Preschool programs for low-income children help build solid adults, the evidence says. Wraparound programs offering poor children and youth rigorous academic content  and social services help build solid adults, the evidence says.  Now there is even more evidence. Offering college scholarships to elementary school children who graduate high school works.

In 1981, a businessman offered college tuition to elementary school students in New York City who graduated high school. Called “I Have a Dream,” Eugene Lang’s efforts had prompted two Washington, D.C. businessmen in 1988 to make a similar offer to 59 fifth graders at Seat Pleasant elementary school in Prince George’s county (MD). A recent series in the Washington Post documented what happened to those 59 poor and minority fifth graders who were called “Dreamers.”.  The reporter summarized the results of that experiment:

“at least 11 of the 59 graduated from four-year colleges; at least three of those 11 attained advanced degrees; at least 12 students completed trade school; six dropped out of high school; what happened to six more remains unknown.

[The project coordinator] knows that the Dreamers’ high school graduation rate of 83 percent far surpassed Prince George’s overall rate in 1995. He also knows that the vast majority did not finish college, a fact that is true of many Dreamers nationally, according to a summary of several studies by the “I Have a Dream” Foundation.

From New York to Portland to Houston, the Dreamers graduated from high school and enrolled in college in far higher numbers than other students. But they often struggled to finish college.”

The early intervention in children’s lives, the incentive of having college paid and providing on-going help from advisers and counselors have spurred poor students to stay in high school and graduate far surpassing similarly situated students who were not beneficiaries of these programs (see Kahne PDF 1164238). Yet far higher graduation rates from high school followed by difficulties in going to college and persisting toward graduation is the pattern for these programs targeting low-income and minority elementary school students. The money and help has not altered the low numbers of those entering college after high school and the ferocious dropout rate among those who did go on to higher education. But it did change the all-too-familiar trajectory of most Seat Pleasant Dreamers–they graduated high school, some went to college, many took jobs, got married, and had kids. And, yes, some went to prison. But not in the percentages that their peers experienced.

So there is a wealth of evidence that educational and social early intervention programs help young children in family and school achieve success in elementary and secondary school, producing hard-working engaged adults who, in turn, help their children succeed.

But that same body of evidence also reveals poverty’s effects on individuals, family, peers, and neighborhood in those who did not graduate high school, dropped out of college, and lost their way in crime and addictions. Zip codes may not be destiny but being poor surely influence one’s life chances.

So why is there a continuing struggle between the “no excuses” crowd of school reformers and those reformers that call for both rigorous academic programs and social services?

ANSWER: The “no excuses” crowd has become the establishment among reformers with two Presidents and most of the corporate community behind them politically as donors line up to fund charter start-ups, expand parental choice through vouchers and similar ventures. Steven Brill’s Class Warfaremaps that political terrain very well (See here, here, and here).

It is not that these “no excuse” reformers dismiss poverty as a factor in growing healthy, successful adults. They recognize the harmful effects of being poor but they want schools to focus solely on effective teaching and learning, to concentrate on acquiring knowledge and skills and do what they are supposed to do with children regardless of background. They point to KIPP. They point to those consistently successful charter schools in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Sure, they say, social class is important but it does not determine what each low-income, minority child can achieve.

Then opponents tear apart the results of KIPP and those exceptional urban charter schools. Such a fruitless ideological debate over policy direction often fails to mention cost.

The crux of the matter is money and political will. Intervening early in children’s lives, providing support services to children and youth as they proceed through school, and offering incentives for going to college do, indeed, show results (or return on investment that would delight any far-sighted CEO). But the initial costs of the capital investment up-front are high. With a shrinking pie of resources for  improving schools, there is weak political will to spend (invest?) more on those who need it the most–even when the evidence, even when the return on investment, clearly shows that such decisions pay off for both individuals and society.