1 Economics of Early Education Benefits and Costs of Quality Early Education for All Presentation to the Pre-Kindergarten Education Study Committee Vermont General Assembly October 27, 2006 W. Steven Barnett, Ph.D. National Institute for Early Education Research

2 Impacts of Quality Early Education Increased Educational Success and Adult Productivity  Achievement test scores  Special education and grade repetition  High school graduation  Behavior problems, delinquency, and crime  Employment, earnings, and welfare dependency Decreased Costs to Government  Schooling costs  Social services costs  Crime costs  Health care costs (teen pregnancy and smoking)

3 Randomized Trials  Long Term  Perry Preschool, IDS, Early Training Project  Abecedarian, Milwaukee, CARE  IHDP (not Disadvantaged), Houston PCDC  Mauritius Preschool Study  Short Term  National Early Head Start  National Head Start  Many smaller scale studies

4 Quasi-Experimental Studies: Follow-up Into School Years  Chicago Child Parent Center Study (12 th grade)  Michigan School Readiness (4 th grade)  South Carolina Pre-K (1 st grade)  New York Pre-K (3 rd Grade)  Ludwig & Miller Head Start (12 th grade +)  RAND National study of 4 th grade NAEP  Belfield & Schwartz ECLS-K (5 th grade)  Cost Quality and Outcomes (3 rd grade)  Vandell NICHD Early Care and Education  Early Provision of Preschool Education (England)

5 Strong Quasi-Experimental Studies: New Results at Kindergarten  Georgetown U., Tulsa, OK (All)  NIEER, Rutgers U.  OK (All)  WV (All)  AR (Disadvantaged)  MI (Disadvantaged)  SC (Disadvantaged)  NJ (All in 31 districts with high poverty)

6 Three Benefit-Cost Analyses with Disadvantaged Children

7 High/Scope Perry Preschool: Educational Effects

8 High/Scope Perry Preschool: Economic Effects at Age 27

9 High/Scope Perry Preschool: Economic Effects at 40 Source: Schweinhart et al., 2005

10 High/Scope Perry Preschool: Arrests per person by age 27

11 Perry Preschool: Crime Effects at 40 Source: Schweinhart et al. 2005

12 Abecedarian : Academic Benefits

13 Abecedarian Reading Ach. Over Time

14 Abecedarian Math Achievement Over Time

15 Chicago CPC: Academic and Social Benefits at School Exit

16 Economic Returns to Pre-K for Disadvantaged Children Cost Benefits B/C  Perry Pre-K $16,264 $277,  Abecedarian$36,929$139,  Chicago$ 7,417$ 52,

17 Perry Preschool CostsBenefits

18 Abecedarian CostsBenefits

19 Chicago CPC CostsBenefits

20 Could Universal Pre-K Produce Similar Benefits for the Middle Class? Middle class children have fairly high rates of the problems that preschool reduces for low-income children. Reducing these problems could generate large benefits. Income Retention Dropout Lowest 20%17% 23% 20-80% 12% 11% Highest 20% 8% 3% Source:US Department of Education, NCES (1997). Dropout rates in the United States: Figures are multi-year averages.

21 Access to Any Pre-K or Child Care Center

22 Cognitive Readiness Gap—Half as Big at Median as for the Poor (bottom 20%)

23 Social Readiness Gap—Half as Big at the Median as for the Poor (bottom 20%)

24 Effects of Today’s Programs  New rigorous studies  Large scale public (Head Start & State)  One year of quality public Pre-K at 4  Effects of policy at entry to Kindergarten  Universal and targeted programs  Standardized tests  Estimate effects by income and ethnicity

25 Oklahoma’s Pre-K for All  3,028 children in Tulsa public schools  Rigorous RD design  Gains for all SES & ethnic groups  Literacy and Math gains  Smaller than Perry and Abecedarian  Similar to CPC  Larger gains for minority and poor children Source: Gormley et al. (2004). CROCUS/Georgetown University

26 NIEER Evaluation of 6 State Pre-K Programs  Over 6,000 children in 6 States  OK and WV are for all children  NJ for all children in 31 districts  AR, MI, & SC targeted  Gains from Pre-K in all 6 states  Gains in language, literacy & math  All children gain, low-income gain more Source: Barnett et al. (2005). NIEER/Rutgers University, plus new AR report.

27 Oklahoma 4 th Grade NAEP Scores Before and After Pre-K for All Reading gains are not statistically significant; math gains are statistically significant for Whites and Hispanics ( ).

28 Georgia 4 th Grade Math NAEP Scores Before and After Pre-K Gains from before to after UPK are statistically significant.

29 Georgia 4 th Grade Reading NAEP Scores Before and After Pre-K Gains from 1998 to 2005 are statistically significant.

30 Is Targeting More Cost-Effective? Targeting is costly and imperfect  Poverty is a moving target  Need is not defined by poverty alone  Accurate identification is difficult Benefits do not stop at the poverty line  Middle class has similar problems  Benefits decrease gradually with income

31 Comparing Targeted Pre-K and Pre-K for All Targeted Pre-K has Lower Cost Pre-K for All Children: Reaches all disadvantaged children Produces larger gains for disadvantaged Produces good gains for children Yield larger net benefits Source: Barnett (2004). Maximizing returns from pre-kindergarten education. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Research Conference.

32 High Quality Preschool Programs Needed to Produce Benefits  Well-educated, adequately paid teachers  Good curriculum and professional development  Small classes and reasonable teacher:child ratios  Strong supervision, monitoring, and review  High standards and accountability

33 Conclusions  Preschool can be a sound investment  High quality is needed for high returns  High standards and adequate resources are necessary but not sufficient  Plan-Do-Review is also needed  Universal can be more cost-effective