Jordan Berne, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Anna Shapiro, Christina Weiland
{"title":"The Effect of Early Childhood Programs on Third-Grade Test Scores: Evidence from Transitional Kindergarten in Michigan","authors":"Jordan Berne, Brian A. Jacob, Tareena Musaddiq, Anna Shapiro, Christina Weiland","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.4762942","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Transitional kindergarten (TK) is a relatively recent entrant into the US early education landscape, combining features of public pre-K and regular kindergarten. We provide the first estimates of the impact of Michigan's TK program on third-grade test scores. Using an augmented regression discontinuity design, we find that TK improves third-grade test scores by 0.29 (math) and 0.19 (English language arts) standard deviations relative to a counterfactual that includes other formal and informal early learning options. These impacts are notably large relative to the prior pre-K literature.","PeriodicalId":507782,"journal":{"name":"SSRN Electronic Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"SSRN Electronic Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4762942","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Transitional kindergarten (TK) is a relatively recent entrant into the US early education landscape, combining features of public pre-K and regular kindergarten. We provide the first estimates of the impact of Michigan's TK program on third-grade test scores. Using an augmented regression discontinuity design, we find that TK improves third-grade test scores by 0.29 (math) and 0.19 (English language arts) standard deviations relative to a counterfactual that includes other formal and informal early learning options. These impacts are notably large relative to the prior pre-K literature.