THE IMPACT OF PUBLICLY PROVIDED EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAMS ON DISTRICT-LEVEL TEST SCORES

I. INTRODUCTION In 2011, more than 1.3 million children attended publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs; of this, more than 1.1 million were 4-year-olds (28% of the nation's 4-year-olds). These numbers are nearly double those of 2003, when 700,000 children attended publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs (581,705 four-year-olds, or 14.8% of the nation's 4-year-olds). Despite this long-run trend of increasing publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs particularly for 4-year-olds, there has been a recent decline in funding. In fact, between the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, state funding decreased by approximately $60 million nationwide, a decrease of $145 per child. Moreover, this $60 million decrease immediately followed a decrease of $30 million the previous school year. (1) Thus, there remains an unanswered policy question of whether publicly provided pre-kindergarten programs are worth pursuing and funding. Another aspect is the public provision of kindergarten. Many school districts differ in their provision of public kindergarten programs by offering only full-day kindergarten, only half-day kindergarten or a combination of the two. Districts, for the most part, are transitioning away from offering any half-day kindergarten programs toward only offering full-day kindergarten. When considering the expansion of public kindergarten education in addition to the introduction of public pre-kindergarten programs, an obvious trend is developing toward offering more publicly provided education opportunities for young children in general. To date, there is no measure of the scholastic benefits of publicly provided pre-kindergarten or full-day kindergarten on district-level math and reading test scores as compared to a system with no taxpayer subsidies for pre-kindergarten or kindergarten. Thus far, only individual student-level data have been researched, and while highly informative, this could be supplemented by analysis at a district-wide scale to determine a public program's impact on a community. This analysis may add value since district administrators--superintendents, board of education members, etc.--often set policy and examine information at the district (and school) level. In addition, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has incentivized district administrators to examine these issues at both the district and school level since proficiency thresholds are set at the district and school level. Intuition might suggest that student-level results may simply extend to the district level. However, we propose three ways in which district results may differ. First, students in pre-kindergarten programs tend to be there voluntarily, and although many studies attempt to correct for this selection bias, student-level results may still be unable to capture the effect at a district level. Second, there may be spillovers from some children attending early childhood programs. Public programs may introduce education into a greater number of young children's upbringing and development, potentially affecting other students through peer effects in the classroom. As a result, district-level studies may supplement student-level studies by informing policy-makers about a public pre-kindergarten program's potential effect on an entire school district's scholastic achievement. Third, district programs may merely be a substitute for private programs that would otherwise exist in the absence of these public programs. Thus, public programs may not substantially improve student achievement. This is the first study to our knowledge that examines the impact of publicly provided district-level pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs on future district-level test scores in a state (Wisconsin) where only a proportion of districts offer these programs. These public programs are available to all students residing in the school district, regardless of their family's income level, yet not all students in the districts take advantage of these programs and attend. …