten teacher's role, the family, the education system, preschool programs and the community are all responsible for successful transitions," study co-director Robert C. Pianta said following the release of the survey. The findings show "we have a long way to go in ensuring that all children come to school ready to learn," he added.

And the kindergarten transition is only one piece of the puzzle. A growing body of research suggests that the advantages of quality preschool can last for years:

• The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study, which began in the early 1960s, examined the lives of 123 African Americans born into poverty and at high risk of failing in school. At ages 3 and 4, children were divided into a preschool and a non-preschool group. The Ypsilanti, Mich., researchers followed up with these individuals when they turned 27 and found that the preschooled group had graduation rates more than 30 percent higher than their counterparts and significantly higher average achievement scores and literacy scores. Researchers also examined adult gauges--such as income levels, arrest rates, welfare usage and home ownership--and found significant advantages among the preschooled group. "Over participants' lifetimes, the public is receiving an estimated $7.16 for every dollar originally invested" in preschool, researchers concluded.
   
• The Abcedarian Project studied low-income children from infancy to determine if five years of exposure to early education in a high-quality childcare setting would provide long-term benefits. The study tracked children through age 21 and found statistically significant advantages in reading, mathematics, attendance at four-year colleges and several other gauges, suggesting that quality preschool education significantly improves the success and achievements of children even into early adulthood.
   
• Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study gauging the long-term benefits of the CPC program in Chicago. "Participation in an established early childhood intervention for low-income children was associated with better educational and social outcomes up to age 20 years," writes Dr. Arthur J. Reynolds of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the research team that conducted the 15-year follow-up of low-income children in public schools. Compared to a control group, students who participated in CPC were more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to drop out. They also were less likely to be held back in school, to receive special education services and to incur juvenile arrests for violent and nonviolent offenses.
   

Across the spectrum

While many studies have focused on the real and dramatic gains that quality preschool affords low-income students, the problem of finding quality services extends across the socioeconomic spectrum, according to "Cost, Quality and Child Outcomes," a 1999 study from the National Center for Early Development and Learning. Approximately 68 percent of 3-year-olds, 78 percent of 4-year-olds and 84 percent of 5-year-olds receive some type of childcare on a regular basis, the study notes. Yet many children from a range of backgrounds spend their days in situations where they get scant attention or stimulation because high-quality opportunities are either too expensive or few and far between.

It's a well-known problem to AFT member Carol Damm, who teaches kindergarten at Camp Derby, a U.S. military base outside Pisa, Italy. In the wake of personnel cuts, the camp recently terminated some services--including a well-regarded base preschool program that Damm says was making a major difference for many of her students. The pre-K class was adjacent to her kindergarten classroom, allowing Damm to talk on a daily basis with preschool staff and students. It also helped the kindergarten teacher build on the preschool learning experience. "I watched [the children] grow in the course of their preschool year, and I knew them before they came into kindergarten, their strengths and weaknesses," she explains. "If a child does have some of those experiences, you can just move deeper, [and] I definitely believe it helps down the road."

When Damm thinks about early childhood education and what it can mean for students, she recalls the years she spent teaching upper elementary students. "Looking back on some of the sixth-graders I had, I think of how much better it could have been if they had had these wonderful [preschool] experiences."