Quoted in a recent Education Week article, Tomoko Wakabayashi argues that research on preschool and early-childhood education must take the long view — measuring outcomes over time — because key benefits of pre-K programs such as executive function and other noncognitive skills don’t begin to appear until later in life.

Wakabayashi is the research director at the HighScope Educational Research Foundation, the Ypsilanti, Mich.-based center that launched the landmark Perry Preschool Project and studied the impact of this program’s intensive approach to early childhood education.

“Some of the effects that came out, you never would have found them in preschool… If Perry hadn’t followed students for so long, a lot of the discussion around preschool would have been different; there would have been just a fade out of IQ [benefits], and that would have been it.” 

“Schools Seek to Strike a Balance on Rigor in Early Years,” by Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, January 2, 2015