Easy as ABC: Quality childcare matters for low-income families
HGSE Dean Kathleen McCartney

Quality preschool programs, such as the well-known High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, can have lasting positive effects on the academic and social outcomes of low-income children. Education policy makers need to know whether this result, demonstrated in model programs, applies to the varied childcare settings available to families across the country. A recent study by HGSE Dean Kathleen McCartney and her colleagues suggests that the answer may be “yes” – higher quality does matter.

Experts in early childhood education have promoted the value of high quality care and education for young children. Studies of model preschool programs show that children benefit in many ways from participating in such high quality early learning experiences. But since “model” programs are expensive, the public needs to know whether good quality early care and education genuinely benefit children. One way to address this question is to compare outcomes for children from families who make different decisions about childcare.

Kathleen McCartney, Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, is part of a national team of researchers who have been tracking just over 1,000 children since their birth in 1991. A recent study by Professor McCartney and her colleagues suggests that higher quality care can be particularly advantageous for children from low-income families.¹

There are at least two different ways that higher quality care might lead to better child outcomes, such as student achievement. First, there is a direct pathway: childcare settings are considered “higher quality” in large part because caregivers interact with children in sensitive and responsive ways, and provide opportunities to stimulate children’s learning. Higher quality programs likely provide children with a stronger foundation in areas like numbers and vocabulary, which is especially important when families are limited in the resources for learning that they can provide at home.

Another way quality care might benefit children is indirectly, by improving children’s home environment. Preschool teachers can provide parents with valuable information and strategies for supporting children’s learning and development at home. Good teachers can be helpful role models for parents, as they work together to figure out different ways to respond to a cranky baby, an independent-minded two-year-old, or a chatty three-year-old.

McCartney’s research team observed childcare settings several times, to look at the quality of care they provided. The 890 children in childcare were divided in half, based on the quality of care they received over the first three years of life – here, “higher quality” means better than average, and “lower quality” means average or below average quality.² When the children were 3 years old, their language and academic school readiness skills were measured, including their understanding of colors, letters, numbers and counting, sizes, comparisons and shapes.

The graph below shows the results for children’s language skills. The graph presents group averages for children from low to high income families, receiving lower (orange) and higher (blue) quality of childcare. The test is designed so that 100 is an average score for three-year-olds. The vertical dotted line represents the point below which the gap between the two group scores is statistically significant.

For children in low to middle income families (to the left of the vertical dotted line), language scores were significantly higher among those in higher quality childcare (blue), compared to those in lower quality childcare (orange). In other words, among children who were living at or near poverty levels, those receiving higher quality childcare scored closer to national averages for language (score: 100) for children their age.

The differences in scores associated with quality of care were less marked for children in higher income families (to the right of the vertical dotted line); when children came from higher income families, it made less of a difference whether or not their early education setting was of better-than-average quality.

The researchers found a similar pattern for children’s school readiness scores. Here, the test is designed so that 10 is the average score for three-year-olds, in areas such as letter knowledge, numbers and counting, and understanding of size. For children in low to middle income families (left of the vertical dotted line), experiences in higher quality childcare (blue) were associated with significantly greater school readiness skills. Again, the differences associated with quality of care were much smaller among children from higher-income families.

The study leads to a key insight about the relationship between family resources, access to high quality childcare, and children’s start in life. In this economically and geographically diverse sample of young children, income-related differences in language and other skills are already evident by the time children are three years old. On the other hand, for families with few economic resources, higher quality childcare can start to level the playing field.

One limitation of this study is that it is very difficult to account for all of the important variables. The researchers did account for important demographics, like the sex of the child, mother’s education level, and the child’s race. However, it could be that parents who placed their children in higher quality care already had greater awareness of what to look for in a childcare setting, and were more motivated to seek out a stimulating and responsive setting for their child. That might explain why their children’s scores were higher than those who were experiencing lower quality child care environments. Nonetheless, the scope of this study, and its inclusion of diverse families from multiple regions of the U.S., adds to the validity of the findings. The report highlights the potential benefits of policies and practices that make higher quality childcare available to more families, particularly low income families – whether through childcare subsidies or vouchers, or changes in the regulation of childcare programs’ quality standards.

By Maria Fusaro, doctoral student in Human Development and Psychology at HGSE

¹ McCartney, K., Dearing, E., Taylor, B.A., & Bub, K.L. (2007). Quality child care supports the achievement of low-income children: Direct and indirect pathways through caregiving and the home environment. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28 (5-6), 411-426.

² Quality of care was assessed during two half-day visits to the child's primary child care setting at 6, 15, 24, and 36 months. Observers rated several aspects of caregivers’ behavior, including their sensitivity to the child's non-distress expressions, stimulation of cognitive development, emotional expression directed towards the child, and intrusiveness in the child’s activity.