Full-day vs half-day

kindergarten
Long run effects on test scores
Christine Neill & Jean Eid
WLU, Economics

Plan of talk

Benefits/costs of full-day kindergarten

How to estimate effects on test scores?

Difference-in-Differences / quasi-experiment
methodology

Some data (at the school board level)

Initial results

Little evidence of any effect on Grade 3 test

scores

Benefits of full-day kindergarten

government reports

Premier Dalton McGuinty says fullday kindergarten programs will be

available for every child by 2015, and
will increase students' chances of
completing university, attending postsecondary education and landing a
good job.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/20
10/09/07/toronto-first-dayschool.html#ixzz13g20HZjd

Benefits of full-day
kindergarten

Parents are better able to work full time

Children learn more, are better
prepared for grade 1 and .
This makes life easier for Grade 1
teachers!
Students perform better
Students learn more quickly
Peer effects?

Costs of full-day
kindergarten

Large financial cost to taxpayers

$1.5 billion a year
Does not include marginal cost of
public funds

Socialisation, or transition costs of

starting full-day kindergarten at a
young age

Baker and Milligan less healthy;

more parent-reported temper tantrums

Previous studies

Studies of Perry Pre-school, or ABCDarian, etc, show

positive effects of targeted, intensive pre-school
programs on grades and later social and economic
outcomes of at-risk children
daCosta&Bell (2000; 2001)
Not universal - students in full-day were from inner
city low SES schools in Alberta; full day students
improved more over the kindergarten year
Herry, Maltais & Thompson (2007)
Full-day kindy in one French ON school board. 1 year
pre and post data. Teacher and parent-reports.
De Cicca (2007)
US: slight positive effect on test scores at start of year
1, nothing by end of year 1 (long term)

Methodology less reliable

methods

Comparing one cohort of students who went to full-day

kindergarten with a group before who went to half-day
kindergarten
Something may have changed between the two years
Comparing a group of students who attend a full-day
program with another who attend a half-day program
The two groups of students could just be different
There could be non-random selection into the full-day
program
Only a problem if selection or differences are
unobservable

Methodology difference in
differences

So look for a change in policy that

affected some students, but not others

Difference in Differences study

Control for fixed effects at the school or
school board level, to deal with
unobservable fixed characteristics
Control for year effects to deal with
unobservable time variation

Basic research plan

How did the switch from half to full-day

kindergarten in Ontarios French language
school boards affect EQAO test scores?

We can use English language boards as a

control
Mobility between French and English boards
is less of a problem than mobility between
English language schools
We can look at longer-term outcomes
(though we miss very short-term outcomes)

A (very) little background

All French language boards have offered

full-day JK and SK programs since around
2001-02

Varying start dates (we use this in our

estimation)
Educationally initiated because children
in French schools obtained lower grades
than students in English schools on the
provincial reading, writing, and mathematics
exams taken by students in the third and
sixth grades. (Herry, Maltais, Thompson,
2007)

Diff in diff no effect

Performance
measure

Policy Change

English
French

Time

Diff-in-Diff +ve effect

Performance
measure

Policy Change

French
English

Time

How do we estimate this?

Simple linear model, no break:

Ybt = a0 + a0Frenchb + b0Timet + ebt

Simple linear model, with break:

Ybt = a0 + a0Frenchb + b0Timet
+ gPostPolicyt*Frenchb + ebt

In actuality, use YearsFTKindybt as our key policy

variable (mostly 1999-2000; some later)
Add French*time to allow for different pre-trends in
French boards (as per graphs)
Standard errors clustered at school board level

The data

Currently: EQAO data at the school board

level (72 boards, 60 English and 12 French)

% achieving each level

number of students
%Female/%Male
% Second Language Program
% Special needs

In future: At the individual level

Allows us to examine whether there are

heterogeneous treatment effects (do kids
from low SES or non-French backgrounds
benefit more from full-day kindergarten?)

Grade 3 Reading
70

% of all students

65
English
60
55
50

French

45
40
35
30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Grade 3 Writing
90

80

% of all students

French

70

60

English

50

40

30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Grade 3 Maths
75
70

% of all students
English

65
60
French
55
50
45
40
35
30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Grade 6 Reading
90

80

% of all students

French

70

60

English

50

40

30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Grade 6 Writing
90

80

% of all students

French

70

60

English

50

40

30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Grade 6 Maths
90

80

% of all students

French

70

60

English
50

40

30
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Test year

Numerical results
Reading

Writing

Math

58.97
86
36

63.44
88
24

Dependent variable: percentage achieving Level 3 or Level 4

English boards mean:
English boards max:
English boards min:
Years of full-day kindy

56.5
82
28
0.6
(1.22)

3.1
(6.00)**

4.5
(2.02)*
-2.7
(0.26)
16.4
(2.13)*

-1.1
(0.73)
0.567
(1.06)
4.6
(2.03)*
-3.4
(0.32)
16.1
(2.10)*

709
72
0.87

709
72
0.87

French Trend
Female/Male ratio
% Second language program
% SpecialNeeds

N
Clusters
R2

4.3
(6.34)**

5.6
(2.92)**
-8.1
(1.78)
15.7
(2.85)**

1.2
(1.27)
0.615
(1.96)
5.7
(3.05)**
-8.9
(2.15)*
15.4
(2.80)**

1.9
(0.76)
-3.8
(0.33)
24.5
(1.97)

3.6
(1.82)
0.238
(0.35)
2.0
(0.77)
-4.1
(0.35)
24.5
(1.97)

709
72
0.92

709
72
0.92

708
72
0.84

708
72
0.84

Note: Clustered t-statistics in parentheses. ** = significant at 1% level; * significant at 5% level.

Interpretation: percentage point increase in % achieving the level for each additional year of full-time kindergarten

Numerical results
Reading

Writing

Math

5.7
15

9.4
25

Dependent variable: percentage achieving Level 4

English boards mean:
English boards max:
Years of full day kindy

5.5
14
2.0
(6.02)**

2.1
(5.71)**

1.5
(1.74)
0.1
(0.03)
3.7
(1.52)

-0.7
(1.17)
0.934
(3.99)**
1.7
(2.10)*
-1.0
(0.38)
3.3
(1.33)

709
72
0.67

709
72
0.7

French Trend
Female/Male ratio
% Second language program
% SpecialNeeds

N
Clusters
R2

1.4
(3.33)**

1.5
(1.38)
-0.8
(0.41)
2.4
(1.02)

-0.9
(1.66)
1.003
(6.18)**
1.7
(1.85)
-2.0
(1.58)
2.0
(0.91)

2.3
(1.68)
-4.3
(0.73)
10.1
(1.60)

0.0
(0.03)
0.454
(1.29)
2.4
(1.74)
-4.8
(0.85)
10.0
(1.61)

709
72
0.89

709
72
0.9

708
72
0.76

708
72
0.77

Note: Clustered t-statistics in parentheses. ** = significant at 1% level; * significant at 5% level.

Interpretation: percentage point increase in % achieving the level for each additional year of full-time kindergarten

Concerns

Interpretation of EQAO scores is non-standard

ordered probit model, if use individual data?
Selection
Inadequate controls
Mobility across schools
Typically more than 80% of students had been in the
same French board for 3 or more years
Difficult to transfer into the French system from the
English system
Heterogeneous treatment effects
Need individual-level data PEDAL at McMaster

Conclusions so far

French schools closed the gap with English

schools at Grade 3 in all three EQAO tests
But this mostly appears due to an upward
trend in French schools test scores, rather
than an obvious break for those who had
full-day kindergarten

Some positive effect on mathematics at the

provincial standard level?

Not likely that there is anything in the Grade

6 aggregate scores