Category Archives: Uncategorized

We have enough evidence to expand quality pre-K

Posted on February 25, 2016 by timbartik

Professor Dale Farran of Vanderbilt University has a new policy brief at the Brookings Institution website, entitled “We need more evidence in order to create effective pre-K programs”. This policy brief makes the skeptical researchers’ case for collecting more research … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs, Uncategorized | Comments Off on We have enough evidence to expand quality pre-K

Reflections coming out of the recent AEI forum debating pre-K

Posted on February 18, 2016 by timbartik

On Wednesday, February 17, I participated in a forum at the American Enterprise Institute. The forum, organized by AEI Research Fellow Katharine Stevens, was entitled “Does pre-K work? A look at the research.” Forum participants, in addition to me, were … Continue reading →

Posted in Early childhood program design issues, Early childhood programs, National vs. state vs. local, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Reflections coming out of the recent AEI forum debating pre-K

What do we know about right-to-work laws and state prosperity? Not much, because of limited variation over time in which states are RTW states

Posted on January 5, 2016 by timbartik

Vigorous debate continues over the issue of “right-to-work” (RTW) laws, and how they affect a state’s economic growth and wage rates. Right-to-work laws make it illegal to require workers in unionized workplaces to pay dues to the unions that represent … Continue reading →

Posted in Economic development, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Social benefits from job creation much higher in high-unemployment local economies

Posted on July 17, 2015 by timbartik

A paper of mine was just published in the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. The paper is entitled “The Social Value of Job Loss and Its Effect on the Costs of U.S. Environmental Regulations”. The paper deals with a … Continue reading →

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March 25 interview on WWJ Radio Detroit, “Every Kid Matters”

Posted on March 26, 2015 by timbartik

I was interviewed on March 25 as one of three panelists on a hour-long show on WWJ Radio Detroit. The interview was part of a series of radio broadcasts, on the last Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m.,  sponsored … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Recent “natural experiment” evidence for Head Start’s long-run effectiveness

Posted on February 11, 2015 by timbartik

A recently published paper on Head Start, by Pedro Carneiro and Rita Ginja, presents evidence that Head Start has sizable long-run behavioral benefits, compared to no preschool, even though cognitive impacts fade. The paper’s methodology is not a random assignment … Continue reading →

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New Duke study of special education cost savings due to North Carolina’s Smart Start and More at Four programs

Posted on February 10, 2015 by timbartik

A newly published study by three well known researchers at Duke (Clara Muschkin, Helen Ladd, and Ken Dodge) finds that North Carolina’s early childhood programs significantly reduce special education placements at grade 3. The programs examined are More at Four, … Continue reading →

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Anti-crime benefits of pre-K are another good rationale for broad public support for pre-K

Posted on October 3, 2014 by timbartik

Another important spillover benefit of high-quality pre-K is the effect of these programs on lowering subsequent crime rates of participants. As discussed in my new book, From Preschool to Prosperity, these anti-crime effects provide broad public benefits by reducing the … Continue reading →

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The pre-K controversy over teacher credentials: mixed evidence, but successful programs tend to use certified teachers paid public school wages

Posted on September 30, 2014 by timbartik

My new book, From Preschool to Prosperity, includes a discussion of the controversy over whether pre-K programs get better results if they use credentialed teachers. The controversy arises because the research on this topic is mixed. However, even though the … Continue reading →

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Pre-K quality: even slight improvements have large economic benefits, which justify even large costs to improve quality

Posted on September 29, 2014 by timbartik

One argument made in my new book, From Preschool to Prosperity, is that even slight improvements in preschool quality can be shown by the economic logic of educational investments to have large benefits. This justifies spending quite a bit of … Continue reading →

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