Opportunities Lost: An Explanation for the Fade-Out of Intervention Effects in Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: Instructional Interventions: Designs, Enactment, and Challenges

Abstract

The short-term advantages of early childhood programs such as Head Start and preschool are well documented. This advantage, however, often fades quickly. We hypothesize that the fade out of achievement effects of early childhood interventions results, in part, from a misalignment between the content children are exposed to and their knowledge at kindergarten entry. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort , we examine whether the fade out of early intervention effects can be explained by the content that children are exposed once in school. We find that while low-SES children who attend Head Start/preschool enter school with higher achievement than their peers who do not, they are then exposed to content they had already mastered at school entry.

Authors

• Mimi Engel, Vanderbilt University

• Amy Claessens, Northwestern University