Return on Investment: Discussion
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Investment in early Childhood Education More Cost-Effective than Investment in Job Training or GED?
The discussion below took place in February, 2006 on the National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE.
From: weinberger@centerforliteracy.org
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement
Date: February 21, 2006 2:02:08 PM EST
Greetings,
In the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer in an article on the importance of providing preschool education, Professor James Heckman of the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate in economics is paraphrased as saying: from a purely human capital point of view, investiment in early childhood is much more cost-effective than investment in job training of GEDs.
Does anyone have a reference to an article by Heckman on this subject? Was the return on investment made on parents included?
JoAnn Weinberger
President/Executive Director
Center for Literacy
215-474-1235, ext. 227
From: tsticht@znet.com
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Adult education as preschool education
Date: February 21, 2006 3:01:05 PM EST
Aaace-nla Colleagues:
Regarding the nobel prize winning economists comments on the cost-benefit of early childhood education in contrast to adult education. These types of contrasts represent a tendency in education to separate early childhood education (e.g., pre-school) from adult education. But this is a mistaken separation. See other earlier posts of mine calling for Life Cycles education policy on the aaace-nla list. One earlier post follows.
Tom Sticht
January 7, 2006
An Early Adulthood Education (EAE) Initiative For Early Childhood Education (ECE): A Life Cycles Education Policy Program
Tom Sticht International Consultant in Adult Education
The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) concluded that some 11 million adults in the U. S. are not able to read in English, and an additional 20% or so are below basic levels of literacy and this has not changed in the decade from 1993 to 2003. In response, the Secretary of Education has said that more needs to be done in the K-12 system, with a focus on President Bush’s high school initiative.
This is a response to the adult literacy problem of the sort that is sometimes called "stopping illiteracy at the source." The argument is that there are so many functionally illiterate adults because the high schools are graduating too many students who cannot read at functional levels. In turn, the high schools say this is because the middle schools send them students who can’t read, the middle schools blame the primary grades, the primary grades blame the pre-schools, like kindergarten and Head Start, and now Head Start can blame the new pre-school, Early Head Start which was put in place to prepare children for education starting at birth.
Unfortunately, as the NAAL indicates, attempts to "stop illiteracy at the source" using numerous pre-school, special education, and compensatory education programs, along with the regular K-12 system has not stopped functional illiteracy as of yet.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. released in 2005 confirms the NAAL results and shows 30 year trends for reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A graph of average scores on the NAEP for 9, 13, or 17 year olds for the thirty year period from 1971 to 2004 shows that 9 year olds increased from 208 in 1971 to 215 in 1980, then fell to 209 in 1990 and then rose again to 219 in 2004. This is only 4 scale score points higher than in 1980. There is a similar lack of evidence of any practically useful improvement for 13 and 17 year olds over this 30 year period.
Importantly, long term trend data also indicated that for children in all three age groups, there were no improvements for those at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, or 90th percentiles across the 30 years of reporting. This means that from 1971 to the present the K-12 system still produces young adults (17 year olds) at the 10th percentile with reading scores equivalent to those of 10 year old children in the 5th grade. While there were some improvements in achievements for African-Americans and Hispanics on average, if they were at the lower percentiles of achievement, then they are still facing considerable problems with literacy.
A finding of considerable significance in the NCES long term trends report is that, from 1980 to 2004, for 13 and 17 year olds, reading achievement increases as their parent’s amount of education increases. But the reading achievement for students whose parents had less than high school education have not improved over the last quarter century, nor have the scores for students whose parents have more education.
Since attempts to "stop illiteracy at the source" do not seem to have worked out up to now, even though we have put in place programs that start at birth, it seems we need to ask an important question: Why are so many children born unprepared to be prepared to learn to read?
Answer: It’s too late by birth. Too many young adults are functionally illiterate and unable to take care of themselves. Often they get involved with drugs or other activities that destroy their bodies and harm their minds. They often have many out-of-wedlock births, they are frequently unable to make informed choices about good prenatal and postnatal care, and they are unable to afford such care because they can’t qualify for well-paying jobs.
Toward a "Life Cycles" Education Policy
The "stopping illiteracy at the source" approach as illustrated above is representative of a policy of education that looks at a life cycle (singular), "cradle to grave", "lifelong learning" perspective on education, but fails to acknowledge a life cycles (plural) policy which explicitly recognizes the intergenerational transfer of language and literacy from parents to their children and how the parent’s education affects the subsequent educational achievement of their children, as illustrated in the recent NCES report.
Because of the pervasive finding of the influence of parent’s education on their children’s educational achievement we need to move away from thinking about literacy education as developed over one lifespan, a "cradle to grave", "lifelong" perspective, and instead we need to think in terms of a "life cycles" education policy. We need to shift from a "one life cycle" to a"multiple life cycles" policy for education that embraces adult literacy development with the same enthusiasm and commitment as is made to early childhood and K-12 literacy development. As the NCES data suggest, 30 years of trying to "fix" children’s literacy while ignoring the lack of literacy of their parents has not worked out very well. This suggests, further, that new thinking is called for in our efforts to improve literacy in the U. S. Perhaps thinking in a "Life Cycles" education policy perspective will help.
An Early Adulthood Education (EAE) Initiative
As an example of a program of literacy development based on a "life cycles" policy perspective I am suggesting that in addition to thinking about "early childhood education-ECE" we need to think about "early adulthood education-EAE." This builds on the Bush administration’s emphasis upon high school education but extends the idea to young adults 16 to 30 years of age, who lack a high school diploma, are out of school and not enrolled in any training or education programs. These young adults will become the parents of a new generation and in addition to other child-rearing responsibilities and duties they will pass on their motivation for education, their knowledge, and their language skills to their children.
Then, through the "oracy to literacy transfer effect" the acquired greater extent of knowledge and language may transfer to the young adult’s children and help them to learn to read more effectively and efficiently and go on to do better in school. These are the same aims as ECE and they can be accomplished in a well funded EAE program that reaches the millions of young adults lacking well developed literacy skills
In a 2004 report for the Economic Policy Institute of Washington, DC, R. G. Lynch provides an analysis of several early childhood development (ECE) programs and concludes that they produce a considerable benefit to cost ratio. Importantly, on this same page Lynch states that many of these ECE programs " also provide adult education and parenting classes for the parents of young children." (p vii). This suggests that perhaps a significant percentage of the benefits that ECE programs produce might actually be the result from the effects of what might be called EAE activities. Presently, there are family literacy programs that could easily be re-tooled into Early Adulthood Education programs with a much greater focus on the education of young adults than presently occurs. Similarly, Head Start and Early Head Start programs could be re-tooled to put a greater focus on EAE.
By reversing the focus from children to young adults, that is parents or parents-to-be, it is possible that considerable cost savings in EAE programs over ECE programs could occur because investing once in parents could affect several of the parent’s children and reduce the need for them to receive special educational services. Further, the return on investment (ROI) to EAE could start sooner than in ECE in terms of the parent’s increased income from qualifying for better paying jobs. Young adults may start new jobs right at the end of their program, whereas one has to wait some 20 years for the early childhood students to get jobs and start paying taxes.
Rosa Maria Torres has argued for what I am calling a "life cycles" policy for education in which it is recognized that educational policies do not affect only one generation but through the intergenerational transfer of motivation, language, and literacy they affect many cycles of lives across generations. She has argued that, " the children’s right to education should include the right to educated parents."
A substantial investment in an well designed and funded Early Adulthood Education (EAE) initiative could complement the present commitments that our nation has made to pre-school and K-12 education. It could also help to ensure that all children receive the benefits of well educated parents, as is their right.
Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net
From: Mark Johnson mailto:mark.johnson@usg.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement
Stephen V. Cameron & James J. Heckman, 1991. "The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents," NBER Working Papers 3804, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Downloadable from: [1]
From: Mark Johnson mailto:mark.johnson@usg.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement
Better yet
James J. Heckman and Dimitriy V. Masterov, The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children, October 2004; High/Scope Educational Research Foundation
From: Mark Johnson mailto:mark.johnson@usg.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement
The full text of The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children, along with a summary, is available at http://www.ced.org/. Related web sites: http://www.pewtrusts.org/, http://www.pnc.com/.
From: blv1@psu.edu
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement (JoAnn Weinberger)
Date: February 21, 2006 4:07:57 PM EST
JoAnn, I thought your message about Heckman was interesting so looked him up and found a book review in which he talks about the value of education. I'm not sure this is where the Inquirer paraphrase originated, but the review, in itself is interesting... To find it, go to http://www.reason.com/9503/dept.bk.HECKMAN.text.shtml The review is:
CRACKED BELL
By James J. Heckman
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, New York: The Free Press, 845 pages, $30.00 [ http://tinyurl.com/ebvw8 ]
From: bonniesophia@adelphia.net
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] FW: Economist Heckman statement
Date: February 21, 2006 4:15:21 PM EST
Would these ROIs relate to "investing" in young people's higher education? I'm thinking particularly about programs stressing the adult ed/post-secondary link, or colleges/universities that admit lower performing students?
Best regards,
Bonnie Odiorne, Ph.D.,
Director, Writing Center; Adjunct Faculty
Post University, Waterbury, CT
From: tsticht@znet.com
Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Adult education in preschool education
Date: February 21, 2006 4:44:28 PM EST
Aaace-nla colleagues: I have yet to find an economic assessment of adult education in which an attempt was made to determine the intergenerational benefits of the adult education or job training program. Yet in evaluating several workplace literacy programs that offered job-related literacy education, I found that a good percentage of adults said the program helped them help their children or grandchildren by such things as reading to them, or helping with their homework. These are things that early childhood education programs often have parents of the children in their programs learn and do.
In an earlier note I observed that recent research in the United States suggests that much of the success in early childhood education programs may be due to the effects such programs have on the education of the parents of the children. The economics--oriented Research Note below summarizes some of this research. This reinforces the importance of focusing resources for adult basic skills education on those adults at the lowest levels of achievement. Investments in the education of adults may contribute to the educability of their children. In this sense, it is a false dichotomy to separate early childhood education from adulthood education.
Tom Sticht
October 23, 2004
Early Childhood Education and Early Adulthood Education: A Life Cycles Perspective for Educational Policy
Tom Sticht International Consultant in Adult Education
In a recent report for the Economic Policy Institute of Washington, DC, Lynch (2004) provides an analysis of several early childhood development (ECD) programs and concludes that they produce a considerable benefit to cost ratio. He states, "Investments in high-quality ECD programs consistently generate benefit-cost ratios exceeding 3-to-1—or more than a $3 return for every $1 invested—well above the 1-to-1 ratio needed to justify such investments. (p. vii).
Importantly, on this same page Lynch states that many of these ECD programs " also provide adult education and parenting classes for the parents of young children." (p vii). This suggested to me that perhaps a significant percentage of the benefits that ECD programs produce might result from the effects of what might be called early adulthood development (EAD) activities. In other words, it seems possible to me that much of what is attributed to early childhood education programs might actually be resulting in some significant part from the educational or motivational effects that such programs have on the adult parents or parents-to-be of the children who are enrolled in the programs. If that is so, then these studies of ECD may also be taken as studies of EAD, and call for a much greater investment in the education of young adults who are of childbearing and rearing ages.
Following are some extracts taken directly from Lynch’s report that suggest how adult education of the children’s parents, even if this is only indirect education through participation with the program operators, may be important in influencing the long term benefit-cost rations that Lynch describes.
Perry Preschool Project (Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1962-1967)
"Description: One hundred and twenty-three African American children with low IQs (in the 70 to 85 range) and from families with low socioeconomic status were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one enrolled in a pre-school program and one not. Those enrolled in preschool attended for two school years at ages three and four. Services included daily 2.5-hour classes and weekly 1.5-hour home visits with mother and child. Evaluations of the children were performed annually until the children reached age 11, and then again at ages 14, 15, 19, and 27. A forthcoming analysis will follow the children through age 41." (p. 24)
"The economic benefits of the Perry Preschool Project were probably under-estimated For example, given that the preschool program was a form of childcare, some of the mothers of program participants were probably able to increase their employment and earnings relative to what they would have been without the program, and thus they probably also increased their tax contributions and decreased their welfare consumption." (p. 26)
The Prenatal/Early Infancy Project (Elmira, New York, 1978-1982)
"Four hundred first-time mothers were enrolled in the program before their 30th week of pregnancy. The women enrolled in the program were overwhelmingly at high risk of poor child and family outcomes: 85% were under age 19 and/or unmarried and/or of low socioeconomic status. The women were randomly assigned to one of two intervention groups or one of two control groups." (p. 26)
"Intervention group mothers also felt the benefits of the program.
Intervention group mothers in the high-risk sample spent fewer months on
welfare (60.4 versus 90.3) and received food stamps for less time (46.7
months versus 83.5 months) than did the high-risk control group mothers.
By the time the children were 15, intervention group mothers in the
high-risk sample were much less subject to arrest (18% versus 58%),
conviction (6% versus 28%), and incarceration than were the mothers in the
high-risk control group. Intervention group mothers in the high-risk
sample experienced fewer subsequent pregnancies (1.5 versus 2.2) and went
a longer time between the first and second birth (68.8 months versus 37.3
months) than did the mothers in the high-risk control group. The
intervention group mothers in the high-risk sample also reported many
fewer episodes of impairment due to alcohol or drugs than did the
high-risk control group mothers." (p. 27)
The Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention (North Carolina, 1972-1985)
"At age five all the children were reassigned to either a special intervention program through age eight or a control group. The intervention program involved having parents engage in specific supplemental education activities for the children in their homes. The parents were provided with educational material and training, with which to engage their children, roughly every two weeks. Data were collected at ages three, five, eight, 12, 15, and 21." (p. 28)
"When the preschoolers were approximately four and a half years old, data were collected on the mothers who were under age 18 at the time they gave birth. These young mothers were more likely to have graduated from high school, attained post high school education, been employed, and been self-supporting than were the young mothers in the control group. On average, these young mothers had more education (11.9 years versus 10.3 years) than did the control group’s mothers. Moreover, only 23% of these young mothers had an additional birth compared to 40% of control group mothers." (p. 30)
The Chicago Child-Parent Center Program (Chicago, Illinois, 1967 to
present).
"Parental involvement with the schools was much higher among the parents of center children than it was for the parents of non-center children. By ages 20 and 22, the high school graduation rates for center children were 50% and 65% compared to just 39% and 54% for non-center children. " (pp. 31-32)
Early Head Start
"Early Head Start is an extension of the Head Start program that targets low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers. It serves over 60,000 children from birth to age three in some 700 programs nationwide." (p.32)
"A carefully controlled, randomized assessment of the Early Head Start program is in progress but has not yet been completed. However, preliminary results have been reported By age three, children in Early Head Start performed significantly better than control groups on cognitive, language, and social-emotional development indicators. Their parents were more emotionally supportive, used less punitive parenting, provided more stimulating home environments, and read more to their children. The parents were also more likely to participate in education and job training and less likely to have another child during the two years after enrollment in Early Head Start than were control group parents." (p.34)
Educational Rights of Children and Adults
Rosa Maria Torres (2003) has argued for what I call a "Life Cycles" policy for education in which it is recognized that educational policies do not affect only one generation but through the intergenerational transfer of language and literacy they affect many cycles of lives across generations. She has argued that, " the children’s right to education should include the right to educated parents."
Given the data from Lynch (2004) extracted above, it appears entirely possible that much of the benefits of early childhood development programs have their roots in the effects that such programs have as adult education intervention programs for the children’s parents. For this reason, advocates of both early childhood education and adult education should join forces in seeking equitable funding for adult education and literacy development. It just could be that one of the best investments we can make for children’s education, is an investment in the education of adults.
All children have a right to educated parents - and a Life Cycles education policies helps them obtain this right!
References
Lynch, R. G. (2004). Exceptional Returns: Economic,Fiscal,and Social Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute (http://www.epinet.org)
Torres, R. M. (2003). The fundamental linkages between child, youth and adult learning and education. http://www.iiz dvv.de/englisch/Publikationen/Supplements/60_2003/ eng_someconclusionsandelements.htm
Contact: Dr. Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net
From: pvanderl@netdoor.com
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Heckman AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 33, Issue 15
Date: February 22, 2006 3:04:13 AM EST
The discussion centering on Heckman raises some very significant issues for adult education and literacy. 1) Underlying the present emphasis on support for funding for education of 3-4 year olds one sees a very organized lobby of teachers with superior lobbying skills. They appear to desire to broaden the scope of their offerings by abandoning the title of Head Start in getting cross-discipline support for disadvantaged children before they broaden it across the entire population of children in that age group. By using a new designation (no longer Head Start) for disadvantaged youth they seem to be able to disregard the body of research that seemed to indicate that by 4th grade the early advantages of pre-school programs had leveled out. 2) If adult educators followed this model of organization and focus they could have equal success in engaging the support of business and industrial leaders to influence public policy to increase funding and support. 3) Adult education also needs better communication across disciplines. Adult education suffers from lack of hard data to support their funding needs. It seems I recall Heckman's early research could not show the benefits of a GED in increased wages because his population of interest was low socioeconomic groups whom he now describes as lacking non-cognitive skills such as motivation which could be learned in programs for 3-4 year olds. GED recipients were employed in the same jobs they would have had without the GED perhaps because they had limited access to better jobs due to societal constraints and not solely due to their non-cognitive skills. 4) . Heckman is writing a book about the GED. See the related links. From the abstract it appears he needs a more comprehensive understanding of the GED as more than a remedial program, and the influence of socioeconomic environment which affects the impact of the GED diploma on the GED graduate. It seems he could also better understand the societal impact of the GED in reclaiming the high school dropout. He asserts that 20% of the population will get a GED diploma. Longitudinally can we compare those GED graduates barely passing the GED tests and those with outstanding scores in wage gains and increased societal contributions? If not, we allow GED stereotying at the lowest socioeconomic levels. With a collaboration of adult ed research data analyzed in Heckman's models, we could improve programs. 5) The bright spot is Heckman's assertion that at the present level of funding of job training, early childhood education is more effective.
Heckman interview for Minnesota Federal Reserve http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/05-06/heckman.cfm
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12018
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9495
http://www.nber.org/papers/w5645
Thanks for the forum.
Patricia Vanderloo, Ph D.
MS Moment for Adults: THe GED Project
From: hbeder@rci.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Economist Heckman statement
Date: February 22, 2006 7:57:23 AM EST
Here is the citation:
Cameron, S. & Heckman, J. (1993). The Nonequivalence of High School
Equivalents, Journal of Labor Economics. 11:1 p 1-47.
Also look at the work of Murnane and Tyler. You can download from the NCSALL website.
From: ena1@psu.edu
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] Adult education in preschool education
Date: February 22, 2006 9:19:51 AM EST
Tom, research at the Goodling Institute has shown that the intensity of parents' involvement in the adult education component of family literacy programs is significantly related to the developmental/language outcomes of the youngest children (ages 0-3) in the program (see "Testing the Assumption", the 7th entry on <www.ed.psu.edu/goodlinginstitute/ongoingresearch.htm>). In other words, those parents (women) who participated the most in their own education had the greatest impact on the youngest children's language/literacy development. The impact was also seen in the older children in family literacy programs, but the relationship was not as consistent. This study provides support for the testimonials of parents and grandparents that you mention below.
Nickie Askov
