The Impacts of Expanding Access to High-Quality Preschool Education

Abstract

President Obama's "Preschool for All" initiative calls for dramatic increases in the number of 4 year olds enrolled in public preschool programs and in the quality of these programs nationwide. The proposed program shares many characteristics with the universal preschools that have been offered in Georgia and Oklahoma since the 1990s. This study draws together data from multiple sources to estimate the impacts of these "model" state programs on preschool enrollment and a broad set of family and child outcomes. We find that the state programs have increased the preschool enrollment rates of children from lower-and higher-income families alike. For lower-income families, our findings also suggest that the programs have increased the amount of time mothers and children spend together on activities such as reading, the chances that mothers work, and children's test performance as late as eighth grade. For higher-income families, however, we find that the programs have shifted children from private to public preschools, resulting in less of an impact on overall enrollment but a reduction in childcare expenses, and have had no positive effect on children's later test scores.

Universal Child Care, Maternal Employment, and Children’s Long-Run Outcomes: Evidence from the US Lanham Act of 1940

“…Second, the QTE estimates for 1970 imply that the Lanham Act had negative effects on adult earnings starting at the 60th percentile. Such results are consistent with Havnes and Mogstad's (2015) QTE estimates for the Norwegian universal child care system, and they conform with recent US-based studies of pre-kindergarten programs (Cascio and Schanzenbach 2013) and nonparental child care arrangements (Herbst 2013), which uncover negative test score effects on children from more advantaged families.…”

“…Such average effects could mask substantial heterogeneity if children from different family backgrounds respond differently to early childhood experiences. Indeed, previous work finds that economically disadvantaged children generally capture moderate to large benefits from early childhood programs, while outcomes for their more advantaged peers are either not affected or even adversely affected (e.g., Deming 2009;Havnes and Mogstad 2011b;Cascio and Schanzenbach 2013). Thus, it is important for the current study to explore heterogeneity in the long-run impact of the Lanham Act.…”

“…Regarding DD studies, Baker, Gruber, and Milligan (2008) and Lefebvre and Merrigan (2008) evaluate the introduction of universal child care in Quebec, Canada, while Havnes and Mogstad (2011a) examine Norway's universal program. United States-based DD studies include Cascio and Schanzenbach's (2013) analysis of universal pre-kindergarten programs in Oklahoma and Georgia, as well as Cascio's (2009b) paper on the introduction of kindergartens throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Regarding the latter design, Gelbach (2002) and Fitzpatrick (2012) use children's quarter-of-birth in the 1980 and 2000 Censuses, respectively, to instrument for kindergarten participation, while Fitzpatrick (2010) uses the discontinuity created by age-eligibility cut-offs to analyze the Georgia and Oklahoma pre-kindergarten programs.…”

“…For example, Baker et al (2008) provide evidence on the short-run developmental effects of universal child care in Quebec, Canada, while Gupta and Simonsen (2010) and Black et al (2014) provide medium-run evidence for the Danish and Norwegian systems, respectively. In the United States, Herbst andTekin (2012, 2016) estimate the short-and medium-run impact of the CCDF, a subsidy program restricted to the working poor, while a large number of studies examine the short-and medium-run impact of pre-kindergarten programs, only some of which are universal (e.g., Gormley and Gayer 2005;Fitzpatrick 2008;Barnett et al 2013;Cascio and Schanzenbach 2013;Weiland and Yoshikawa 2013). In addition, a noteworthy paper by Cascio (2009a), which estimates the long-run impact of kindergarten introduction in the United States, finds some positive effects for white adults but not for black adults.…”

“…Such evidence is increasingly important, given the interest in the United States and elsewhere in creating universal early care and education programs. Although several US jurisdictions offer universal preschool programs-including Georgia, Oklahoma, and Boston-they have not been operating long enough to shed light on whether the positive short-run impacts found in recent evaluations translate into long-run schooling and labor market success (Gormley and Gayer 2005;Fitzpatrick 2008;Cascio and Schanzenbach 2013;Weiland and Yoshikawa 2013). Conversely, evidence on the long-run impact of early childhood programs comes almost exclusively from highly targeted interventions, including the Head Start, Perry Preschool, and Abecedarian programs (e.g., Garces, Thomas, and Currie 2002;Ludwig and Miller 2007;Anderson 2008;Deming 2009).…”