The Long-Term Effects of Early Education Intervention

小行星9512670 Head Start是该国最受欢迎和最知名的早期干预计划之一。 政策制定者和公众似乎认为， 并且广为人知，有据可查 然而，仔细阅读的文献表明，证据支持的持久影响的开端是有限的。 调查人员先前的研究表明，“先声夺人”对白色儿童的考试成绩和学业成绩有显著影响，这些影响一直持续到青春期。 但在黑人儿童中，没有证据表明直接收益与对人力资本结果的任何持久影响有关。 然而，他们的研究是基于一个非常小的样本，很少有差异是统计学上显着的。 该项目将提供进一步的证据，谁从头开始收益， 使用全国青年纵向调查（NLSY）的数据，结合全国纵向调查的儿童-母亲文件（NLSCM）和动态小组研究（PSID），检查效益的形式和效益的持续性。 NLSY和NLSCM提供了一套广泛的 关于儿童人力资本成果的一系列信息，包括认知测试分数和教育程度。 这些数据中的儿童相对年轻，因此不可能完全检查Head Start的长期影响。 这一差距将通过利用PSID的一个特殊模块来填补，该模块部分由该项目的主要调查员设计。 该模块包含丰富的教育历史，将与受访者及其父母的劳动力市场结果的25年纵向数据相结合。 更具体地说，该项目旨在回答以前关于Head Start的研究提出的三个问题。 首先，一个案件 早期干预计划或儿童的结果真的很大程度上取决于母亲的禀赋，因为有些人声称。 第二，认知测试分数是衡量早期干预计划效果的一个有意义的尺度吗？当从更具体的结果来判断时，平均分数的种族和民族差异是否有意义？ 对这些问题的回答将为分析以下基本问题奠定基础：“先声夺人”的参与是否会影响长期结果，如高中毕业、少女怀孕、犯罪活动以及前参与者自己子女的学业成绩？

9512670 Currie Head Start is one of the most popular and widely-known early intervention programs in the country. Policy makers and the general public appear to believe that the benefits of Head Start and well-known and well-documented. However, a careful reading of the literature shows that the evidence in support of lasting effects of Head Start is limited. Previous research by the investigators indicates that Head Start has significant effects on the test scores and schooling attainment of young white children and these effects persist into adolescence. But among black children, there is no evidence that the immediate gains associated with any lasting effect on human capital outcomes. However, their research is based on a very small sample and few of the differences are statistically significant. This project will provide further evidence about who gains from Head Start by examining the form of the benefits and the persistence of the benefits using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young (NLSY) in combination with the National Longitudinal Survey s Child-Mother files (NLSCM) and the Panel Study of Dynamics (PSID). The NLSY and NLSCM provide an extensive set of information on an array of child human capital outcomes including cognitive test scores and educational attainment. Children in those data are relatively young and so it is not possible to fully examine the longer run effects of Head Start. This gap will be filled by exploiting a special module of the PSID that was designed, in part, by the Principal Investigators of this project. The module contains a rich education history which will be combined with over twenty five years of longitudinal data on labor market outcomes of respondents and their parents. More specifically, this project seeks to answer three questions raised by previous research about Head Start. First, can a case be made for early intervention programs or are child outcomes really largely predetermined by maternal endowments as some have claimed. Second, are cognitive test scores a meaningful yardstick for measuring the effects of early intervention programs, and are racial and ethnic differences in average scores meaningful when judged in terms of more concrete outcomes? Answers to these questions will set the stage for the analysis of the fundamental question: does Head Start participation affect long-term outcomes such as high school completion, teenage pregnancy, criminal activity, and the schooling attainment of the former participants' own children?