Extended early childhood intervention and school achievement: Age 13 findings from the Chicago longitudinal study

We evaluated the effects of participation in an extended program of compensatory education for a large sample of inner-city black children up to the seventh grade. The intervention is the Chicago Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program. Groups included 426 children who participated in the program from preschool to grades 2 or 3 and 133 school-stable children whose participation ceased in kindergarten. After taking into account initial differences in both the level and the growth rate of achievement, frequency of school mobility after the program, and sample selection bias, program participation for two or three years after preschool and kindergarten is positively associated with reading and math achievement in grade 7 and negatively associated with cumulative grade retention four years after the end of the program. Study findings provide rare longitudinal evidence from an established program concerning the effects of extending compensatory education into the primary grades.