Does Head Start help hispanic children?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Currie, J; Thomas, D
• 署名单位: National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; RAND Corporation; Rand Health
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(99)00027-4
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 235-262
• 关键词: Head Start; hispanics; early intervention; child care; test scores; cognition

摘要

Poor educational attainment is a persistent problem among US hispanic children, relative to non-hispanics. Many of these children are immigrants and/or come from households that use a minority language in the home. This paper examines the effects of participation ina government sponsored preschool program called Head Start on these children. We find that large and significant benefits accrue to Head Start children when we compare them to siblings who did not participate in the program. On average, Head Start closes at least 1/4 of the gap in test scores between hispanic children and non-hispanic white children, and 2/3 of the gap in the probability of grade repetition. However, we find that the benefits of Head Start are not evenly distributed across sub-groups. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.