Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Can Early Child Care Do It All? Tradeoffs in Investing in Children and Parents

(Family and Child Policy)

Fifty years of evidence demonstrates that children from low-income families can receive benefits from targeted early childhood education (ECE) programs in both the short- and long-term (Campbell et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2014; Carneiro & Ginja, 2014; Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010; Ludwig & Miller, 2007; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). However, despite significant public investment in preschool, socioeconomic achievement gaps persist throughout the life course (Reardon, 2011). In the face of these gaps, policymakers and researchers have sought effective strategies to boost preschool impacts. One popular approach is improve ECE program quality given the extant evidence that high-quality classrooms are associated with greater gains for children on average compared to lower quality classrooms (Domitrovich et al., 2008; Mashburn et al., 2008). A second approach that is gaining momentum is to use ECE as a platform to support parents’ skill development and educational advancement. The hypothesis is that these two-generation education programs will promote child development better than ECE programs alone, particularly given the strong linkages between parent and child well-being (Chase-Lansdale & Brooks-Gunn, 2014). It is an open question whether ECE programs should invest in children and/or parents in light of limited resources. The primary aim of ECE programs is to offer effective educational services to promote children’s school readiness, and therefore many argue that funds should only be used to directly support program quality. However, because parents play a critical role in the lives of young children, any program element that fosters parent outcomes may be an essential way to support child well-being (Sommer, Sabol, Chase-Lansdale, & Brooks-Gunn, 2015). Surprisingly, there is little empirical evidence to inform this debate. The proposed panel explores whether ECE programs are able to provide services for both parents and children, supporting the well-being of both together, or if supporting parents comes at a cost to the quality of children’s learning environments and outcomes. The first paper in the panel examines the importance of investments in children through classroom quality in determining Head Start effectiveness. The second paper measures the impact of a Head Start parenting education program on children’s development to determine whether direct program investment in parents can benefit children. A third study considers whether both parents and children can benefit from Head Start, asking whether early-life investment in parents through Head Start and other preschool attendance is complementary to later child attendance. The final paper examines the association between Head Start centers’ relative investment in parents versus children and implications for parent and child wellbeing using Head Start administrative data linked to Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data. All four studies employ rigorous quantitative methods and rich survey and observational data to examine quality efforts aimed at children and parents and consider multigenerational program influences. Our discussant has decades of experience working at both the federal government and foundation level and will highlight the challenges and opportunities in policy contexts to serve both parents and children together through ECE programming.