Two weeks ago, researchers at Duke University released preliminary results of a study about pre-kindergarten programs in North Carolina. According to the press release, “North Carolina third-graders have higher standardized reading and math scores and lower special education placement rates in those counties that had received more funding for Smart Start and More at Four when those children were younger.”
A full report is not available, so we do not have access to many of the specifics of the study. But researchers have released a Power Point presentation with a summary of the sample and methodology. For example, the study sample includes “all children of the appropriate age in a county when the program is available, regardless of whether a child participated directly.” One of the limitations of the study is that it does not include “all children who have access to the program” because the researchers “lose some of them and treatment status for some is unclear.”
To date, researchers have found that exposure to Smart Start and More at Four at current funding levels result in higher math and reading scores (equivalent to two months of instruction) by third grade and a ten percent reduction in Special Education placements. They estimate that the reduction in special education placements, as well as higher test scores, recoup the initial expense of the program.
It is tempting to read the preliminary results and conclude that North Carolina’s pre-kindergarten programs “work,” but we should be cautious until researchers complete other parts of the study. There are good reasons why pharmaceutical companies do not begin marketing and dispensing medicine in the middle of a clinical trial, even if some of the participants respond positively to it.
Anyway, future results will include the following:
1. Understand whether SS and MAF have favorable impact for different groups, by ethnicity, background, and other factors.
2. Estimate the impact of SS and MAF on other educational outcomes and beyond elementary school.
3. Include information on elementary school teachers in our analysis, in order to control for the possible assignment of less qualified teachers to grades K-2.
4. Include in the analyses the information on day care quality that we have already obtained.
5. Estimate effect sizes and rates of return to investment.
6. Understand whether children who participate directly in a program benefit most. This analysis requires information about individual-level participation.
In other words, there are many fundamental questions to be answered, and I look forward to the answers provided by the very capable group of public policy researchers at Duke.
