Research

What Works in Pre-k Curriculum?

Sara Mead — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:29:00 -0400

Last month the Institute of Education Sciences released a major new study that evaluates the impact of 14 common pre-kindergarten curricula on pre-k students’ learning and pre-k classroom quality. Results suggest that some pre-k curricula are more effective than others in improving children’s literacy and math skills.

Pre-kindergarten experts generally agree that high-quality pre-k programs must have a clearly articulated curriculum that guides instruction and spells out expectations for what children will learn over the course of the year. They also tend to agree that good pre-k curriculum should be comprehensive—developing children’s literacy, language, early math, and social and emotional skills. And, as we’ve previously argued, good pre-k curriculum should be aligned with the curriculum that will be used in kindergarten and early elementary grades.

But beyond that, there’s relatively little consensus on what a good pre-k curriculum should look like. In fact, pre-k curriculum is the subject of heated ideological debates between those who favor different pedagogical approaches. There’s also relatively little systematic research on the effectiveness of different types of curricula currently being implemented in pre-k classrooms around the country. And the evaluations that have been conducted are often not well-publicized or accessible for policymakers and the public. That’s left policymakers adrift: We know that quality pre-k programs should use quality curricula, but if we don’t have solid research on the effectiveness of different curricula, how can we ensure that the curricula publicly-funded pre-k programs implement are effective?

The federally-funded Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research Initiative seeks to address that problem, by evaluating the effectiveness of 14 common pre-k curricula. The study focuses on three questions:

What is the impact of each of the 14 preschool curricula on preschool students’ early reading skills, phonological awareness, language development, early mathematical knowledge, and behavior?
What is the impact of each of the 14 preschool curricula on these outcomes for students at the end of kindergarten?
What is the impact of each of the 14 preschool curricula on preschool classroom quality, teachers-child interaction, and instructional practices?

Twelve research teams from universities across the country implemented the 14 curricula in randomly selected samples of local pre-k classrooms; measured child outcomes at the end of pre-k and the end of kindergarten, for both children in treatment classrooms and a control group; and observed the quality of classrooms in both treatment classrooms and the control group.

Researchers found evidence that four programs had positive impacts on child outcomes, compared to a control group, either at the end of preschool or at the end of kindergarten:

DLM Early Childhood Express Supplemented with Open Court Reading Pre-K had positive effects on reading, phonological awareness, and language at both the end of pre-k and the end of kindergarten.
Pre-K Mathematics supplemented with DLM Early Childhood Express Math software had positive effects on math at the end of pre-k.
Curiosity Corner, developed by the Success for All Foundation, had positive effects on reading at the end of kindergarten (but not pre-k).
Early Literacy Learning Model had positive effects on language at the end of kindergarten (but not pre-k).

Most curricula included in the study did not improve children’s outcomes relative those of control group children, however. More of the selected curricula had positive impacts on pre-k classroom quality and teachers’ interactions with children: eight of the 14 curricula studied had positive results, relative to a control group, on these indicators.

There are some clear limitations to these findings.

First, just because researchers found no positive impacts for most of the curricula studied, that doesn’t mean they are ineffective. Children in the control groups were enrolled in the same types of pre-k programs as those in the treatment groups, and the classrooms they attended used some type of curriculum, most often (though not always) one developed by their teachers. What we can conclude from this research is that most of the curricula studied were no more effective in improving pre-kindergarteners’ learning than the various curricula that the pre-k programs would otherwise have used.

Similarly, we cannot necessarily conclude, based on this data, that the few curricula that had significant student learning impacts, relative to controls, are more effective than other curricula in the study, which did not. That’s because the curricula used in control classrooms varied across the experiments, and some control classrooms had stronger curricula than others. Variation in control classrooms is one major challenge in implementing very large, multi-site studies like this one, and the study design in this instance contributed to this program.

Finally, this study does not look at the cost-effectiveness of different curriculum models. It tells us nothing about the cost to implement each curriculum, or how it compares to the costs of teacher- and school-designed curricula, or other popular curriculum models.

Then what does this study show? First, this study’s findings show that curriculum does matter, and that some curricula can produce better learning outcomes for children than others. Specifically, it suggests that four curricula that did have significant positive student learning impacts are more effective than the, typically teacher generated, curricula most pre-k programs were using. That may not sound like much, but it’s a pretty significant finding for studies of educational curriculum, which often find no benefits relative to what schools would be doing otherwise. Policymakers should take this into account when considering curriculum requirements for pre-k programs. We clearly need further research in this area to produce more useful guidance for policymakers and practitioners going forward, however.

The Department of Education must also do a better job communicating research findings about different pre-k curricula. This study has so far received very little public or press attention, despite its importance. The Department’s What Works Clearinghouse has also reviewed evaluations of almost 20 different early education interventions or curricula, but those evaluations are also not well-publicized among early educators. As research confirms the common sense finding that curriculum models in pre-k are important, the federal government must do a much better job of supporting quality research on the effectiveness of different models and making the results accessible to policymakers, practitioners, and parents.

Featured Abstract: Kindergarten Redshirting

Sara Mead — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:55:00 -0400

A new study by economists David Deming and Susan Dynarski suggests that the trend towards delaying children's entrance into kindergarten (commonly known as kindergarten redshirting) may be partially to blame for the stagnation in higher education attainment for American youth:

Forty years ago, 96% of six-year-old children were enrolled in first grade or above. As of 2005, the figure was just 84%. The school attendance rate of six-year-olds has not decreased; rather, they are increasingly likely to be enrolled in kindergarten rather than first grade. This paper documents this historical shift. We show that only about a quarter of the change can be proximately explained by changes in school entry laws; the rest reflects "academic redshirting," the practice of enrolling a child in a grade lower than the one for which he is eligible. We show that the decreased grade attainment of six-year-olds reverberates well beyond the kindergarten classroom. Recent stagnation in the high school and college completion rates of young people is partly explained by their later start in primary school. The relatively late start of boys in primary school explains a small but significant portion of the rising gender gaps in high school graduation and college completion. Increases in the age of legal school entry intensify socioeconomic differences in educational attainment, since lower-income children are at greater risk of dropping out of school when they reach the legal age of school exit.

Deming and Dynarski's logic is straightforward: Children (particularly boys) who are held back a year before entering kindergarten are a year older than their peers, which allows them to legally drop out of school a year earlier than they could have if they had started kindergarten when they were eligible, depressing educational attainment. The researchers also provide a helpful look at state policie changes moving up the cut-off date by which children must turn five in order to enter kindergarten, and the role they play in delayi8ng children's kindergarten entry. Many educators recommend redshirting children--partiuclarly boys--who have late birthdays or seem to lag their peers in language or social-emotional development. Parents need to make their own decisions based on their individual child's circumstances and needs, as well as what supports the school can offer, but this evidence should lead some parents and policymakers to think twice about delaying kindergarten entry.

Confused About Kindergarten Redshirting?

Sara Mead — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:57:00 -0400

I don't often agree with Richard Whitmire*, but I do enjoy reading his new-ish blog, "Why Boys Fail?" Richard is smarter, more honest, and more data-driven than most other proponents of the current "boy crisis" storyline, and to the extent that the boy crisis has a kernel of truth to it--and it does, particularly for poor and minority boys--he's one of the more thoughtful people investigating that.

But this post he recently ran, by University of Alaska-Fairbanks Professor (and noted boy crisis hysteric) Judith Kleinfeld, makes no sense whatsoever. Like many "boy crisis" promoters, Kleinfeld believes many boys are not developmentally ready to enter school or begin learning to read at age five, and that this is one reason boys tend to lag girls in reading achievement. Kleinfeld has proposed delaying boys' entry into kindergarten as one potential strategy to address the literacy gap. She notes that the practice, known as "kindergarten redshirting," is common among affluent, white parents, and suggests that poor and minority boys, whose parents are much less likely to redshirt, would do better if they were held back from kindergarten too.

Then she does something really wierd.

To support her argument, Kleinfeld links to a recent study that reaches the exact opposite conclusion. In an NBER working paper released this June, David Deming and Susan Dynarski write:

Red-shirting is referred to as “the gift of time” in education circles, reflecting a perception that children who have been allowed to mature for another year will benefit more from their schooling. As we will discuss, little evidence supports this perception...There is little evidence that being older than your classmates has any long-term, positive effect on adult outcomes such as IQ, earnings, or educational attainment. By contrast, there is substantial evidence that entering school later reduces educational attainment (by increasing high school dropout rates) and depresses lifetime earnings (by delaying entry into the labor market).

In fact, Deming and Dynarski conclude that "The recent stagnation in the high school and college completion rates of those in their late teens and early twenties (especially males) is partly explained by their later start in primary school," due both to kindergarten redshirting and to the passage of state laws moving up the cut-date by which students must turn five in order to enter kindergarten in a given year. In other words, redshirting is part of the problem for boys today, not the solution, and following Kleinfeld's advice to hold more boys back a year before starting them in kindergarten would likely exacerbate the boy crisis she purports to want to address. Moreover, Kleinfeld seems utterly unaware that the very research she's citing to buttress her argument, works against it.

This may seem like a small point, but it's important for two broader reasons.

First, some boy crisis proponents have actively opposed expansion of quality pre-k programs because they argue that these programs inappropriately push boys into language and literacy activities before they're ready for them. To be sure, some poor quality preschools--particularly those with less-educated teachers--push inappropriate academic activities on children before they're ready. But the fact that boys lag girls in language and literacy is a terrible reason to deny them access to quality programs that improve their language and literacy skills. If anything, young boys need the boost in language and literacy skills that quality pre-k programs provide even more than girls do. Boys also benefit greatly from the social and emotional development quality pre-k programs support, which can improve their ability to function in a kindergarten classroom once they get there.

Second, Kleinfeld's arguments here reflect a broader poverty of thought and disconnect from evidence that pervades much of the current conversation about the boy crisis. Boy crisis proponents persist in pushing kindergarten redshirting despite the utter lack of evidence that it improves boys' acheivement (see a summary of the research by Deborah Stipek, attached below, for more info). Look at many of their other recommendations to address the boy crisis, and you'll find similar problems, shortages of evidence supporting their prescriptions, or disconnects between proposed solutions and the problems they purport to address. For example, boy crisis proponents also habitually misrepresent or fail to understand evidence from neuroscience and cognitive science about gender and the brain in order to make the case for gender-based educational approaches. Not always, but often, the "boy crisis" simply seems to be a hook for individuals' preconceived ideas and agendas about gender or pedagogy.

Whitmire, in contrast, seems sincerely interested in looking past the rhetoric and ideologies to find real data, real answers and real solutions to the achievement problems plauging poor and minority boys. But he'd do better to stick to writing his own blog posts from here on out.

*I'm particularly less than crazy about his recent Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed on gender balances in higher education and the hook-up culture on college campuses. See Kevin Carey here and yours truly here for more on why.

More About Oklahoma and Pre-k Evidence

Sara Mead — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:53:00 -0400

Cato's Adam Schaeffer, responding to a post I wrote two week ago, has more--lots more--to say about pre-k effectiveness (or, from his point of view, the lack thereof). Before we start talking about the evidence on pre-k more generally, though—which is the real bone of contention here, right?—let’s close out the debate that started this: Do trends in Oklahoma’s NAEP scores since the early 1990s indicate that the state’s pre-k program is ineffective? My answer is still “no.”

It is true that, in the early 1990s, Oklahoma 4th graders outperformed the national average on the NAEP in reading and math. But today they’re performing below the national average. Does that mean pre-k does work? No: Between 1998 and 2002, Oklahoma’s 4th grade reading NAEP scores plummeted. That’s also when the national average NAEP score in 4th grade math passed Oklahoma’s.

Now, I would like to know what the heck happened in Oklahoma between 1998 and 2002 (unfortunately, this was before annual NAEP testing, so we have no data points between 1998 and 2002)—but it sure as heck didn’t have anything to do with universal pre-k. Why? Because Oklahoma didn’t start universal pre-k until 1998, so the first kids to benefit from pre-k weren’t even in 4th grade yet when Oklahoma was falling behind.

(Remember: Children enrolled in pre-k in one year won't be in fourth grade until 5 years later, so any score impacts from enrollment increases would have a 5 year time lag.)

Since 2003, Oklahoma 4th graders’ achievement in reading and math has been on the upswing, and it appears to be closing the gap with national averages in math. One could just as easily use this data to argue that universal pre-k arrested Oklahoma’s late-1990s decline in 4th grade reading achievement. For reasons discussed, at length, by both me and Adam, trying to use NAEP data to make an argument like that would be silly—which shows why Schaeffer’s attempt to use Oklahoma’s NAEP data to show pre-k isn’t effective is equally silly.*

What we do know is that Oklahoma’s pre-k program is effective in improving the math and literacy skills with which participants enter kindergarten—and that it’s doing so to a greater extent than Head Start does. Given how difficult it is for any educational intervention to produce evidence of student learning gains, that's a pretty impressive finding. The far more important question, however—and this is one area where Schaeffer and I do agree—is whether those abundantly documented short-term learning gains translate into long-term benefits. And that’s a topic for another post, to come shortly.

*There's plenty of irony in Schaeffer's efforts to make any argument at all based on NAEP data. Cato is on record opposing national standards and government testing requirements in general—if Schaeffer and his colleagues had their way, the data that sparked this debate wouldn’t even exist to begin with!

Live Blogging Head Start's 9th National Research Conference

Sara Mead — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:29:00 -0400

Early Ed Watch is at Head Start's 9th National Research Conference this morning, and as long as our wifi connection holds up, we'll be bringing you live coverage of what we hear and learn here. This morning's keynote session features UNC-Chapel Hill's Peg Burchinal and UVA's Robert Pianta discussing "Competencies and Credentials for Early Childhood Educators: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?" Relevant background reading here.

8:50: The Office of Head Start's Patricia Brown discusses the Office's implementation of the recent Head Start reauthorization, and the importance of research in supporting that reauthorization, in light of that legislation's emphasis on scientifically based practice.

8:53: SRCD Executive Director Lonnie Sherrod notes that this conference starts very early in the morning (there's a session at 7 AM tomorrow). Sherrod notes that Head Start, unlike many other federal programs, was created with active involvement from child development experts, establishing a unique relationship between the Head Start program and the early childhood research community.

9:00: Burchinal takes a moment to pay tribute to Edith Henderson Grotberg, the first Director of Research for Head Start, who passed away last month. (trivia: She was also Burchinal's stepmother)

9:07: Burchinal shows a video from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America that features high-quality care in action at the Frank Porter Graham center.

9:11: The core of Burchinal's presentation: Earlier, classic studies that established the importance of quality early education and the definition of quality found that teachers having a bachelor's degree is linked to higher quality in early childhood education--but more recent research presents a more mixed picture. Bachelor's degrees don't guarantee quality, and seem to matter more in some instances than others. How should we think about this?

9:16: Burchinal brings up an interesting idea: Reverse selection bias. School districts are moving the best certified pre-k teachers to work in early elementary grades, where students are tested, and moving lower-skill teachers to pre-k classrooms, because pre-k students aren't tested. We say that's shortsighted, and reflects a broader problem: too many public school administrators don't understand or respect pre-k education.

Another important issue: Variation in the quality of teacher preparation programs for early childhood educators. Burchinal reviews results from a National Survey of higher education programs in early childhood education. Higher education programs for early childhood educators tend to be small and underfunded, and are experienced dramatic enrollment gains as a result of state degree mandates for pre-k teachers. This contributes to uneven quality in pre-service training for early childhood educators. One key problem: Relatively few programs put a priority on teacher prospective early childhood teachers about using research or the importance of interactions with children.

9:23: Burchinal reviews recent research findings that high-quality pre and inservice training for early childhood teachers can yield big improvements in classroom practice, and significant gains in child outcomes. What are some things that are effective? Well-defined curricula combined with discussions of video observations, induction and on-site mentoring, intensive programs with clearly defined curricula and coaching.

Burchinal: We should move beyond a focus on whether or not teachers have a bachelor's degree, to the content and quality of pre- and inservice professional development for all educators who work with young children and the degree of support available to educators in early care and education settings.

9:28: Pianta begins to speak. He notes that substantial public investments being made in pre-k and early childhood right now add an urgency to getting this right, as does increased pressure for accountability.

"Credentials and state standards are not classroom competencies"--in many fields licensure and certification are minimal thresholds--not a definition of quality.

9:35: Pianta notes that both K-12 education and early childhood education are lack clear definitions of effective practice and ways to measure whether teachers are doing that.

Pianta calls for certification based on evidence of effective practice, rather than continuing emphasis on degrees and courses. The audience applauds.

Pianta suggests states should incent multiple routes toward effective practice for teachers.

9:40: Pianta's conclusion: Stop asking why the BA doesn't predict gains and start focusing on building better training programs that demonstrate effects. "Skills and knowledge can be trained, but we have to be serious about the kinds of skills and knowledge teachers need." Pianta notes that evidence on the Master's for K-12 teachers is not very good either.

"This is an opportunity for early education to lead the way for K-12. K-12 is struggling with same issues we are here, and we have some flexibility to develop solutions that K-12 doesn't."

10:00: All in all, great first panel. Now we're off to a breakout session on "Implications of Long-Term Studies of Three Model Preschool Programs for Head Start." Sounds interesting.

UPDATE: 1:16 PM: We had a little bit of wifi difficulties and our laptop is sleepy, so this is going to be it for today's liveblogging. Before we sign off, though, we want to highlight two important themes that keep coming up in today's sessions:

First, everyone here is very cognizant of the expansion of state pre-k programs, and there are lots of questions about that means for children's access the quality early education programs generally and for Head Start specifically. Many of the researchers here have studied both Head Start and state pre-k programs. One very palpable concern in both Burchinal's and Pianta's presentations, as well as remarks at the breakout session we attended, is that states are building pre-k systems very quickly, and we could find ourselves in big trouble if states build those systems based on faulty assumptions about how to get to quality. The rapidly growing demand for higher education coursework in early education, as a result of state requirements for pre-k teachers with bachelor's degrees, and the tremendous variation in quality of higher ed early childhood teacher preparation programs, is an obvious example here. On the flipside, because states are building these pre-k systems essentially from the ground up, policymakers do have an opportunity to be thoughtful about how they build these systems, and create things like the multiple routes to qualified teachers, and high-quality pre- and inservice teacher training Burchinal and Pianta are talking about. (And the feds can play a role here, too. For example, we've argued that Congress should create a program to support alternative routes for pre-k teachers, along the lines Pianta and Burchinal are talking about, as part of NCLB reauthorization.)

In addition, there are concerns about how new state pre-k programs and Head Start interact. Perry Preschool researcher Larry Schweinhart argued that states, in creating pre-k programs, are essentially stepping in to fill a gap caused by Congress' failure to fully fund Head Start to serve all eligible students. But in many states Head Start and state pre-k systems operate largely on separate tracks, creating problems and inefficiencies. Getting all the players--Head Start, state pre-k programs, locally led initiatives, and publicly funded childcare subsidies--to work together is going to be essential, and the recent Head Start reauthorization emphasizes this, but in too many places it's not happening nearly enough.

The second major strand we've noticed is the importance of moving early education policy out of its relative isolation from education policy more generally, and better linking early education and K-12 systems. This comes up in all sorts of ways. Pianta repeatedly noted that the teacher quality debates and challenges facing early education are not unique--K-12 education grapples with exactly the same issues. Many of the things he and Burchinal proposed to improve training and skills of early educators could also improve teacher quality at the K-12 level--induction for new teachers, coaching, clearly defined competencies and credentialing linked to them, rather than coursework. Michelle Englund, a member of the Early Childhood Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota, noted that both the Perry Preschool program and Chicago Child Parent Centers--two high-quality programs with evidence of long-term positive impacts--we located in public school settings. Englung suggested that increasing the percentage of Head Start programs located in public schools could improve results, by improving linkages with elementary schools and by increasing the proportion of qualified staff. Only about one in three Head Start programs are currently located in public schools. Several panelists noted that schools of education are beginning to see early education as much more central to their missions, and to K-12 reform as well.

Featured Abstract: Impacts of Home-Visiting Programs

Sara Mead — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:20:00 -0400

Researchers in the Netherlands studied the impact of mental health home visitors on depressed mothers and their infants:

This study examined the effect of a mother–baby intervention on the quality of mother–child interaction, infant–mother attachment security, and infant socioemotional functioning in a group of depressed mothers with infants aged 1–12 months. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group (n = 35) receiving the intervention (8–10 home visits) with a control group (n = 36) receiving parenting support by telephone. There were assessments pre, post, and follow-up after 6 months. The intervention had positive effects on the quality of mother–infant interaction. Infants in the experimental group had higher scores for attachment security and for one aspect of socioemotional functioning, namely, competence. The intervention proved successful in preventing deterioration of the quality of mother–child interaction.

Maternal depression can harm mother-child attachment and put children at risk for a host of negative outcomes. Trained home-visitors (master's degree or graduate education in pscyhology, social psyciatry, or health education/prevention) visited mothers 8 to 10 times, videotaped them caring for or interacting with their babies, and helped them to improve interactions and communication with the children. Visitors modeled techniques for mothers, used cognitive restructuring to help them change negative thinking associated with depression, provided practical advice on dealing with parenting challenges, and tought them baby massage to improve mother-child contact. The intervention improved maternal sensitivity and infants' attachment security.

Featured Abstract: It's All About Interactions

Sara Mead — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:30:00 -0400

More evidence on the importance of teacher-child interactions to early education quality:

This study examined development of academic, language, and social skills among 4-year-olds in publicly supported prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in relation to 3 methods of measuring pre-K quality, which are as follows: (a) adherence to 9 standards of quality related to program infrastructure and design, (b) observations of the overall quality of classroom environments, and (c) observations of teachers’ emotional and instructional interactions with children in classrooms. Participants were 2,439 children enrolled in 671 pre-K classrooms in 11 states. Adjusting for prior skill levels, child and family characteristics, program characteristics, and state, teachers’ instructional interactions predicted academic and language skills and teachers’ emotional interactions predicted teacher-reported social skills. Findings suggest that policies, program development, and professional development efforts that improve teacher–child interactions can facilitate children’s school readiness.

Researchers from the National Center for Early Development and Learning used data from the SWEEP and Multi-State studies to evaluate the extent to which three different ways of measuring pre-k quality predict pre-k children's academic and social-emotional skill outcomes: program infrastructure and design features (such as teacher credentials or class size), observational measures of overall classroom environment (including safety, physical environment, and teacher behaviors), or observational measures of teacher interactions with children.

The quality of teachers' interactions (as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System) provided the best predictor of children's pre-k outcomes: Specifically, the quality of teachers' emotional interactions predicted children's social skills, and the quality of teachers' instructional interactions predicted children's academic skills. The researchers found little correlation between program design features--as measured using the NIEER quality standards--and children's outcomes. That's striking, because many states are using NIEER program quality standards as a guide for policy as they seek to improve their pre-k programs, so this study's failure to find much connection between those indicators and child outcomes could raise concerns about those efforts. Policymakers should be cautious in interpreting this finding, however, because many programs included in this study were already of relatively high quality, and the way in which NIEER benchmarks are measured (a single "yes" or "no" for each standard, regardless of how close or far the program was from that standard) may also have skewed the results away from a significant finding. More research is needed. Moreover, as policymakers seek to expand and improve the quality of pre-k programs, they must look beyond structural indicators of quality and focus on how to ensure quality in the interactions that happen between teachers and children in the classroom setting.

Cost-Effectiveness and Trade-Offs in Early Education

Sara Mead — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:58:00 -0400

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.

The sad reality is that most states are spending nowhere near this much money per pupil on pre-k, even compared to more modest quality standards. Pre-K programs in 10 states are spending less than even the $3,214 per child IWPR estimates is necessary to provide just the lowest-quality pre-k! The National Institute for Early Education Research estimates that only 19 states are spending enough money to meet quality standards, and all but 4 of those provide only half-day programs.

Fortunately for policymakers seeking to raise quality, the IWPR study also provides estimates of the marginal cost to improve state pre-k quality standards. For instance, for a full-day program with associates degreed teachers and classes of 17 students, it would cost about 12 percent more to raise teacher education requirements to a bachelor’s degree, while it would cost about 8 percent more to reduce class size to 15. These estimates can be useful for policymakers weighing the costs of different policy alternatives.

What the IWPR study doesn’t provide, however, is information on cost effectiveness of different quality improvements: That is, if I’m a legislator seeking to improve pre-k quality or access in my state, what investments give me the biggest bang for my buck? Should I invest marginal dollars in class size reduction, or on raising teacher credentials, or should I leave quality be and increase the number of children served?

A recent RAND paper on the Economics of Early Childhood Policy notes the lack of adequate evidence to answer these questions. We know what the characteristics of high-quality programs are and, to some extent, what they cost. We also know that very high-quality programs have been demonstrated to have clear impacts in terms of improving children’s school and long-term outcomes, and generating positive returns for society as a whole. But we don’t know what kind of returns marginal investments in improving quality produce, nor do we know which marginal quality improvements produce the greatest marginal benefits. We also don’t know whether or not there is a minimum threshold for quality below which early educational investments do not produce positive returns. These are critical questions for policymakers seeking to make smart early education investments with limited public resources. Developing better evidence on cost-effectiveness of different marginal early education investments should be a research priority for the early childhood field.

The RAND report is worth a read because it steps back from the common rhetoric about return on investment from early education programs to take a hard look at the economic theory of what we mean when we say that early education programs produce returns on public investment. Researchers Rebecca Kilburn and Lynn Karoly also dive into the tough questions of 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, and offer a variety of frameworks for researchers, advocates, and policymakers to think about these investments. Ultimately, they conclude that policymakers need to think about early childhood investments as a portfolio, allocating funds to a variety of strategies that contribute to desired outcomes for children, rather than focusing on a single approach or considering early childhood programs in separate, isolated silos.

One of these studies answers some important questions that policymakers have in creating early education programs, but in the process, it also raises some. The second study raises similar challenging questions, as well as some others around trade-offs for early education, and, while it does not provide answers, offers some useful frameworks to start working on them.

Featured Abstract: The Anemic Response to Skill Premium Growth

Sara Mead — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:45:00 -0400

A new paper by Joseph G. Antolji, Prashant Bharadwaj, and Fabian Lange looks at whether or not American youth have responded to increasing economic rewards for skills and education by investing more in skills and education:

We examine changes in the characteristics of American youth between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, with a focus on characteristics that matter for labor market success. We reweight the NLSY79 to look like the NLSY97 along a number of dimensions that are related to labor market success, including race, gender, parental background, education, test scores, and variables that capture whether individuals transition smoothly from school to work. We then use the re-weighted sample to examine how changes in the distribution of observable skills affect employment and wages. We also use more standard regression methods to assess the labor market consequences of differences between the two cohorts. Overall, we find that the current generation is more skilled than the previous one. Blacks and Hispanics have gained relative to whites and women have gained relative to men. However, skill differences within groups have increased considerably and in aggregate the skill distribution has widened. Changes in parental education seem to generate many of the observed changes.

In other words, they haven't, at least not as much as we might expect given the significant increase in labor market returns to skills and education. In fact, about two-thirds of the increase in young people's skills since 1979 is due simply to the fact that their parents are more educated, and inequities in skill distribution have increased.

In another article, the authors look at possible explanations why the response might have been so anemic. One potential answer is that many young people's ability to increase their investment in education and building their skills is constrained by their earlier educational experiences--in other words, children who did not get a high quality early education earlier in their preschool, elementary, and middle school years lack the skills and preparation to seize educational opportunities in high school and college:

Research summarized in Cunha and Heckman (2007) suggests that part of the explanation might be that parental investment during early childhood shapes the potential to acquire additional skills later in life. Parents might not have responded to the increase in labour market returns, perhaps because they were not fully aware of the large increase in the returns to skills or because their children’s labour market success might not be the primary motivating factor in determining the time and resources they devote to their children.

To enable more young people to respond to incentives and upgrade their skills in response to demand, we must improve early childhood and elementary school education, and also improve education and support for parents, so that they understand the economic realities facing their children and have the resouces and skills to support their children's learning in early childhood and beyond.

The Assets Baseline

Reid Cramer — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:32:00 -0400

The rise of an assets perspective is a relatively recent phenomenon. And like any phenomenon, to understand what it is you need to describe where it came from. Researchers and scientists often go to great lengths to find the baseline.

So, what's the assets baseline? There are two ways to look at this question. One is to survey the landscape of social policy and another is to describe the current role assets play in people's lives.

In terms of social policy, it is fair to say that the baseline approach to thinking about poverty and social policy is income. Traditionally, our anti-poverty programs have focused on income maintenance efforts. But beginning in the early 1990s, a number of academics began exploring the potential of assets to help inform social policy thinking. Michael Sherraden's 1991 book Assets and the Poor presented a series of hypothesis about what might happen we thought about poverty as more than just a condition of low incomes but also low assets. From the relatively simple observation that people don't spend their way out of poverty but must save resources to invest in themselves over time, has come a recognition that the dynamics of poverty must consider the role of assets and their deployment over an extended period of time. This includes a consideration of the savings process and the behavioral effects that accrue to asset owners. Even the holding of small sums can potentially make a big difference in how people think about themselves and their future.

In addition to this theoretical baseline, we need to know more precisely the role that assets actually play. Beginning in 2003, the New America Foundation was committed to providing access to this knowledge base. We created an informational clearinghouse called AssetBuilding.org that was designed to catalogue recent research, policy developments, and media coverage of a wide range of topics related to asset building. The website is still going strong and is worth checking out on a regular basis (along with the daily content of The Ladder).

We were also were interested in tracking the baseline of the assets field and have worked with scholars from the Urban Institute and Center for Social Development on a research project funded by Department of health and Human Services. The project is called Poor Finance and it is releasing a series of reports on poverty, asset building, and social policy. The purpose of the series is to assess the state of knowledge and policy development and to synthesize recent progress in these areas. In other words, it is intended to establish the baseline.

To date, four reports have been released and four more are coming. The project has produced plenty of excellent material and is a real valuable resources for practitioners and researchers alike. While the focus of this series of reports is on asset accumulation and asset-based policies for low-income individuals and families, the conceptual frameworks developed are not limited to low-income populations. This broad approach helps to identify the overall critical issues that relate to asset holding for all populations.

A few weeks ago, the latest report was released on factors that determine asset building. I was a co-author on the report and what I like about this particular report is that is reviews both the theoreitcal and empirical basis for our understanding of how people actually go about the process of savings and building assets. All of the reports are on Assetbuilding.org and you can access the project page here. Take a look.