| The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project was conducted in Ypsilanti, Michigan and started in the late 1960s. It included a sample of 123 African-American children born in poverty who were divided into two samples at ages 3 or 4. The control group received no intervention while the experimental group was placed in a high-quality preschool (High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2000). The program encouraged active learning among children by allowing them to initiate activities and control their environment. Children learned in an environment rich with materials and then reported back to their teachers on what they had achieved. Teachers encouraged children’s experiences in the areas of initiative, social relations, creative representation, music and movement, language and literacy, and logic and mathematics. The program also included weekly home visits by teachers in order to discuss and practice activities for parents to carry out with their children. Teachers received curriculum training and supervision, and only five or six students were assigned to each teacher (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1993).
Data were collected on program participants and control group children every year between ages 3 and 11, and then at ages 14, 15, 19 and 27. At the latest assessment, information was gathered from 95 percent of the original participants through interviews, data from schools, social services, and arrest records. The results are striking—71 percent of program participants had graduated from high school compared to 54 percent from the control group. Fifty-nine percent of program participants had received welfare assistance as adults, compared to 80 percent of controls. Fifty-seven percent of preschool participants had out of wedlock births, compared to 83 percent of controls (High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2000). Thus, participation in a high-quality preschool program that included a great deal of contact between the home and school produced significant, long-lasting results.
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