Public preschool programs are heralded as an effective policy tool for promoting the development and lifelong well-beingof children from low-income families. Recent preschool evaluations report divergent findings that are consistently weakerthan those of famous demonstration programs implemented inthe mid-20th century. We provide potential explanations forthese weaker effects, the most compelling of which focuseson improvements in the early childhood conditions of children not enrolling in public programs. We argue that otherexplanations, such as subsequent low-quality schooling experiences, do not convincingly account for weakening programeffectiveness. We do not contest whether governments shouldinvest in effective care for young children. Rather, we focuson the current state of the evaluation evidence for programs atscale. We argue the field must take seriously the disappoint-ing impacts of modern programs on child outcomes and striveto understand how to boost program effectiveness throughrigorous, longitudinal research. (with A. Whitaker, M. Burchinal, G. Duncan, D. Bailey, T. Watts, E. Hart, and E. Peisner-Feinberg)

Parents consider whether to enroll their child in kindergarten on time, or to delay entry, known as “redshirting.” States have also moved their birthdate cutoffs to earlier in the year to create older, higher achieving cohorts. However, the impacts on the intermediate- and long-run outcomes of delayed entry are unclear, as are the mechanisms through which advantages or disadvantages may accrue. We provide plausibly causal estimates of delayed kindergarten entry impacts on achievement by exploiting a policy change in the birthdate enrollment cutoff for North Carolina public schools requiring children born in a six-week window to redshirt. We compare the outcomes of “forced” redshirts with several different counterfactual peer groups using statewide administrative data to triangulate the mechanisms through which delayed entry alters outcomes and inform educational theory. Delayed entry provides benefits to math and reading achievement, and reduced identification of having a disability; these impacts operate through cohort position and maturation advantages, and not from hold-out year experiences. Forced redshirting was differentially beneficial for students who are low-income, but further disadvantaged students of color. (with C. K. Fortner).

Policymakers at the federal and state levels aim to expand public early childhood education (ECE) programs, such as prekindergarten programs, with many states providing universal preschool to all age-eligible residents. Yet there exists limited evidence on how a universal ECE intervention like prekindergarten programs may influence the wellbeing of children in the long-run. In this paper, we examine the effects of state mandatory kindergarten requirements on long-run educational attainment and labor market outcomes. While in most states kindergarten began as a voluntary program, starting in the 1970s some states evolved to mandating kindergarten attendance. Several changes in state mandatory school entrance laws across states over time provide an opportunity to causally identify the influence of an additional year of ECE on important individual education and labor market outcomes, comparing states with mandatory attendance to those with voluntary attendance. We exploit this natural experimental design using data from the ACS 2008-2017. Findings indicate no overall impacts of mandatory kindergarten policies on educational attainment in adulthood, but substantial heterogeneous impacts, with women and Hispanic and Black individuals benefiting most in terms of educational attainment, poverty reduction, and income. Our findings indicate that states’ investments in universal early education pay off in the long run, and are equity enhancing. (with M. Rosales-Rueda).

State-funded pre-k programs have proliferated over the pastseveral decades. Many states have relied on a mixed-delivery approach, wherein pre-k is provided across diverse childcare settings, including public schools, community-based organizations, and private childcare centers. Leveraging data from a natural experiment (2001-2010) of North Carolina’s Pre-Kindergarten Program (NC Pre-K), we assessed county-level variation in the allocation of funded slots to different pre-k settings and the dispersion of slots within or across centers. We found that heterogeneity in the implementation of the mixed-delivery system had minimal effects on children’s fifth-grade achievement, suggesting fairly consistent effects across the system. When small differences emerged, they suggested that NC Pre-K funding was most beneficial for student achievement when allocated to private for-profit and nonprofit centers. (with C. Botvin, M. Suaval, T. Wu, T. Watts, K. Dodge, & E. Peisner-Feinberg.