Author Archives: timbartik

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About timbartik

Tim Bartik is a senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a non-profit and non-partisan research organization in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His research specializes in state and local economic development policies and local labor markets.

What does the Fitzpatrick study of Georgia’s “universal” pre-K program show?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by timbartik

During the current debate over expanding pre-K, expansion opponents have sometimes cited a study by Maria Donovan Fitzpatrick of Georgia’s pre-K program. For example, on February 25, 2013, the Wall Street Journal editorial page described the conclusions of Fitzpatrick’s study … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs | 3 Comments

Responding to the Wall Street Journal editorial on preschool expansion

Posted on March 1, 2013 by timbartik

On February 26, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial criticizing President Obama’s proposal to expand preschool.  The editorial was entitled “Head Start for All: Universal preschool and a government that won’t admit failure”.  Given the prominence of the Wall … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs | 2 Comments

Steve Barnett’s take on what the facts show about pre-K

Posted on February 27, 2013 by timbartik

Steve Barnett, Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, has written a very useful brief report about what research shows about pre-K programs. This report, which is 15 pages long, is entitled “Getting the Facts Right on Pre-K … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs | 1 Comment

Link to post on Charles Murray’s analysis of large-scale pre-K

Posted on February 27, 2013 by timbartik

As far as I can tell, my post yesterday was not emailed to subscribers. I am not sure if this is a glitch in the wordpress.com software or servers, or is due to the length of yesterday’s post. So I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

An analysis of Charles Murray’s critique of Obama’s proposal for expanded pre-K

Posted on February 26, 2013 by timbartik

In response to a reader request, I am taking a closer look at a recent article by Charles Murray, entitled “The Shaky Science Behind Obama’s Universal Pre-K”. The article was published on February 20, 2013 by Bloomberg News. Charles Murray … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs | 14 Comments

What do we know about Head Start’s effectiveness?

Posted on February 25, 2013 by timbartik

An ongoing policy dispute is about how effective Head Start is as a preschool program. Head Start has other goals, for example improving public health. However, an important issue is how Head Start’s effects on kindergarten readiness, K-12 test scores, … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs | 2 Comments

Fact-checking FactCheck on preschool

Posted on February 21, 2013 by timbartik

FactCheck’s recent column criticizing President Obama’s claims about his preschool program gave a misleading description of the overall research evidence on preschool. FactCheck describes itself as “a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania”, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Distribution of benefits, Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs | 1 Comment

NPR’s spin on universal preschool is unduly negative

Posted on February 18, 2013 by timbartik

NPR’s Morning Edition on February 18, 2013 had an interview by NPR host Linda Wertheimer with NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam that gave an unduly negative spin to what research shows about the effectiveness of universal preschool. The program began … Continue reading →

Posted in Distribution of benefits, Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs | 1 Comment

Research supports the effectiveness of many state and local pre-K programs

Posted on February 14, 2013 by timbartik

In the debate over President Obama’s pre-K proposal, one important issue is whether pre-K programs can work on a large-scale, not just in small “hothouse” programs run by researchers.  A closely-related issue is whether pre-K works for middle-class children, or … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood programs | 1 Comment

We have experience and research on scaling up quality pre-K

Posted on February 12, 2013 by timbartik

President Obama’s proposal for federal support for moving to universal pre-K for 4-year-olds will no doubt be fleshed out in the near future. As always, the devil is in the details. However, I want to respond to one idea that … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs | Comments Off on We have experience and research on scaling up quality pre-K