Education and Policy aimed at Early Childhood

Education and Early Childhood Policy We have seen throughout this class that poverty and racial inequality are tough to combat, even in a developed wealthy economy. While issues such as discrimination and inequality of opportunity in the labor market certainly continue to persist, labor market success seems primarily driven by a worker’s productivity or human capital, which in turn is developed through education throughout childhood. Therefore, in attempting to better understand and develop solutions for poverty and racial inequality, it is not surprising that researchers (and policy-makers) have gravitated back toward education as possibly the key area for intervention.

Education and Early Childhood Policy So to understand poverty and racial inequality, we must understand our education system and figure out what works. What are the difficulties we face in educating our kids? How were public schools traditionally funded? What are consequences of this? What are alternatives? What are associated consequences of these alternatives?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Hanushek “The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies” What is his main contention? How does he build his argument?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Evidence from Aggregate Data

Education and Early Childhood Policy

Individual level evidence. “Meta-analysis”

Education and Early Childhood Policy What is concern about such a “meta-analysis”? What is concern about using student test scores as outcome variable of interest?

Education and Early Childhood Policy

So why don’t these types of school input interventions seem to work?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Recall from our discussion of racial wage inequality what is sometimes referred to as the black-white test score gap. This isn’t just with respect to AFQT scores. Can we better understand what is behind this gap?

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt “The Black-White Test Score Gap Through 3 rd Grade”

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (2006)

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (cont.)

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (cont.)

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (cont.)

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (cont.) So remaining question is why are Black students losing ground as they age relative to white students (even after controlling for household characteristics)?

Education and Racial Inequality Fryer and Levitt (cont.) Rising gap because Blacks attend worse schools than similar whites?

Education and Early Childhood Policy These results suggest that there are large schooling differences between the poor and the non-poor (and relatedly, between blacks and non-black), but this does not explain all of the growing gap. Moreover, differences in schooling quality and other non-school inputs compound one another over time, increasing differences in human capital as kids age. In some sense, these findings should maybe not be all that surprising given ethnographic evidence we have encountered (examples?)

Education and Early Childhood Policy Given all of this, researchers have looked toward fairly intensive programs focused around education and home environment, targeted at the very young.

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool A randomized intensive preschooling delivered to at-risk Michigan 3-4 yr old children in the 1960s. 58 children got the “treatment”, 65 in control group. Program (roughly 2 academic years): center-based program 2.5 hrs/day with 5:1 child:teacher ratio home visits of 1.5 hrs/day group meetings of parents In 2000 dollars, cost per participant was $15,827.

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool What else should they look at?

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool What are some potential concerns relating to this cost/benefit analysis?

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Education and Early Childhood Policy High/Scope Perry Preschool

Early Childhood Education Programs Abecedarian Project Followed 111 children of single disadvantaged African- American women. Used a randomized treatment/control study. Both groups received nutritional supplements, social work services, medical care. Half of each group also received additional home instruction. Treated (57 children) were given high-quality full-day daycare until kindergarten. Treated found to have:

Education and Early Childhood Policy Results of Abecedarian Project Relative to controls, Treated group: had greater cognitive skills at 18 months had higher test scores in grades 7 and 10 were less likely to have been held back a grade were less likely to be in special education had higher IQ at age 21 were more likely to attend college were more likely to hold a skilled job were less likely to be teen parent were less likely smoke marijuana or cigarettes

Education and Early Childhood Policy Even though programs such as Perry Preschool and Abcedarian pass cost/benefit analysis, politically they are hard to implement on a large scale basis. Only large-scale early childhood intervention has been “Head Start” What is this program?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start Pre-school program aimed at disadvantaged children. Avg. cost is $6,934/participant Over ¾ of participants had family incomes below $15,000. By 2002, Head start served over 900,000 children and had a budget of $6.5 billion. Again, program is voluntary but targeted to the most disadvantaged. Why does this make it hard to evaluate?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Currie and Thomas Attempted to evaluate short-term effects of Head Start on “test scores”, grade repetition, Immunization, and long-term effects on high school completion, college attendance, earnings, and crime. Approach three ways. 1. head-start/no pre-school 2. head-start/no pre-school after controlling for family characteristics (age, sex, birth order, family income, mother’s education and cognitive ability, height, number of siblings). 3. compare siblings who got head start vs. those who didn’t.

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Currie and Thomas

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Currie and Thomas

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Currie and Thomas Head start appears to have meaningful positive effects on immunizations for all enrollees, positive effects on white educational outcomes, and negative effects on criminal activity for African-Americans. What do you think of sibling comparison identification strategy?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Carneiro and Ginja (2008) Use a different strategy to get around endogeneity problem. Exploit the fact that there are income cutoffs determining eligibility for Head Start (“Regression Discontinuity”) Key Identifying assumption: In the absence of Head Start, those just under the income cutoff would have the same expected outcomes as those just over the income cutoffs in the absence of the Head Start Treatment. What are concerns and potential biases?

Education and Early Childhood Policy Head Start (cont.) Carneiro and Ginja (2008) They find relatively large effects of Head Start on a variety of adolescent outcomes. Their estimates suggest Head Start: decreased behavioral problems, lowered probability of grade retention, lowered probability of obesity and depression, lowered criminal behavior. If one believes this empirical strategy, it suggests that even fairly broad programs such as Head Start can have large impacts on the lives of poor children.

Education and Early Childhood Policy Even though effects of Head Start seem to be notable relative to other similar kids who don’t participate, overall Head Start kids still seem to lag dramatically behind kids who don’t grow up in poor households. So, where to go from here? What is latest trend?