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Title: Evaluating Early Childhood Interventions: Lessons from Head Start
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Imai, Kumiko |
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Evaluating Early Childhood Interventions: Lessons from Head Start Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 2003. DAI-A 64/09, p. 3416, Mar 2004 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Childhood Education, Early; Cognitive Development; Family Characteristics; Head Start; Medicaid/Medicare; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Socioeconomic Factors Despite renewed interest in early childhood interventions in recent years, there have been only a handful of evaluations that use large-scale, nationally representative data. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Child File, I present evidence from Head Start, the main federal preschool program that provides education, health, and social services to low-income children and their families. Unlike previous evidence that relies on family fixed effects models, my findings come from difference-in-differences estimators that use paired matching for control selection. Specifically, I match each Head Start child with a comparison child who is similar in terms of demographic and socioeconomic variables, and compare pre- and post-Head Start outcomes with comparable outcomes for comparison children. In the NLSY79 Child File, a battery of child cognitive and behavioral assessments is administered biennially to all age eligible children or a subset of all age eligible children. This allows me to assess Head Start children and comparison children at baseline and at follow-up, which ranges from two to ten years after baseline. In addition, I track health insurance and Medicaid coverage, and preventive care utilization separately for Head Start children and comparison children from preschool age into the early teen years. Estimates from matched-pairs difference-in-differences estimators suggest that contrary to previous findings Head Start has little impact on children's cognitive outcomes, even in the short-run. Moreover, there is little evidence that Head Start improves children's health insurance coverage or Medicaid take-up. Evidence also suggests that children are more likely to receive dental care while they attend Head Start but not after they graduate from Head Start. On a positive note, there is some evidence suggesting that Head Start may enhance children's home environment. Also, contrary to the recent controversial study that suggested that daycare makes children aggressive, I find little impact on children's problem behavior. All in all, this study demonstrates the importance of selecting adequate controls as well as controlling for unobserved child- and family-specific characteristics in evaluating early childhood interventions. |
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Bibliography Citation
Imai, Kumiko. Evaluating Early Childhood Interventions: Lessons from Head Start. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 2003. DAI-A 64/09, p. 3416, Mar 2004. |