Compared to what? Variation in the impacts of early childhood education by alternative care type

Abstract

Early childhood education research often compares a group of children who receive the intervention of interest to a group of children who receive care in a range of different care settings. In this paper, we estimate differential impacts of an early childhood intervention by alternative care setting, using data from the Head Start Impact Study, a large-scale randomized evaluation. To do so, we utilize a Bayesian principal stratification framework to estimate separate impacts for two types of Compliers: those children who would otherwise be in other center-based care when assigned to control and those who would otherwise be in home-based care. We find strong, positive short-term effects of Head Start on receptive vocabulary for those Compliers who would otherwise be in home-based care. By contrast, we find no meaningful impact of Head Start on vocabulary for those Compliers who would otherwise be in other center-based care. Our findings suggest that alternative care type is a potentially important source of variation in early childhood education interventions.

Big Lift Participation and School Entry Indicators: Findings for the 2016–2017 Kindergarten Class

“…When comparing demographically similar children, we found that Big Lift preschoolers were significantly more likely to start school kindergarten-ready than children who went to no preschool at all. This finding is consistent with existing literature suggesting that preschool enrollment can support the development of young children compared with those experiencing only care at home with a parent or relative (Feller et al, 2016;Magnuson et al, 2004). We also found that, when controlling for demographic characteristics, Big Lift and non-Big Lift preschoolers were equally likely to start school kindergarten-ready.…”

Do High-Quality Kindergarten and First-Grade Classrooms Mitigate Preschool Fadeout?

“…Several recent studies have examined how the estimated end-of-treatment impacts of Head Start vary depending on the comparison group using the HSIS, and find indeed that the main end of treatment effect for Head Start is strongest when compared with children in the control group who attended home-based care, with few to no differences compared with center-based care (Feller, Grindal, Miratrix, & Page, 2016; Kline & Walters, 2016; Walters, 2015; Zhai, Brooks-Gunn, & Waldfogel, 2014). Bloom and Weiland (2015) find substantial heterogeneity in Head Start treatment impacts by program site, with centers ranging from much more to much less effective than their local alternatives, including parent care.…”

Randomization Inference for Treatment Effect Variation

“…() showed that the treatment is differentially effective across quantiles of the test score distribution; Bloom and Weiland () explored variation in programme impacts across select subgroups and across the 351 Head Start centres in the study; and Feller et al . () investigated differential effects based on the setting of care that each child would have received in the alternative treatment condition.…”

“…Note that this restriction could lead to a range of inferential issues which we do not explore here; see Feller et al . () for a detailed discussion.…”