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Do the effects of early childhood interventions systematically fade?: Exploring variation in the persistence of preschool effects

Description:
Early childhood education receives significant public attention as a cost-effective approach to closing achievement gaps and improving the life prospects of disadvantaged children. However, critics point to the relatively quick evaporation of academic benefits for participants demonstrated in several recent experimental studies. Our paper is the first to employ both kindergarten cohorts of the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), 1998 and 2010, to describe the extent to which preschool effects fade over time and to assess variation in those patterns of convergence. Notably, the association between preschool participation and cognitive outcomes fades more rapidly in the 2010 kindergarten cohort than in 1998. Whereas in the 1998 data, a statistically significant "preschool advantage" is evident in both reading and math at the end of first grade, in the more recent cohort no differences are observed by the end of the kindergarten. The rapid fade-out is observed for children who attended both full and half-day preschool programs and does not depend on several proxies of kindergarten classroom quality. The results suggest that the rate of fade-out of preschool effects may be accelerating over time. Interestingly, across both kindergarten cohorts, we document a persistent positive association between preschool participation and first grade cognitive outcomes for black children. Policy implications are discussed. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
United States

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