TY - JOUR AU - Gibbs,Chloe AU - Ludwig,Jens AU - Miller,Douglas L. TI - Does Head Start Do Any Lasting Good? JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 17452 PY - 2011 Y2 - September 2011 DO - 10.3386/w17452 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17452 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17452.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Chloe Gibbs Department of Economics University of Notre Dame 3057 Jenkins Nanovic Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 Tel: 574.631.4963 E-Mail: chloe.gibbs@nd.edu Jens Ludwig University of Chicago 1155 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/834-0811 Fax: 773/834-1582 E-Mail: jludwig@uchicago.edu Douglas L. Miller Department of Policy Analysis and Management MVR Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 E-Mail: dlm336@cornell.edu AB - Head Start is a federal early childhood intervention designed to reduce disparities in preschool outcomes. The first randomized experimental study of Head Start, the National Head Start Impact Study (NHSIS), found impacts on academic outcomes of .15 to .3 standard deviations measured at the end of the program year, although the estimated impacts were no longer significant when measured at the end of kindergarten or first grade. Assessments that Head Start is ineffective based on the NHSIS results are in our view premature, given our currently limited understanding of how and why early childhood education improves long-term life chances. Many of the specific changes to Head Start that have been proposed could potentially wind up doing more harm than good. ER -