The road to a high school diploma, postsecondary education and ultimately a flourishing career doesn’t start in high school. Not even in grade school. The evidence points to pre-K education.

A 2017 review article conducted by a team of researchers from several U.S. universities established the statistical significance of early childhood education on a child’s K-12 experience. Reductions in special education placement and increases high school graduation rates were two key outcomes from the meta-analysis.

Looking further into the future, Nobel-prize winning economist James Heckman has shown in one study a 7% to 10% return on investment in early childhood education, measured by reduced costs of remedial education, health expenditures and outlays in the criminal justice system. In another study, Heckman found a 13% return on early childhood education for disadvantaged children via better educational attainment, as well as economic and health outcomes. Other studies largely corroborate these findings.

Counties lag behind

What is the status of early childhood education in the greater Tri-Cities? One Benton-Franklin Trends indicator, “Share of entering kindergarteners demonstrating readiness in all six domains of the WaKIDS standards,” gives us a good idea.

Every fall, Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills, or WaKIDS, is used to assess the following areas of learning for public kindergarteners: cognitive, math, reading, language, social/emotional and physical. Readiness of the child is based on standards set by the assessment.

The number of domains where readiness is observed and tallied by the teacher. Ideally, a child is ready in all six domains, the version of the indicator shown here. The Trends data shows the sizes of the remaining shares, with readiness in: none or one domain, in two or three, in four or five.

As the graph illustrates, the number of children in the two counties entering kindergarten with readiness levels in all six domains is far less than 100%.

For the most recent school year, 2023-24, the two-county average was 44%. While it is better than a decade ago, when it was less than half of this, the share is still below half. The two-county average still lags the Washington state average by several percentage points.

Among larger Eastern Washington counties, this result places the greater Tri-Cities in the middle. For the same school year, children in Walla Walla and Spokane counties public schools show higher rates of readiness; those in Yakima, Chelan and Douglas counties show lower rates.

Strong differences also exist between the two counties here. In the most recent year, the average of all Benton County kindergartners meeting standards in all six domains was 49%. In Franklin County, 34%. And within Benton County, a large difference is noticeable between the Kennewick and Richland school districts.

Preschool enrollment

A key reason for the general underperformance of kindergartners in the greater Tri-Cities can be traced to preschool enrollment.

Heckman’s research has found that the returns to early childhood education starting in the interval birth to 3 years are greater than those with a later start. Data aren’t available to track the 0-3 experience, but are thanks to the U.S. Census for 3- and 4-year-olds. Starting education at that age is still better than none at all before kindergarten.

Trends data tracks the estimated share of 3- and 4-year-olds who are enrolled in preschool. For years, the local share of this age group has been far below national and state averages. And the pandemic widened the gap. The most recent available year of Census estimates, 2022 puts the overall estimated share of 3- and 4-year-olds in the two counties enrolled in pre-school at 29%. Compare that to the Washington average of 44% and the U.S. average of 47%.

The local rate is also the lowest among all larger Eastern Washington counties except for Yakima. Further, as with the WaKIDS measure, there are pronounced differences between Benton and Franklin counties for this indicator.

With less than one out of every three local small children engaged in some form of organized learning, it shouldn’t be too surprising to observe relatively low WaKIDS results.

Catching up later

Happily, the slow head start in learning tracked by these two measures somewhat disappears by high school. At least on a relative basis.

For example, the on-time graduation rates of all public K-12 districts in the two counties were most recently only one percentage point less than the Washington average. Of course, at 81%, the on-time graduation rate still raises questions about the fate of the remaining one fifth of public K-12 high school students here.

Yet, learning achievement, as measured by the Smarter Balance Assessment, or SBA, still presents challenges among the greater Tri-Cities students. Little catch-up is observed. For the most recent available year, the overall share of high school students meeting standard for English Language Arts was 54%. That is down from the peak in school year 2017-18 of 64% and considerably below the current Washington average. The share of local public high school students meeting standards on the Math SBA is even lower.

Since educational achievement starts so young, can the greater Tri-Cities open more doors to early childhood learning?

D. Patrick Jones is the executive director for Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis. Benton-Franklin Trends, the institute’s project, uses local, state and federal data to measure the local economic, educational and civic life of Benton and Franklin counties.