Reducing Inequality through Dynamic Complementarity: Evidence from Head Start and Public School Spending

Abstract

We compare the adult outcomes of cohorts who were differentially exposed to policy-induced changes in Head Start and K–12 spending, depending on place and year of birth. IV and sibling-difference estimates indicate that, for poor children, these policies both increased educational attainment and earnings, and reduced poverty and incarceration. The benefits of Head Start were larger when followed by access to better-funded schools, and increases in K–12 spending were more efficacious when preceded by Head Start exposure. The findings suggest dynamic complementarities, implying that early educational investments that are sustained may break the cycle of poverty. (JEL H52, H75, I21, I26, I28, I32, I38)

Elusive Longer-Run Impacts of Head Start: Replications Within and Across Cohorts

“…Johnson and Jackson (2019) analyzed earlier cohorts of siblings born before 1976 with a dynamic complementarity design (i.e., capitalizing on two exogenous sources of variation separated in time). They found a larger, more precise estimate: Attending Head Start at age 4—that is, facing an average Head Start spending versus no spending, coupled with (and sensitive to) an average public K–12 spending—boosted earnings of poor children (measured from age 20–50) by 0.10 log points ( SE = 0.02).…”

“… 2. For example, Johnson and Jackson (2019) calculated that for a child attending Head Start, a 10% increase in K–12 spending boosted educational attainment by 0.4 years, earnings by 20.6%, and reduced the probability of being incarcerated by 8 percentage points ( pp s). …”

Exploring the Impacts of an Early Childhood Educational Intervention on Later School Selection

“…The “sustaining environments hypothesis” (Bailey et al, 2017) argues that ECE intervention effects may only persist when subsequent environments are of sufficient quality to build on gains made during the early program. Indeed, a number of recent studies have examined this hypothesis to mixed results (Ansari & Pianta, 2018; Bassok et al, 2018; Claessens et al, 2014; Jenkins et al, 2018; Johnson & Jackson, 2019; Zhai et al, 2012).…”

The Role of Achievement, Gender, SES, Location, and Policy in Explaining the Indigenous Gap in High-School Completion

“…The finding that the gap in high school completion is eliminated when achievement is controlled for, suggests that interventions most likely to close the high school non-completion gap may be preschool interventions like the Perry preschool program and Head Start (Heckman, 2017) . Recent research suggests that these early education programs benefit from, and magnify the benefit of, access to high-quality schooling (Johnson & Jackson, 2019) . Reaffirming the value of early intervention, in research looking at children in Australia's Northern Territory, Silburn et al (2018) demonstrated a positive association between preschool attendance and attendance in the early years of primary school, which has a positive influence on NAPLAN outcomes.…”