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Early childhood education
Policy Impacts of Reimbursement Rate Reform: Evidence from the Child Care and Development Fund
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThe Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) subsidizes child care costs for families with low-incomes. Reimbursements for cost-subsidized care are paid to child care providers but are extremely low compared with market rates and actual cost of care. We examine how the 2014 congressional… more →
Causal Mechanisms of Relative Age Effects on Adolescent Risky Behaviours
Topics: Student Well-BeingAge differences between classmates are attracting growing attention in academic research and public policy, yet their underlying mechanisms remain understudied. We examine how relative age affects adolescents’ risky behaviors across Europe. Using Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC)… more →
Leveraging Modern Machine Learning to Improve Early Warning Systems and Reduce Chronic Absenteeism in Early Childhood
Topics: MethodsThis study focuses on improving the predictive power of early warning systems (EWSs) to decrease chronic absenteeism in early childhood. Using a demographically diverse sample of students followed from PreK to third grade in Boston Public Schools (N=6,698), we demonstrate how and why two modern… more →
Using Meta-Analytic Data to Examine Fadeout and Persistence of Intervention Impacts on Constrained and Unconstrained Skills
Mindy L. Rosengarten, Emma R. Hart, Drew H. Bailey, Meghan P. McCormick, Benjamin J. Lovett, Tyler W. Watts.Topics: MethodsRecent reviews of the educational intervention literature have noted patterns of intervention impact fadeout on cognitive skills, whereby skill trajectories between children in the intervention and control group converge in the years following the end of the intervention. Some early childhood… more →
Human Capital at Home: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in the Philippines
Topics: Families and CommunitiesChildren spend most of their time at home in their early years, yet efforts to promote human capital at home in many low- and middle-income settings remain limited. We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate an intervention which encourages parents and caregivers to foster human… more →
Changes in Kindergarten Redshirting During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Topics: Student Well-BeingThis study examined the impact of COVID-19 on academic "redshirting" in kindergarten, the practice of holding a child back for a year and enrolling them in kindergarten at age 6, using student-level data on all Delaware kindergarten students from fall 2014 through fall 2022. The rate of… more →
The Effects of Public Pre-K for 3-year-olds on Early Elementary School Outcomes: Evidence from the DC Centralized Lottery
Topics: Student LearningThis study examines the effects of universal public pre-kindergarten for 3-year-olds (Pre-K3) on later public education outcomes, including enrollment, school mobility, special education status, and in-grade retention from kindergarten through second grade. While universal pre-kindergarten… more →
A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families’ Constraints
Topics: Families and CommunitiesAs women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children—through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to… more →
Is Authorized Capacity a Good Measure of Child Care Providers’ Current Capacity? New evidence from Virginia
Demand for child care in the United States outpaces supply. Understanding access issues is critical for addressing them and supporting children, families, and the economy. However, the most widely available proxy for child care supply—authorized capacity—likely overestimates care availability.… more →
Exploring Multidimensional Approaches to Learning During Early Childhood in Ghana
Topics: Student LearningChildren's approaches to learning (AtL) are widely recognized as a critical predictor of educational outcomes, especially in early childhood. Nevertheless, there remains a dearth of understanding regarding the dimensionality of AtL, the reciprocal dynamics between AtL and learning outcomes, and… more →
Transitional Kindergarten: The New Kid on the Early Learning Block
Jordan S. Berne, Katia Cordoba Garcia, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Samuel Owusu, Anna Shapiro, Christina Weiland.Topics: Student LearningTags: Early childhood education, EquityIn recent years, several states have expanded a new publicly funded learning option: Transitional Kindergarten (TK). TK programs bridge prekindergarten and kindergarten in their eligibility, requirements, and design. We use Michigan’s TK program as a case study on the fit of this new entrant in… more →
The Effect of Early Childhood Programs on Third-Grade Test Scores: Evidence from Transitional Kindergarten in Michigan
Topics: Student LearningTransitional Kindergarten (TK) is a relatively recent entrant into the U.S. early education landscape, combining features of public pre-K and regular kindergarten. We provide the first estimates of the impact of Michigan’s TK program on 3rd grade test scores. Using an augmented regression… more →
The Ups and Downs of Classroom Quality Over the Preschool Year and Relations to Children’s School Readiness
Topics: Student LearningDespite considerable evidence on the links between average classroom quality and children’s learning, the importance of variation in quality is not well understood. We examined whether three measures of variation in observed classroom quality over the school year – overall variation in quality,… more →
A Scalable Approach to High-Impact Tutoring for Young Readers: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Topics: Student LearningThis paper presents the results from a randomized controlled trial of Chapter One, an early elementary reading tutoring program that embeds part-time tutors into the classroom to provide short bursts of 1:1 instruction. Eligible kindergarten students were randomly assigned to receive… more →
Are Preschool Programs Becoming Less Effective?
Anamarie A. Whitaker, Margaret Burchinal, Jade M. Jenkins, Drew H. Bailey, Tyler W. Watts, Greg J. Duncan, Emma R. Hart, Ellen S. Peisner-Feinberg.Topics: Student LearningHigh-quality preschool programs are heralded as an effective policy tool to promote the development and life-long wellbeing of children from low-income families. Yet evaluations of recent preschool programs produce puzzling findings, including negative impacts, and divergent, weaker results than… more →
Assessing the Benefits of Education in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Pre-K Lottery in Georgia
Topics: Student LearningNumerous studies have demonstrated a strong link between participation in pre-K programs and both short-term student achievement and positive later-life outcomes. Existing evidence primarily stems from experimental studies of small-scale, high-quality programs conducted in the 1960s and… more →
Rural Early Childhood Programs & School Readiness: An Evaluation of the Early Steps to School Success Program
Topics: Student LearningPrior research has clearly established the substantial expected payoffs to investments in early childhood education. However, the ability to deliver early childhood programs differs across communities with access to high quality programing especially hard to establish in rural communities. We… more →
The Effects of Early Literacy Policies on Student Achievement
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceGiven the importance of early literacy to long-term student success, by 2021, 41 states and the District of Columbia adopted early literacy policies to improve student literacy by the end of third grade. We use an event-study approach to examine the impact of these policies on high- and low-… more →
Instructional Alignment is Associated with Sustained Benefits of PreK
Meghan P. McCormick, Cullen MacDowell, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Michelle Maier, Mirjana Pralica, Samuel Maves, Catherine Snow, Jason Sachs.This study uses implementation fidelity data from PreK to 1st grade in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) to measure instructional alignment and examine whether stronger alignment is associated with sustained benefits of BPS PreK on children’s language, literacy, and math skills through first grade… more →
Comparing the School Readiness Skills of Public Pre-Kindergarten and Head Start Participants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Topics: Student LearningA systematic review of the literature (1965–2022) and meta-analysis were undertaken to compare the school readiness skills of children participating in public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) or Head Start. Seven quasi-experimental studies met the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis and 38 effect… more →