Early Education

More public investment in pre-school educated is warranted, but good targetted programs cost less and crowd out less parental invest.

Contemporary research has not reproduced the miracles seen in Perry, Abecedarian and Early Learning.

Returns are highest for quality programs for disadvantaged children, many of whom are already being served through Head Start & state progs.

I suspect this is true, but one shouldn't overstate selection relative to learning about how to do it better over time.

The most highly touted have higher returns than average. That does not mean that universal per school is a bad idea.

The evidence on preschool initiatives has been very mixed.

Of course the average is lower than the max. But that does not mean the nation should not go that route.

If we used the gov funds to propagate the most highly touted programs, wouldn't we get a good result? But I don't have any expertise here.

The Nordic experience speaks strongly against this view.

Bad Q!. Univ preK is wasteful b/c much is pure transfer to upper-inc families. However social returns to highly touted prgms very uncertain!

Question is fuzzy. Also, the real question is whether the social return is high enough to justify the costs.

Too far from my expertise to say.

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Question is a bit confusing. Presumably lower than very high-end estimates of Perry program, but I'd have wide confidence interval.
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Recent reserach suggests that the large gains from expanding preschool will come if funds are targeted toward disadvantaged families.
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If the question is whether the average is less than the max, then not interesting. And no idea how to interpret "much". Right Q: is NPV>0

There is solid evidence that good preschool education has a high return. Implementation is a challenge but ingredients for success are known
-see background information here