Stephanie Curenton and Louise Russell
Rutgers University

Does hardship continue after preschool? Using propensity score matching to investigate the effects of early childhood development programs on 5th grade literacy

Synopsis of Report: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of one of three early childhood education (ECE) programs (Head Start, pre-K, or child care) in terms of fostering long-term academic achievement in reading and math. We evaluated the long-term impact of these programs on 5th grade reading and math scores by using propensity score method to match treatment groups who had received one of the programs with an untreated control groups who had not been enrolled in any ECE program the year before kindergarten.  The research question proposed was: (1) What are the 5th grade reading and math skills of at-risk children who participated in an ECE program in comparison to at-risk children who received nothing? For the propensity score matching, we used a wide battery of covariates referred to as Hardship Risks that spanned kindergarten to children’s 5th grade year. Results indicated that the hardship risks were different for each ECE program, but we were able to successfully create matches for each program. In terms of impacts on 5th grade academics, results indicated that pre-K was the only ECE program that had positive significant impacts on children’s reading and math skills.