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，尽管进行了大量的研究，但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。在某种程度上，这是因为很难将学校投入的影响与未观察到的变量分开，这些变量也会影响教育，并且可能与学校投入相关。该项目将利用随机处理的方法来评估教育专家日益提倡的两项政策：促进幼儿发展（ECD）和提供供学生就读私立学校的代金券。这两个问题不仅是发展中国家关心的，也是发达国家关心的。这项关于儿童早期发展的研究将与一家为肯尼亚学校提供教育援助的荷兰非营利组织合作进行。首席研究员在肯尼亚农村教了一年中学，目前正在与该组织合作进行一项关于肯尼亚农村初等教育的前瞻性随机研究。这项研究将扩展到100所当地开办的幼儿园。这些幼儿园的教师通常没有接受过中学以上的培训，每月的工资约为10美元，由家长的费用支付。在这项研究中，一半幼儿园将被随机分配接受在职培训和教师工资补贴，而另一半幼儿园将作为对照组。对代金券的研究将审查哥伦比亚的补贴项目。该项目自1992年开始实施，目的是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为所有申请人提供代金券，代金券采用摇号的方式分配。将比较1500名中奖者和1500名失败者的结果。这两个项目对教育成果的影响将被检查，包括入学率、每日出勤率、年级重复和成就测试分数。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，该项目还将考察这些项目的效果是否会因学生的性别、社会经济地位、年龄或当前学业表现而有所不同。每项研究都提出了自己的一系列具体问题。对于学前研究，问题包括：1)未经培训的教师在接受培训后是否会改变他们的育儿方法？2)教师的缺勤率在得到工资补助后会下降吗？3)当教师获得工资补贴时，家长对学校的支持是增加还是减少？4)改善学前教育是否能通过减少小学的重复学习来收回成本？对学券计划的研究将考察以下问题：1)在没有学券计划的情况下，哥伦比亚有多少学券支持的学生会上学？2)有多少人会上私立学校？3)该计划对教育成就和认知成就的影响是什么？

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?