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No. But we do have some evidence of causation-- e.g. children offered Head Start programs do better than children that were not. E.g. Ludwig and Miller (2007)
by mlyle 6y ago
No. But we do have some evidence of causation-- e.g. children offered Head Start programs do better than children that were not. E.g. Ludwig and Miller (2007) showed a 3% increase in high school graduation rates and a 4% increase in college attendance in disadvantaged youth offered early education. That's a big difference for a treatment 15 years later.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago> . . . in disadvantaged youth offered early education. Head Start was a lot more than just early education. It was social services, nutrition, mental health services, and even the employment of some parents of the Head Start children. I should be clear that I do not mean to claim the total absence of benefits of kindergarten. I was exaggerating. The position I will stake is that I believe the benefits are likely very minor, even outside of COVID, and especially for affluent children.
- mlyle 6y agoSo, then, your intent in responding to my comment was just to be pedantic and snarky, and not to offer any actual information except to parrot the normal correlation != causation line? That was a good use of our time.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoYour one observing a correlation between kindergarten and success? No, I think your comment was likely to engender in the typical reader a belief that kindergarten was known to have a significant and positive causal effect (both statistical and clinical) on outcomes as a general rule. I don't believe this has been established. My intent in responding to your comment was to prevent that belief from wrongly being engendered in the minds of the readers.
- spoonjim 6y agoIs there a possible confounder that the kids whose parents find out about these offerings and take their kids to them are more attentive overall?
- mlyle 6y agoThere's always confounders like this. Well designed studies find ways to exploit the enrollment structures. E.g. you let a randomized group of n kids on the wait list who wouldn't end up with services jump the wait list and compare them to n kids stuck on the wait list. Or you randomize half the kids you help to half-day and the other half to full day. What you describe shows up in "benefits" of various charter school structures. The charter school kids do better than the kids in comparison schools... but if you compare the charter school kids who won the enrollment lottery to those not offered admission, they usually don't look better.
- eru 6y agoSometimes they do, it depends.