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.

Earlier intervention has greater effects in changing a child’s life course, but not always a higher benefit-cost ratio; both are important

Posted on September 25, 2014 by timbartik

In my new book, From Preschool to Prosperity, one issue I discuss is how the returns to high-quality early childhood programs vary with what child ages are targeted by the program. One popular notion is that the earlier the intervention, … Continue reading →

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The Head Start experiment versus prior research on Head Start: the curious case of the changing control group

Posted on September 24, 2014 by timbartik

In my new book, From Preschool to Prosperity,  one issue about Head Start that I discuss is the change over time in results from studies of the effectiveness of Head Start. Earlier studies of Head Start find evidence of Head … Continue reading →

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Eye on Early Education reviews my new book, “From Preschool to Prosperity”

Posted on September 23, 2014 by timbartik

Alyssa Haywoode, of  “Eye on Early Education”, a blog of  the organization Strategies for Children, has a review and interview about my new book, From Preschool to Prosperity. One accomplishment of  Ms. Haywoode in the interview was to push me a … Continue reading →

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Preschool often has large adult effects even if test score effects fade somewhat.

Posted on September 23, 2014 by timbartik

My just-published book, From Preschool to Prosperity, includes a chapter discussing common criticisms of the research evidence for early childhood programs. One frequent criticism of the evidence for early childhood programs is based on results from the recent Head Start … Continue reading →

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Early childhood programs work at a large scale

Posted on September 22, 2014 by timbartik

As I discuss in my just-published book, From Preschool to Prosperity, critics often argue that the research evidence for preschool only comes from small-scale programs run by researchers. Therefore, the argument goes, we don’t know if preschool can work if … Continue reading →

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Early childhood programs today have credible evidence not only from random assignment experiments, but from “silver standard” studies with good comparison groups

Posted on September 19, 2014 by timbartik

My new book, From Preschool to Prosperity, argues that the research evidence for the effectiveness of early childhood programs is broad. The random assignment experiments, such as Perry Preschool, are often cited. Random assignment evidence is regarded as the “gold … Continue reading →

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High-quality random assignment experiments continue to provide part of the evidence for the economic payoff to early childhood education

Posted on September 18, 2014 by timbartik

My new book, From Preschool to Prosperity (available free as a pdf, for $0.99 on various e-book platforms, and also in hard copy form), explains why the research evidence for the effectiveness of early childhood education is credible. Among this credible … Continue reading →

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Parental earnings benefits of early childhood programs shouldn’t be forgotten

Posted on September 17, 2014 by timbartik

One point made in my recently-published book From Preschool to Prosperity (available free as a pdf, and for $0.99 in various ebook formats, and also in paperback) is that parental earnings benefits are an important economic benefit for many early … Continue reading →

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Even under conservative estimates, early childhood education can do quite a bit to address income inequality

Posted on September 16, 2014 by timbartik

On September 16, the latest Census Bureau statistics on poverty and income distribution were released. Among other things, these latest stats showed a stagnant trend in relative income of different groups, based upon the Current Population Survey, which omits some … Continue reading →

Posted in Distribution of benefits, Early childhood programs | Comments Off on Even under conservative estimates, early childhood education can do quite a bit to address income inequality

Conor Williams’s review of “From Preschool to Prosperity” in The Washington Monthly

Posted on September 16, 2014 by timbartik

Review is here, cross-posted at New America’s Ed Central. Conor Williams is a Senior Researcher in the Early Education Inititiative at the New America Foundation. “Bartik bridges the distance between accessibility and expertise. From Preschool to Prosperity is supremely organized … Continue reading →

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