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Community Playthings

February 4, 2025

Head Start Research Shows Its Generational Effectiveness

The highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible, from birth through age five.
– James J. Heckman

The National Head Start Association lists a multitude of research studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the program.

Here is a small sampling of the positive generational impacts of Head Start:

  • Head Start parents are more likely to increase their educational levels during their children’s early years than other at-risk parents. (Sabol and Chase-Lansdale, 2014)
  • Head Start graduates report investing more in their own children; their children benefited from more positive parenting practices. Head Start graduates spent more teaching their own children numbers, letters, colors, and shapes, more time praising their children, showed their children more physical affection, spent more time doing the child’s favorite activities, and reported spanking their children less. (Bauer and Schanzenbach, 2016)
  • The children of Head Start graduates are significantly more likely to finish high school and enroll in college and they are significantly less likely to become teen parents or to be involved in the criminal justice system. (Barr and Gibbs, 2017)

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