Reports on the long-term effectiveness of Head Start are mixed. The January, 2010 Congressional Impact Study showed positive, but fairly short term, effects.
Reports and statements supportive of Head Start
According to Datta who summarized 31 studies, the program showed immediate improvement in the IQ scores of participating children, though after beginning school, the non-participants were able to narrow the difference. Children who attended Head Start are, relative to their siblings who did not, significantly more likely to complete high school, attend college, and possibly have higher earnings in their early twenties. They are less likely to have been booked or charged with a crime. Head Start is associated with large and significant gains in test scores. Head Start significantly reduces the probability that a child will repeat a grade. Recent criticisms of Project Head Start have resulted in plans to improve program services and to expand in a more thoughtful manner to make the program more responsive to the needs of children and families. New directions include expansion below and beyond the ages previously served by Head Start.
Reports and statements with "mixed reviews" of Head Start
Currie and Thomas try to control for many family background factors. The analysis is based on within-family data, comparing children in Head Start with their siblings who were not in Head Start. Also, mothers who were themselves enrolled in Head Start were compared to their adult sisters who were not. Currie and Thomas analyzed groups separately by ethnicity: White, Black and Hispanic. White children, who were the most disadvantaged, showed larger and longer lasting improvements than black children.
Not all studies support the claim that Head Start is effective when measured by long-term gain. Many researchers acknowledge that Head Start appears to make a significant educational impact early-on but argue that these benefits quickly fade. This phenomenon known as “Head Start Fade” begins to show itself as early as second and third grade when students who attended Head Start programs begin to fall behind their non-participant peers. The concept of “ Head Start Fade” leaves government officials and educators left wondering what can be done beyond the preschool years to perpetuate the early gains made by enrollment in Head Start programs.
Magnuson, Ruhm, and Waldfogel conclude that early education does increase reading and mathematics skills at school entry. However, the study also found that, in contrast to the general population in pre-kindergarten, disadvantaged children and those attending schools with "low levels of academic instruction" get the largest and most lasting academic gains from early education.
Congressional Impact Study
Congress mandated an intensive study of the effectiveness of Head Start, the "Head Start Impact Study", which has issued a series of reports on the design and study of a target population of 5000 3- and 4- year old children.
Earlier Head Start Impact Study First Year Findings were released in June 2005, and the Executive Summary is available from Health and Human Services. The study participants, beginning in fall 2002, were assigned to either the Head Start program or other parent-selected community resources. Thus, the study measured Head Start's effectiveness as compared to a variety of other forms of community support and educational intervention, as opposed to comparing Head Start to a non-intervention alternative. The results of the first report showed consistent small to moderate advantages to children from participating in Head Start programs rather than other programs, with a few areas where no advantage was reported. The benefits improved with early participation and varied among racial and ethnic groups.
Reports and statements critical of Head Start
Another issue has been that according to the most widely cited source supporting Head Start, children who finish the program and are placed into disadvantaged schools perform worse than their peers by second grade. Only by continuing to isolate these children (such as dispersing and sending them to better-performing school districts) can the gains be captured. In an article in the New York Times "Head Start Falls Further Behind" Beshrov and Call discuss the finding of an 1998 evaluation of the Head Start program and how it led to a rigorous national evaluation of the program. The article stated that research concluded that the current program had little meaningful impact.
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, authors of Freakonomics, conclude that Head Start participation has no lasting effect on test scores in the early years of school, based on regression analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Levitt, one of the authors of Freakonomics, and Fryer come to the same conclusion in one 2004 paper they wrote.