Head Start Plus: The Case for Piloting a Cadillac Public ECE Program

The long-term impacts of early childhood education (ECE) programs at scale are smaller than those produced by influential demonstration programs half a century ago. Several factors likely contribute, some of which are in the control of policymakers and the designers of ECE programs (e.g., targeting and quality), and some of which are not (quality of conditions for children not served by ECE programs and children's experiences outside of ECE). Current efforts to measure and improve quality at scale are admirable, but this review argues for a complementary approach: the government should pilot a Cadillac public ECE program using the infrastructure of the federal Head Start program, called Head Start Plus. This program would be targeted toward the most disadvantaged children in the U.S. (those with the lowest family income and maternal education, and other dimensions of adversity) and would include several high-quality features; most notably, low child-to-teacher ratios (∼6:1 for preschoolers) and small group sizes. A pilot evaluation of the program would offer insights into the feasibility of achieving impacts and cost-benefit ratios in the range of those from demonstration programs and would provide benchmarks for effect sizes on measures of classroom processes and child outcomes that can guide the design, improvement, and evaluation of existing and future programs.