Unintended Consequences or Benefits? A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Impacts of State Pre-Kindergarten Programs on Head Start

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Abstract

Unintended Consequences or Benefits?
A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Impacts of State Pre-Kindergarten Programs on Head Start

Rarely considered in the current literature evaluating state pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs are the system-level impacts of pre-k programs on the co-existence of other programs such as Head Start (HS), the federal government’s preschool program for very low-income children. The limited literature is descriptive, and primarily concentrates on the unintended consequences of pre-k on HS. This study fills this gap by providing a comprehensive, rigorous evaluation of pre-k’s impacts on HS, focusing on the potential “unintended benefits” – HS may tap into its “relative strengths” and fill pre-k’s service gaps by enrolling more 3-year-olds and the most vulnerable children and providing more family services. I take advantage of HS administrative data of all HS programs in the country from 1988 to 2018 and a differences-in-differences design to isolate the effects of pre-k on HS. Preliminary results show that the introduction of state pre-k led to a mix of unintended consequences and benefits for HS. While the introduction of pre-k significantly increased HS enrollment of Hispanic children and, relatedly, dual language learners, it also led to a decrease in HS enrollment of Black children and children with disabilities. Additional analyses on how pre-k affected HS key processes reveal that pre-k increased HS’s full-day 5-day enrollment but also increased HS’s children turnover. This study has implications for gauging the costs and benefits of state pre-k investments and identifying areas of collaboration and support between HS and pre-k to reduce program overlap and promote equitable access to early childhood education among the most vulnerable children.

Author

• QING Zhang, University of California - Irvine