The cause of early childhood care and education has found some energetic champions in the past few years.

Federal programs subsidizing child care for low-income families and early nurse visits to vulnerable homes received a huge infusion of money last year. Most Democratic presidential candidates support the idea of providing preschool at no or low cost to any household that wants it, even proposing significant new sources of revenue to offset the expense. At the state level as well, a slate of freshly elected governors have endorsed significant expansions of publicly funded preschool.

Experts have cheered the new emphasis on early childhood, citing heaps of research on the benefits to educational and developmental supports for young learners. Multiple studies have indicated that high-quality preschool programs can yield as much as $7.30 in returns for every dollar invested, mostly by reducing future government spending on public assistance, health care, and the criminal justice system.

According to new research, however, not all approaches to early childhood education are created equal. A study of Colombian preschool programs found that a huge expansion in spending on preschools directed toward low-income families did not produce the learning gains that its architects had hoped for, and may have even backfired. When the new money was accompanied by intensive pedagogical training for teachers, however, young students saw marked cognitive improvements. When it comes to funding preschool, it seems, spending money the wrong way may be worse than not spending at all.

Read the full article about funding for pre-k by Kevin Mahnken at The 74.