Link Between Early Learning and Health
While much attention and effort has been directed at addressing the widening achievement gap in the United States, Black children face an equally pervasive and related health gap. By and large, they have markedly worse health than their white peers — a gap that appears early in life and builds over time. Science suggests that adverse early life experiences and environments — prenatally and in a child’s first years — can contribute to the health gap, leaving biological imprints on the child’s developing body and brain that can have strong and lasting effects. Early childhood programs aware of these health needs can be a critical factor in reducing these health gaps. 
Amazing Results in North Carolina
The North Carolina-based Abecedarian Project demonstrated that young Black children who receive high-quality early education from infancy to age 5 do better in reading and math and are more likely to stay in school longer, graduate from high school and attend a four-year college. Children who participated in the early intervention program posted higher cognitive test scores and tended to wait longer to have their first child. Conducted by Craig Ramey, one of the nation’s leading early childhood researchers, this was the first study to track participants in an early learning program from infancy to age 21. Based in North Carolina, this study tracked 111 low-income African-American families. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive full-time early learning intervention services starting at infancy; the others received no educational services.
