Early Ed Watch: Cost-Effectiveness and Trade-Offs in Early Education

Over at our sister blog, Early Ed Watch, Sara Mead has a post on two new studies that try to estimate the cost of high-quality early education. She looks at the trade-offs that policymakers must make between different types of early childhood investments, as well as between quality and quantity for any given early childhood investment. Definitely worth a read:

Two new studies released this week aim to help policymakers make sound choices about early education investments.

In Meaningful Investments In Pre-k, researchers from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimate what it actually costs to provide quality pre-k programs. To estimate the costs of quality pre-k programs, the IWPR researchers identified the characteristics of high-quality pre-k programs—qualified teachers, small class sizes, appropriate educational materials, and so on—and arrived at research-based estimates of what it actually costs, on a per-child basis, to provide those things. They also estimated the cost of appropriate facilities and of state-level support and oversight infrastructure needed to ensure pre-k quality.

The researchers estimated the cost of pre-k at a variety of quality levels, varying quality in terms of both teacher qualifications/compensation and class size. They also estimated the difference in costs of half-, full-, and extended-day programs. Estimates ranged from a low of $3,214 dollars per child, per year for half-day pre-k programs taught by teachers with a CDA (a child development credential that is less than an associate’s degree) in classrooms of 20 students, to a high of $13,649 per child, per year for extended-day pre-k programs, taught by bachelor’s degree teachers paid under public school salaries, in classrooms of 15 students.

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