Give Them Time? - The Effects of Deferred School Start

孩子在学年截止日期前后出生的父母面临着一个两难境地：他们是否应该尽快送孩子上学，从而使他们作为同龄人中最年轻的成员进入小学？或者他们应该推迟一年入学，从而使他们的孩子成为年龄最大的同龄人之一？后一种做法的支持者认为，推迟入学可以让孩子更加成熟，从而提高入学准备和长期结果。反对者认为，推迟的成本--从额外一年的托儿所费用到一年的终身收入损失--并不能证明这些好处是合理的，甚至可能适得其反，因为缺乏挑战的推迟者变得缺乏动力。决定为这两所（学前）学校提供资金的政策制定者显然也对这个问题感兴趣。我们提供了新的和-鉴于最近对延期规则的改革-及时的答案，这将有助于指导家长，从业者和政策制定者。为此，我们转向苏格兰，这是唯一适合调查学校开始推迟的短期和长期影响。我们使用个人层面的学生普查数据来跟踪从2007年到现在的苏格兰学生的宇宙。我们技术娴熟、经验丰富的研究团队拥有将这些高质量数据与成绩数据近乎完美地联系起来的成功记录，现在将把数据联系扩展到与学生行为、健康、资格和中学后教育目的地有关的信息。我们也是最早分析推迟对欺凌经历和行为的影响的机构之一。为了确保创新和稳健的研究设计，我们利用了两个自然实验。首先，长期存在的截止日期决定了学生是否有资格延期。我们的回归不连续设计比较了通常在五岁时开始上学的学生（例如12月31日出生的学生）和可能推迟入学1年的学生（例如1月1日出生的学生）。只要阈值两侧的学生之间的唯一差异是延迟率的差异，我们就可以分离出延迟的因果效应。第二，在2021年，苏格兰的部分地区被选择试点一项计划，为所有推迟入学的儿童提供自动托儿所资助。我们将分析这一改革的短期影响，采用差异中的差异方法，比较试点地区的学生和没有享受这一权利的地方政府的学生的结果变化。为了确保影响，我们与几个利益相关者合作。苏格兰政府（SG）已同意提供该项目所需的各种数据集。秘书长还对我们的研究表示了明确的兴趣，以确保我们的研究结果确实能够为政策提供信息和影响。我们将利用研究机构-包括斯特拉斯克莱德的弗雷泽阿兰德研究所和格拉斯哥的罗伯特欧文教育改革中心-与主要地方和国家利益攸关方建立的良好网络。这些机构还拥有向广大受众传播研究成果的出色平台。这些联系将确保从一系列从业人员和学术界获得投入，并促进跨学科和地方决策者的传播。该项目的一个重要的次要目标和遗产是为苏格兰和其他地区的教育研究人员建立一个学生数据库。研究人员可以将此资源用于未来的项目，或者在我们的工作基础上添加更多信息。通过与SG的合作伙伴关系，我们可以免费提供数据，确保我们的项目物有所值。为了支持广泛的适应和进一步的能力建设，我们组建了一个横跨3所苏格兰大学的团队，其中包括早期职业和经验丰富的研究人员。

Parents with children who were born around school year cut-off dates face a dilemma: Should they send their children to school as soon as possible, thus entering them into primary school as the youngest members of their cohort? Or should they delay school entry by one year, thus entering their child as one of the oldest cohort member? Proponents of the latter practice argue that deferral equips children with more maturity which improves school readiness and long-term outcomes. Opponents argue that the costs of deferral - ranging from an additional year of nursery fees to a 1-year loss in life-time earnings - do not justify the benefits, or may even be counter-productive as underchallenged deferrers become demotivated. Policy makers who decide on funding for both (pre-)schools also have an obvious interest in the issue.We provide new and - given recent reforms to deferral rules - timely answers that will help guide parents, practitioners, and policy makers. For this we turn to Scotland which is uniquely suited to investigate both short-term and long-term effects of school starting deferral. We use individual-level pupil census data to track the universe of Scottish pupils from 2007 until the present. Our skilled and experienced research team has a successful track record of near-perfectly linking these high-quality data with attainment data and will now extend data linkage to information related to pupils' behaviour, health, qualifications, and post-secondary school destinations. We are also among the first to analyse the effect of deferral on the experience and the act of bullying.To ensure an innovative and robust research design, we exploit two natural experiments. First, long-standing cut-off dates determine whether pupils are eligible for deferral. Our regression discontinuity design compares pupils who will typically start school in the year they turn five (e.g. those born on December 31st) with pupils who are likely to defer school entry by 1 year (e.g. born on January 1st). As long as the only difference between pupils on either side of the threshold are differences in deferral rates, we can isolate the causal effect of deferral. Second, in 2021 parts of Scotland were chosen to pilot a scheme that provides automatic nursery funding entitlement to all children who defer school entry. We will analyse the short-run effects of this reform by way of a differences-in-differences approach that compares changes in outcomes among pupils in local authorities that are part of the pilot with pupils from local authorities without the entitlement.In order to ensure impact, we partner with several stakeholders. The Scottish Government (SG) has agreed to provide access to the various datasets required for this project. SG has also expressed an explicit interest in our research ensuring that our findings will indeed inform and shape policy. We will take advantage of the excellent networks that the researchers' institutions - including the Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathclyde and Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change at Glasgow - have with key local and national stakeholders. These institutions also have outstanding platforms to disseminate research outputs to a wide audience. These links will ensure input from a range of practitioners and academics and facilitate dissemination across disciplines and local policy makers. An important secondary goal and legacy of this project is to build a pupil database for education researchers in Scotland and beyond. Researchers can use this resource for future projects or build on our work by adding more information as it becomes available. Combined with free-of-charge data provision by way of our partnership with SG, this aspect ensures that our project offers excellent value for money. To support wide adaption and to further capacity building, we have assembled a team stretching across 3 Scottish universities that includes both early career and experienced researchers.