House of Paine

front loaded ed

there's no way we can spend
enough state money 

on kids
    age minus 9 months 
         thru  year 7  


 james j heckman

seems in part
 to hrlp  make my point

with stats


"It is a rare public policy initiative 
that promotes fairness and social justice 
and, at the same time,
 promotes productivity in the economy
... Investing in disadvantaged young children is such a policy"

 

" Focusing solely on earnings gains,
 returns to dollars invested 
are as high as 15% to 17%. ..."

"Families are the major source 
of inequality in American social and economic life"

" The accident of birth 
has substantial lifetime consequences"

 

" At current levels of spending, 
early interventions 
targeted toward disadvantaged children 
have much higher economic returns 
than later interventions
 such as reduced pupil-teacher ratios
 public job training
 convict rehabilitation programs
 tuition subsidies 
or expenditure on police. ..."


"Gaps in rankings 
of both cognitive and noncognitive ability
 by socioeconomic status
 emerge early in the life of the child
 widen slightly in the early years of schooling
 and stay constant after age eight"

. "Research shows that schooling
 and school quality play only a small role 
in accounting for these gaps ... "

"Controlling for early family environments 
narrows the gaps greatly"

 
" By the second grade, 
gaps ... across socioeconomic groups are stable ... "

 "abilities and motivations 
that children bring to school
 play a far greater role ... 
than do the traditional schooling input measures 
that receive so much attention 
in public policy debates. ... "

"Many politicians and citizens place their faith in adolescent and young-adult remediation programs. ... "

"However, the track records of criminal rehabilitation programs, adult literacy programs 
and public job-training programs are poor"

". ... Studies ... show that later compensation 
for deficient early family environments is very costly. ..."

" If society waits too long to compensate 
for the accident of birth
 it is economically inefficient 
to invest in the skills of the disadvantaged"
===============

but here comes some troubled waters 

  

"There is little basis for providing 
universal programs at zero cost"

right as far as that goes 



  

"While there is a strong case
 for public support for funding interventions 
in the early childhood of disadvantaged children
 there is no reason for the interventions
 to be conducted in public centers"

wrong wrong wrong

we ned public centers that charge 
like state community colleges 
to capture externalities 
with subsidy plans 

but as to ability to pay and compulsory attendence 

heck has the pay part covered

" Vouchers"
fine 
but only 
 " privately run programs" ??

why 
 "promote competition and efficiency "

ie lower wages and staff sizes  
hmmmm

 then he fudges comp and cost with choice 

" They would allow parents
 to choose the venues and values
 offered in the programs 
that enrich their child's earliest years" 

fine long as a public center exists 
that can take all comers