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Early Childhood Education Effects on School Outcomes: Academic Achievement, Grade Retention and School Drop Out

ABSTRACT Research Finding: The present study estimates the long-term effects of Chile’s national public Early Childhood Care and Education program (ECCE) on children academic achievement, grade retention and school dropouts, to better understand if ECCE is helping reduce the socioeconomic achievement gap. The present study uses a quasi-experimental design and propensity score matching (PSM) to estimate the ECCE effect by comparing ECCE participants with those who did not attend but share similar family and contextual characteristics. We follow a cohort of 80,000 children from preschool to the end of schooling. Results show that ECCE participants had better academic outcomes than their peers who did not participated in ECCE in national tests in 4th, 10th, and 12th grade. ECCE participants also were less likely to repeat a grade or to dropout of school. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that public ECCE might play a key role in both reducing the socioeconomic achievement gap and supporting futures opportunities for children.