Giving Compass' Take:

• This Brookings post argues that standard interventions in early childhood may not be adequate to address inequality, proposing instead a more universal "good-enough model" that reduces diminishing returns.

• What are the arguments against this model? Does it assume too much about the effects of more intensive early childhood programs? To be fair, the author presents good-enough as an alternative, rather than a replacement to the standard.

• To see more of the landscape, check out this interactive map for early childhood education funding efforts.

The standard model of the role of early experience in human development assumes that children’s environments in their first years of life are dominant influences on who they become as adults. The standard model favors interventions to improve children’s long-term outcomes that start early in life and are intensive in time and attention from nurturing adults. The benefits of such interventions, including high-quality, universal preschool programs, are assumed to accrue to children from all socio-economic strata, and to be powerful enough to substantially eliminate racial and social class differences in children’s life outcomes.

I propose a different way of thinking about the role of early experience, which I call the good-enough model. It is an evolutionary perspective that sees the human species as having evolved in circumstances that support normal development of brain and behavior in a wide range of environments, including those in which parents and communities do not invest extraordinary time and attention in the rearing of their young. It posits a floor with respect to early stimulation, the good-enough point, above which the vast majority of children will experience normal development of brain and behavior without the need for special programs or expensive enrichment experiences. A corollary is that the returns to investment in intensive early childhood programs rapidly diminish beyond the good-enough point.

Read the full article about the good-enough model for early childhood by Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst at Brookings.