By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
Brain tests at the age of three appear to predict a child's future chance of success in life, say researchers. Cognitive tests could identify children at the age of three who would go on to become criminals, dependent on welfare or chronically ill.
by Kenneth A. Dodge, Yu Bai, Helen F. Ladd, and Clara G. Muschkin (Duke University)
Child Development, 2016
North Carolina’s Smart Start and More at Four (MAF) early childhood programs were evaluated through the end of elementary school (age 11) by estimating the impact of state funding allocations to programs in each of 100 counties across 13 consecutive years on outcomes for all children in each county-year group (n = 1,004,571; 49% female; 61% non-Latinx White, 30% African American, 4% Latinx, 5% other). Student-level regression models with county and year fixed effects indicated significant positive impacts of each program on reading and math test scores and reductions in special education and grade retention in each grade. Effect sizes grew or held steady across years. Positive effects held for both high- and low-poverty families, suggesting spillover of effects to nonparticipating peers.
The full article can be found in Duke Space, Duke University's online repository of open access research.
Volume 26 Number 2 Fall 2016 of the journal of The Future of Children is now available to read online. The Future of Children is a collaboration of The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution.
The October 2016 Parent Aware report has been released by the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Parent Aware, Minnesota’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), provides a common set of program standards for child care and early education programs, and is supported by a mission and principles. The program standards, combined with the Parent Aware Indicators, are also known as the Parent Aware “kindergarten readiness best practices."
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Rob Grunewald, Economist, Community Development Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Cascade: No. 93, Fall 2016
Experiences during the first few months and years of life create the foundation for learning and development. Supportive early environments help children succeed in school and in life, and provide many benefits that spill over into communities and society. Cost-benefit analyses of high-quality early learning programs show that the monetary benefits to society are much larger than program costs. Sustaining the gains children make in early childhood during elementary school and beyond is important to achieving these high returns.
The Minnesota Legislature authorized an innovative social impact financing pilot in 2011 to issue state bonds for pay for performance based contracts to expand effective social services. A report released today by Nonprofits Assistance Fund examines why, while pay for success initiatives have moved forward in other states, Minnesota has been unable to issue the appropriation bonds authorized in the Pay For Performance Act of 2011.
The lead author of Pay-For-Performance Financing to Expand Cost-Effective Social Services, Professor Judy A. Temple from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, completed interviews and reviewed documents to identify the key lessons learned and discover obstacles to implementation. After outlining the background and activities related to this unique pay for performance model – Minnesota was the first state to pass legislation authorizing social impact financing through a state bond – the report shares seven lessons learned and recommendations to move ahead to find new ways to fund successful programs.
The seven lessons learned after four years of effort to implement the Minnesota bond pilot are:
The report concludes with recommendations for two possible directions to take in Minnesota in order to attract social impact investments to expand effective programs.
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We are delighted to announce that our findings on the benefits of full-day preschool in the Child-Parent Centers is in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Within CPCs that offered full and part day preschool in Chicago, students in full-day were more likely to be ready for Kindergarten. The results are reaching local and national news sources as well. Read more here.
The City of Chicago’s approval of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to increase enrollment in the ChildParent Centers (CPC) by 2,600 preschool students is a watershed for social impact bond (SIB) financing. Not only is the SIB the largest in private investment ($16.9 million over 4 years), but it is the first for a proven model of school reform.
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Chair Janet L. Yellen speaks at the Conference on Economic Opportunity and Inequality, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. Read her speech here.
Read Art Rolnick's article on the Twin Cities Daily Planet website.