Early Childhood Development and Voucher Programs: Evaluation Using Randomized Assignment

人们普遍认为，教育对发展中国家的经济增长至关重要。然而，尽管进行了大量研究，我们对不同教育政策的相对有效性的认识仍存在重大差距。在一定程度上，这是因为很难区分学校投入的影响和也影响教育的未观察到的变量，这些变量可能与学校投入相关。该项目将利用随机处理来评估教育专家日益提倡的两项政策：促进儿童早期发展(ECD)和提供允许学生进入私立学校的代金券。这两个问题不仅发展中国家感兴趣，发达国家也感兴趣。将与一家向肯尼亚学校提供教育援助的荷兰非营利性组织合作开展儿童早期发展研究。首席调查员在肯尼亚农村中学任教了一年，目前正在与该组织合作，进行一项关于肯尼亚农村小学教育的前瞻性随机研究。这项研究将扩大到100所当地开办的幼儿园。这些幼儿园的教师通常在中学之后没有接受过任何培训，每月的工资约为10美元，由家长支付。根据这项研究，一半的幼儿园将被随机分配接受在职培训和教师工资补贴，而另一半将作为对照组。对代金券的研究将审查哥伦比亚的Subsidios Pace计划。这项计划自1992年开始实施，旨在让贫困家庭的学生进入私立中学就读。由于没有足够的资金向所有申请者提供代金券，代金券是通过抽奖的方式分配的。将比较1,500名彩票中奖者和1,500名彩票失败者的结果。将考察这两个项目对教育结果的影响，包括入学人数、每日出勤率、复习成绩和成绩测试成绩。此外，还将分析这些计划对家庭决策和学校组织的影响。此外，该项目还将检查这些项目的影响是否会因学生的性别、社会经济地位、年龄或目前的在校表现而有所不同。每项研究都会提出自己的特定问题。对于学龄前研究，问题包括：i)未经培训的教师在接受培训后是否改变了他们的育儿方法？2)教师的缺勤率在获得工资补贴时是否下降？3)家长在向教师提供工资补贴时，对学校的支持是增加还是减少？4)改善学前教育是否通过减少小学的年级重复来弥补？对代金券计划的研究将考察以下问题：1)在哥伦比亚，如果没有代金券计划，有多少靠代金券支持的学生会上学？2)有多少人会去私立学校？3)该计划对教育成就和认知成就有什么影响？

Education is widely seen as essential for economic growth in developing countries. Yet despite a large number of studies, there are significant gaps in our knowledge of the relative effectiveness of different education policies. In part, this is because it is difficult to separate out the effect of school inputs from unobserved variables which also affect education, and may be correlated with school inputs. This project will take advantage of randomized treatment to evaluate two policies that have been increasingly advocated by education specialists: promotion of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and provision of vouchers to allow students to attend private schools. Both topics are of interest not only to developing countries but also to developed countries. The study of early childhood development will be conducted in cooperation with a Dutch nonprofit organization which provides educational assistance to Kenyan schools. The principal investigator taught secondary school in rural Kenya for one year, and is currently collaborating with the organization on a prospective, randomized study of primary education in rural Kenya. This study will be extended to examine 100 locally run preschools. Teachers in these preschools typically have no training beyond secondary school, and receive about $10 per month in salary financed by parent fees. Under this study, one half of the preschools will be randomly assigned to receive in-service training and salary supplements for teachers, while the other half will serve as a comparison group. The study of vouchers will examine the Subsidios PACES program in Colombia. This program, which has been in operation since 1992, was designed to allow students from poor households to attend private secondary schools. Because there were not enough funds to provide all applicants with vouchers, the vouchers were allocated using a lottery. Outcomes between 1,500 lottery winners and 1,500 lottery losers will be compared. The effect of both programs on educational outcomes will be examined, including enrollment, daily attendance, grade repetition, and scores on achievement tests. Further, the effects of the programs on household decision making and on school organization will be analyzed. Also, the project will examine whether the effects of the programs vary with students' sex, socio economic status, age, or current school performance Each study also raises its own specific sets of questions. For the preschool study, the questions include the following: I ) Do untrained teachers change their method of child-care after receiving training? 2) Do absenteeism rates among teachers fall when they receive salary supplements? 3) Do parents increase or decrease their support of schools when salary supplements were provided to teachers? 4) Does improved pre primary education pay for itself by reducing grade repetition in primary school? The study of the voucher program will examine questions such as: 1) How many of the students supported by vouchers in Colombia would have attended school in the absence of a voucher program? 2) How many would have attended private schools? 3) What is the impact of the program on educational attainment and cognitive achievement?