- Rucker C. Johnson
- Spring/Summer 2017
- Focus-33-2d2
- Link to foc332d2 (PDF)
- Link to foc332sup (PDF)
Breaking the cycle of poverty may require early investment in disadvantaged children’s skills, followed by sustained investments over time. Without these subsequent investments, the effects of early interventions may disappear. In turn, early skills development may make later interventions more successful. The study discussed in this article, conducted by myself and C. Kirabo Jackson, explored whether such complementarity between early and later childhood investment exists.1 We looked at whether early childhood investments for disadvantaged children that were followed by increases in public school expenditures were particularly effective at improving children’s long-term educational and economic outcomes.
Categories
Early Childhood Care & Education, Education & Training, Inequality & Mobility, Intergenerational Poverty, K-12 Education