On the theory that more government programs can solve any public-education problem, bipartisan policymakers have embraced government-funded pre-K programs as the current fix. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act dangles multiple incentives, including new Preschool Development Grants, to coax states into taking more young children from their families and enrolling them in government preschool. Advocates claim the $7.6 billion spent on state pre-K programs will result in improved academic achievement and a multitude of societal benefits.

But a new study from the center-left think tank Brookings douses these claims with a splash of reality. The Brookings study analyzed each state’s level of enrollment in its government pre-K program and correlated that enrollment with scores, five years later, of the state’s fourth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The conclusion: “[I]ncreased investment in state pre-K… does not enhance student achievement meaningfully, if at all.”11

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