Back in 2011, I wrote a blog post arguing that early childhood education was far more important to positive outcomes for poor children than current efforts to reform public education once kids get to elementary and secondary school.

A recent commentary in the New York Times by James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics from the University of Chicago (who I refer to in my blog post), suggests that considerable research has demonstrated that cognitive and life skills learned before children enter elementary school pays for the costs of early childhood education many times over. In other words, the money spent on early childhood education has a big return on investment economically and socially.

I should point out that Heckman is what is a part of what are called  “freshwater” economists, those who usually espouse conservative views related to the economy. So, the fact that he argues for investment in early childhood education says a lot about how convincing his findings are.