One to Grow On

Great article from The Economist here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/07/education_0

Slides from the original presentation here:
http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR_slides.pdf

At first glance, kids who get off to a faster start in kindergarten lose that edge by junior high. But the findings of this study appear to show that those who tested higher in kindergarten are more likely to:

• Earn more
• Attend college
• Own a home
• Have a job with a 401k
• Afford a more expensive house
• Be married

The ultimate conclusion is that standout teachers early in life are worth a lot more than we're paying them:
"Mr. Chetty and his colleagues ... estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That’s the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn’t take into account social gains, like better health and less crime."

And in a conclusion that is less surprising the more you think about it:
"Economics Nobelist James Heckman has found that the earlier one pursues efforts at remediation with underperforming students the more effective the interventions are. And studies have indicated that while the academic knowledge gained from remediation programmes tends to fade, social knowledge is more durable (and it may well be more important over the long-term). In general, it seems like the importance of educational reforms at the secondary and undergraduate level is wildly overstated, while the importance of improvements in education at the primary level (and earlier) is given far too little attention."


As for me personally, my opinion is that a kid who has good parents minimizes the effects of school. It almost doesn't matter what the outside world tells them if I prepare them properly. So that is what I strive to do. The quality of my kids' teachers won't matter as long as I do my job well as a parent.