President Obama says that the science is clear. Greg J. Duncan and Katherine Magnuson are not so sure.
We find that the evidence supports few unqualified conclusions. Many early childhood education programs appear to boost cognitive ability and early school achievement in the short run. However, most of them show smaller impacts than those generated by the best-known programs, and their cognitive impacts largely disappear within a few years. Despite this fade-out, long-run follow-ups from a handful of well-known programs show lasting positive effects on such outcomes as greater educational attainment, higher earnings, and lower rates of crime. Since findings regarding
short and longer-run impacts on “noncognitive” outcomes are mixed, it is uncertain what skills, behaviors, or developmental processes are particularly important in producing these longer-run impacts
I can’t tell you how great it is to live in an era when I clearly need to teach my children than anytime they hear “The Science is Settled!” or “The Science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear!” or “The Science is clear and conclusive” that they should immediately presumptively conclude that the opposite is true.
Call me cynical, but I suspect George Will was on to something when he suggested in a column a couple days ago that part of the appeal to the Obamaites of expanding early childhood education is simply the chance to funnel still more money and jobs to teacher’s unions and various other educrats, who are or can be bribed into becoming loyal Democratic voters. And I don’t expect the wonks to be able to thwart the rent seekers here, either, assuming they even want to.
it is uncertain what skills, behaviors, or developmental processes are particularly important in producing these longer-run impacts
It’s probably more likely that these longer-run impacts are illusory – the two I’ve seen -the Abecedarian and the Minnesota one – seem pretty bogus, merely comparing program graduates to a post-hoc control group on a set of post-hoc selected measures, with little understanding provided regarding how the students were selected. I don’t think we can rely on them to tell us anything.