Preschool for All Would Help Nation, Say Grawemeyer Education Winners

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Making preschool available to all children age 3 and older in the United States would carry great benefits, say three scholars who have won the 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education.

The change would improve the school readiness of the nation's young children, fill a gap for working families, lower the high school dropout rate, reduce crime and boost the economy, award winners Edward Zigler, Walter Gilliam and Stephanie Jones, argue in their winning 2006 book, "A Vision for Universal Preschool Education."

Forty U.S. states now fund pre-kindergarten programs but the programs enroll fewer than 10 percent of all preschoolers, Zigler, Gilliam and Jones found.

Using research gathered over four decades, the winners set out specific actions that can be taken to develop good universal preschool systems. The book "stands alone in its field for its accessibility, clarity, timeliness and ability to combine a solid research background with practical recommendations," said their award nomination.

Zigler, Sterling professor emeritus of psychology at Yale University, founded Yale's child development and social policy center, which was renamed in his honor in 2005. He helped plan the Head Start program and was the first director of the federal Office of Child Development, now the Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

Gilliam is a Yale psychologist who conducts research on the effects of preschool programs and who now directs the Zigler center; Stephanie Jones is a Fordham University psychologist who studies the social and emotional aspects of early childhood and adolescence.

The Grawemeyer Foundation at U of L annually awards $1 million -- $200,000 each - for outstanding works in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology, education and religion. Winners of the other 2008 Grawemeyer Awards also are being announced this week.

For more details or photos of the winners, contact Denise Fitzpatrick at 502-852-6171 or denise.fitzpatrick@louisville.edu or see www.grawemeyer.org.