Post on 10-Mar-2023
POLITICAL SCIENCE 364CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS
EDUCATION POLICY AND HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTIN THE UNITED STATES
SAMIR S. BHALA
11/21/2011
Education matters and the disparity correlated with differentlevels of education attainment is what make education matter.This paper describes the different approaches to curbing thisachievement gap through United States education policy. Itargues that increasing human capital by expanding access tohigher education through increasing funding for grants and
supplementary educational programs provide robust alternativesto domestic education policy. This paper uses as case studies
the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.
Education matters and the earnings disparities correlated
with different levels of education attainment is what make
education matter. According to a population report released in
2009 by the US Census Bureau, workers with bachelor’s degrees
earned, at the median, approximately $20,000 more than
counterparts who only possessed a high school diploma ($46,805
versus $26,894) (Crissey, 2009: 9). Statistical evidence also
suggests that education attainment facilitates significant
economic mobility. A study spanning conducted by the Pew
Charitable Trust determined that the 45 percent of adult children
born to parents in the lowest income quintile and who lacked a
college degree – twice the expected percentage – remained in the
bottom stratum (Haskins, 2008: 4). Comparatively, only 16
percent of the adult children from the same socio-economic
stratum that attained a college degree could not escape their
relative poverty (Haskins, 2008: 4).
The Puzzle
1
Free-marketers and welfare-statists alike share the view
that an adequate education policy facilitates increases in
economic growth and decreases in income inequality (Corrales,
1999: 4). Yet significant differences exist in the details that
might comprise such a policy. One approach, argues that
accountability and efficiency in education policy, in conjunction
with appropriate sanctions, produce for all optimal education;
this mindset provides the foundation for such policies as the No
Child Left Behind Act (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 195). Another view
treats education as an investment, suggesting that this
investment “becomes a part of man” and contributes to “human
capital,” defined as the skills or knowledge possessed by an
individual (Schultz, 1960: 371). This view seeks to expand human
capital through increasing access to higher education and
preparation to those at the lower end of the socio-economics
spectrum. This paper views reforms to US education policy as a
debate between increasing accountability versus increasing
access.
To facilitate this debate going forward, I segment this
paper into four unique sections. This paper first examines 2
recent education policy; it surveys the accountability approach
through examining the No Child Left Behind Act, and then offers
two critiques of the policy that demonstrate that the
accountability approach does not invest in human capital.
Second, this paper offers a unique argument. In this paper, I
argue an alternative to the accountability approach and advocate
for the access approach. Specifically, I argue that an effective
education policy in the US must focus on cultivating human
capital by increasing funds, specifically directed toward
increasing access to higher education and preparatory programs.
The third section explains this paper’s methodology. The fourth
section situates the alternative arguments in two distinct case
studies: the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.
Literature Review
Past Policy
This paper deems it necessary to understand the status quo
in education policy before proposing its own policy prescription
that could allow us to do better. The predominant approach to
education reform follows an accountability methodology. The
3
accountability mindset attempts to make schools answerable to not
only their students, but to parents and to taxpayers as well.
The approach thus focuses on measuring whether schools ‘fail’
students; it attempts to determine whether or not schools equip
all of their students with the necessary skills and education to
thrive in the dynamic economy. If data show that public schools
cannot provide their students with these students, the
accountability mindset promotes the introduction of private
alternatives like charter schools and voucher initiatives at the
expense of public education institutions (Steinberg, 2011: 159).
This section analyzes the policy born out of this mindset and
offers two specific criticisms of it. These criticisms thus
inform my own specific solutions.
President George W. Bush’s signature legislative
accomplishment during his first six-months in office, No Child
Left Behind, codified into federal law this mindset. It aimed to
close the achievement gaps between students at urban public
institutions and their suburban and private counterparts by
increasing accountability of schools to the taxpayer (Dee and
Jacob, 2009: 418). The law compelled states to create and 4
administer locally-specific standardized tests, whose results the
government used to determine which schools “failed” its students;
those schools classified as perennially failing lost funding and
their students received offers to transfer to other institutions
(Steinberg, 2011: 159). Proponents of the law have lauded it for
attempting to implement standards that ensured taxpayers would
not have to fund perpetually those schools that habitually
produced poor students, for reintroducing a localized influence
in national education policy through the implementation of
testing (Steinberg, 2011: 161). The law tracks the annual yearly
progress of schools, and places under-achieving schools on a five
year timeline for reform; this timeline allows the school two
years to improve before the state takes “corrective action,”
ranging from offering public school choice to parents to outright
shutting down the school and reopening it as a private or
chartered institution (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 198).
Criticisms
Although No Child Left Behind’s policies assess the quality
of public schools, and this worthwhile knowledge could be used to
5
hold administrators and teachers accountable, the program does
not improve the human capital of its students. This paper
examines two particular criticisms that illustrate how human
capital is a secondary focus of the accountability approach: No
Child Left Behind impinges on schools’ decision-making abilities
and their funding.
First, the measure denies schools’ abilities to make
independent choices because of it compels schools to implement
“test-driven standardized teaching” (Lipman, 2004: 170).
Administrator worried about the prospect of a school “failing”
may allocate the institution’s scarce resources differently;
often times this results in broad cuts to art, music, social
studies, and enrichment programs in favor of more intensively-
tailored programs in math and reading (Dee and Jacob, 2009: 419).
This is a forced trade-off depresses the human capital of certain
students by denying them a rich education and actually amplifies
inequality: administrators at traditionally “passing” schools can
offer to their students access to broader resources and programs
unavailable at under-performing schools (Jennings and Rentner,
2006: 111). 6
Due to the resource constraints at-risk institutions face,
the result of No Child Left Behind is a scholastic incentive to
teach to the test and focus attention away from those who “either
score proficiently or far below the margin” – schools direct
attention toward ensuring the broadest swath of children that can
pass the test, essentially choosing to ignore the extremes: those
who have either clearly demonstrated (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 201).
Furthermore, empirical studies of No Child Left Behind conclude
that the law actually had the smallest effect on the schools most
likely to face sanctions, its targeted audience – students in at-
risk schools often times do not show improvement after the
imposition of No Child Left Behind’s policies (Ballou and
Springer, 2008: 23). Thus, the education at many under-
performing or at-risk schools continues to be unequal to that
offered elsewhere (i.e., suburban districts with means), a
blatant contradiction to entire the point of the program! In the
lens of this criticism, No Child Left Behind fails to raise the
quality of schools, and instead potentially decreases the human
capital of students.
7
A second criticism levied at No Child Left Behind notes the
policy’s laser-like focus on lowering costs, and the related
implications. The program represents, in the words of former
Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling, “an attempt to move
beyond the welfare state’s ‘throw-money-out-hope-for-the-best’
strategy” (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 204). It made aid for each
school contingent upon displaying results; this forced to meet a
new set of standards on public schools with little-to-no funding
to accompany the implementation of the policy (Klaf and Kwan,
2010: 204). If schools could not demonstrate that their students
could successfully pass tests, they would lose funding and
further deteriorate in aspects correlated with high performance –
these include class size, facility enhancement, access to library
books, and workplace attractiveness to younger would-be teachers
– and further be unable to meet students’ needs (Hursh, 2007:
297; Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 205).
As noted above, the final penalty for repeated under-
achieving resulted in school closure that would leave thousands
of area children without local access to education necessary for
building human capital (a counter-intuitive result of the program8
that aims to increase the quality of local schools) (Klaf and
Kwan, 2010: 197). Some educators have thus argued that No Child
Left Behind establishes “de facto ‘educational apartheid’ along
racial and class lines, whereby affluent children attend quality
schools and disadvantaged children are funneled into alternative,
failing public schools;” all the while the issue of actually
educating children becomes obfuscated in a race toward higher
accountability (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 206; Hursh, 2007: 304). In
the haste to identify failing schools, the policy addressed
education reform only in the context of providing more efficient
services, with efficiency determined by total expenditures, not
the benefits of investing in the human capital of the student.
As these criticisms demonstrate, No Child Left Behind fails
to address the puzzle of adequate education reform since it fails
to address the human capital of students. No Child Left Behind
thus “merely adjusts the status quo, or worse still ends up
reproducing it” (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 205). In summation, No
Child Left Behind attempts to increase the quality of schools,
but instead impinges on the ability of schools to function. It
9
demonstrably and deleteriously impacts the ability of students to
build up their human capital.
Main Argument
Rationale
The accountability mindset toward education reform seeks to
specifically ensure that schools produce successful students, as
determined through testing. As demonstrated above, it does not
invest in the human capital of students. If education enriches
human capital, then expanding access to education ostensibly
enriches human capital in a greater sense (Benabou,2002: 484).
So, rather than approach the issue with an eye towards cost
efficiency, this paper argues that higher levels of spending
expand access to education; they are necessary to increase human
capital through education policy (Carrasso, Reynolds, Steurerle,
2008: 5). Because a college education so dramatically transforms
life trajectories, ensuring the most people have the opportunity
to pursue one provides an obvious starting point (St. John, 2002:
2; Haskins, 2008: 6). However, since education starts long
before individuals attend college, this capital investment must
10
start at the earliest of ages and continue throughout students’
academic careers (Calman, et al., 2005: 1).
This section proceeds by, first, explaining the rationale
behind the argument for increased access and, then, identifying
the variables integral to carrying this argument forward, which
will flow into the next section on the methodology of this paper.
Proponents for expanding access fundamentally rely on evidence
that an increase of public education expenditures as a share of
GDP increases education quality (Keller, 2010: 54). The federal
government has at its disposal a wide “arsenal” of different
spending tools to equalize access to education for poorer
students, including grants, loans, and tax breaks, which remain
under-utilized (Haskins et al., 2009: 5). Options like Pell
Grants address the “unrealized potential” of poor children who
cannot afford college, and choose to forego higher education; as
noted above, the cost of foregoing a college education is hardly
marginal (Haskins et al., 2009: 13).
These options, however, are under-utilized. This paper
presumes that increased spending on grants invests in human
11
capital by offering to more students the opportunity of a college
education (Haskins et al., 2009: 15). An effective federal
education policy, however, must also focus on the school
readiness of children so that they can attain future levels of
academic success (Puma, et al., 2010: 2). These programs,
exemplified by Head Start, offer to 900,000 children
opportunities for early education and development (Ludwig and
Phillips, 2007: 2). Those funds are as equally important as and
significant as spending on higher education (Haskins et al.,
2009, 39). This paper attempts to show that, in tandem,
adequately funding both college and early education ventures more
completely solves the puzzle that is US education policy through
raising human capital.
Variables
Human capital, as defined above, refers to the skills and
knowledge possessed by individuals. Capital, in a Marxist sense,
not only produces but also increases the ability to produce
(Marx, 1867: 280). So, an investment in human capital implies an
enhancement in the human ability to produce. Two proxy dependent
12
variables emerge that foster human capital: access to and
effectiveness of educational programs. Access refers to the
extent to which opportunities for human capital enrichment exist
– the ability to pursue higher or supplementary education
programs – as influenced by descriptive independent variables
that explain how the program works and the extent of its short-
term effects. Effectiveness determines whether or not these
programs maximize their potential to expand access to education,
highlighting any potential obstacles that may impede expanding
access and, thus, human capital enrichment.
Methodology
Case Studies
To pursue its main argument, the paper will engage in a
qualitative review of the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.
The paper analyzes Pell Grants to discern the overall
transformative effect of higher education on human capital. It
scrutinizes Head Start to understand how early opportunities for
education at younger ages can also cultivate human capital.
Operationalization
13
As this is a quantitative analysis, other accounts and
reviews of the programs in question will provide the data for
analysis. Any operationalization that takes place will proceed
in this paper’s analysis of the Pell Grant and Head Start
programs ability to increase access, and to do so effectively, of
education.
Case Study I: Pell Grants
Overview
Increasingly, the pathway toward maximizing one’s human
capital leads to a school door. A strong correlation exists
between level of educational attainment and individual income,
adding a practical component to the answer as to why one should
pursue education (Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 7). The
likelihood of earning an income that places one within the top
two quintiles of earnings reaches as high as 75% to 81%,
depending on whether or not an individual has attained a college
education (Haskins, 2008: 5). Demonstrably, a college education
boosts the economic fortunes. However, beyond its economic
returns, higher levels of education correlates to more productive
14
progeny, healthier living, more charitable giving and savings,
and lower crime rates (Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 10).
In several senses, then, education boosts human capital.
Significant research reveals, however, that for some the pathway
is impeded, the school door remains locked – lower-income
students face financial challenges and obstructions in their
quest to achieve a college degree (Allen, et al., 2003: 2). Thus
emerges the importance of the Pell Grant program.
Created in 1972 as an amendment to Lyndon Johnson’s Higher
Education Act of 1965, Pell Grants constitute the “largest need-
based federal grant program” available to those who seek
postsecondary education in the US (Wei and Carroll, 2002: 1).
The subsidy program reaches both far and deep. As of 2000,
approximately 36% of students who earned a bachelor’s degree
received at least one Pell Grant; as of 2007, the US government
awarded over $13 billion in Pell Grant funds to 5 million
undergraduates (Wei and Horn, 2009: 1). These essentially free
funds specifically target lower-income and traditionally under-
represented groups in higher education. Of those who received
funds, 77% of students’ families earned less than $25,000, the 15
lowest quintile in the distribution of income in the US;
comparatively only 2% of those students receiving funds had total
family incomes higher than the median level of $45,000 (Wei and
Horn, 2009: 1). This section reviews the Pell Grant program,
noting its ability to provide access to higher education through
subsidies. However, budget constraints on the program appear to
hamper the program’s effectiveness. Thus emerges a prescription
that policy-makers can pursue in order to maximize an investment
in the human capital of the lower-income citizenry.
Providing Access to Quality Higher Education
The supply of college-educated workers in the labor force is
severely dampened – some economists suggest that the rate of
return on a college degree would remain stable even if the
percentage of college-educated workers rose by as much as 25%
(Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 11). This gap is largely due
to students who are academically qualified to pursue a bachelor’s
degree choosing not to due to income constraints (St. John, 2002:
2). The Federal Government, through the Pell Grant program,
attempts to remedy buttress this supply: in 2006, it transferred
16
over $23.5 billion to college students with no strings attached
(Carrasso, Reynolds, and Steuerle, 2008: 16). This allocation
helps address a fundamental problem in higher education that did
not exist a few decades ago.
Pell Grants provide lower-income and lower-income and
traditionally under-represented students with access to the most
competitive colleges and universities in the land. The raw
numbers demonstrate the extent to which Pell Grants facilitate
the pursuit of higher education. Since the program’s inception,
the government increased the number of recipients by a factor of
45, from 176,000 in 1974 to 8,094,024 to 2010; similarly, average
aid has increased from $270 to $3,706 over that time (US
Department of Education, 2010: 10). These figures clearly
illustrate that the Pell Grant Program has provided access to
higher education for several million individuals each year.
Although correlation is not causation, the several-fold increases
in recipients and average aid packages suggest that millions more
individuals today more comfortably derive the benefit of a
college education than was previously the case.
17
The statistics discussed above offer insight into the
benefits of the Pell Grant program in expanding access to higher
education at a macro-level, that includes both two-year technical
and four-year academic institutions. A further analysis of Pell
Grants reveals that the program assists a significant portion of
lower-income individuals to fulfill their potential at
academically-rigorous colleges. In 2002, higher education
institutions on Barron’s list of the 145 most competitive
colleges in the US had enrolled 629,590 students, of whom 104,102
or approximately 17% received Pell Grants (Heller, 2002: 5). Of
note, 196, or 10.1%, of the 1948 students enrolled at Carleton
College received Pell Grants (Heller, 2002: 5). Again, although
correlation is not causation, the weight of these figures – as
many as two in five students in some highly-selective
institutions – indicate that Pell Grants provide an opportunity
for academically gifted, lower-income students to thrive, to
invest in their own human capital.
Segmenting the total population of college-going students
between Pell Grant recipients and non-recipients yields a wealth
of data as to the extent to which the program extends access to 18
traditionally under-represented groups in higher education.
Women and minorities comprised a larger proportion of the
population of recipients (60% and 37%, respectfully), than of
non-recipients (56% and 20%, respectively); the proportion of
recipients whose parents attained only a high school education
approximately doubles that of non-recipients (41% and 21%,
respectively) (Wei and Horn, 2002: 8). In total, these figures
demonstrate that Pell Grants extend access to higher education,
across income boundaries. These positive results demonstrate
that investment in human capital occurs through spending to
increase access to education, not raising the accountability of
beneficiaries.
Are These Resources Enough?
The previously-examined statistics demonstrate that Pell
Grants do indeed extend access to higher education. The benefits
of post-secondary education, as indicated above, are considerable
and indisputable. The investment these grants enable regarding
individual human capital crystalizes its worthiness as a national
education policy, as compared to the accountability approach
19
reviewed earlier. However, that the Pell Grant program
demonstrably expands access to higher education does not imply
that the program as it stands is without fault. This section
outlines a major criticism of the Pell Grant program, namely that
the grant amount itself might be insufficient (Rubin, 2011: 675).
Data on the enrollment rates across income quartiles show an
vast gulf in the across the groups emerging between 1980 to 1993
– as tuition costs began rising three decades ago, the difference
in enrollment rate of students from the highest and lowest grew
by 12% (Kane, 1995: 6). This seems to indicate that, although
Pell Grants subsidize the cost of higher education for some
lower-income students and increase the number of those who seek
higher education, overall trends in tuition costs work against
efforts to expand access to education. Even given the above-
mentioned significant increases in average grant levels since the
its inception, that the average Pell Grant still only funds 10%
of a college education provides further evidence of this (Rubin,
2011: 676).
20
However, precipitous rises in tuition costs do not pose the
only impediments to the long-term effectiveness of Pell Grants.
The tripling of college tuition over the past two decades,
coupled with the ceaselessly increasing costs of airfare, books,
board, and room, add additional burdens to all students, low-
income or not (Draut, 2009: 1). These costs increasingly
marginalize the significant sums spent on the Pell Grant program,
forcing up to 88% of its recipients to borrow to make up the
difference; comparatively, only 47% of the non-recipients seek
out loans to pay for college (Rubin, 2011: 688). Students
seeking to invest in their human capital through a college
education thus find themselves with two choices: take on
burdensome debt through signing for a loan, or forego a college
education. Recent empirical analyses reveal that the current
amount of given aid, unsurprisingly, does not actually increase
the probability of college-enrollment of lower-income students,
as students make a short-term cost-benefit analysis (Rubin, 2011:
685).
Evidently, the Pell Grant system as it stands does not
maximize the expansion of access to higher education as much as 21
it could. That, despite the free money provided by the Pell
Grant program for the benefit of higher study, still about two-
thirds of the population seeks out higher education somewhat
corroborates this fact (US Department of Education, 2010). The
trajectory of higher education costs simply dwarf the
comparatively limited funds provided to students through the Pell
Grant system. Prohibitively high, these costs compel some
students to choose instead to forego a college education. This
missed investment in human capital, as evidenced from earlier in
this paper, carries with it great and potentially lasting
ramifications.
The Policy Prescription
The Pell Grant program clearly expands access to higher
education. Several million more individuals have attended
college more comfortably because of the subsidies the program
provides. These subsidies, thus, clearly have enabled low-income
and other traditionally under-represented students to invest in
their own human capital, to unleash opportunities once
unavailable to them. With regards to federal US education
22
policy, policy-makers have before them in the Pell Grant program
an initiative that works both theoretically and actually – and
offering subsidies for college education to students is also
simply good politics. The grant-based system also implements a
structure by which students can invest in their own human capital
with no burden to pay back any creditor. However, the
effectiveness of the program still remains in doubt due to the
relatively diminishing amount of funds in lieu of rapidly
accelerating costs in higher education.
To increase the effectiveness of the Pell Grant program,
then, little alternative exists policy-wise, but to increase the
amount of funds allocated toward Pell Grants in the federal
budget. In 2006, the Pell Grant expenditures – $23.5 billion –
signified less than 1% of the total US Federal Budget, wherein
$88.7 billion, or 3.4% of expenditures, accounted for funding in
“education and training” (Carrasso, Reynolds, Steurerle, 2008:
16). Five years later, and in a time when massive investments in
human capital are warranted, spending on the program has barely
increased $6 billion, to $29.6 billion (US Department of
Education, 2010: 10). 23
Two particular suggestions exist to increase the
effectiveness of Pell Grants. First, raising the amount awarded,
while keeping constant or even decreasing tuition would seem the
most apparent solution, but that “is extraordinarily unlikely”
(Rubin, 2011: 688). This leaves policy-makers with the
alternative option of increasing significantly the amount of aid
awarded, relative to the rising costs of tuition. Currently,
although the expected average grant for students in 2012 is
$5050, it amounts to less than 10% of the comprehensive fee to
attend Carleton College (Rubin, 2011: 688). For many lower-
income students, the subsidy proves negligible in the short-term
(Rubin, 2011: 686). Nevertheless, this evidence does suggest
that the Pell Grant program, if funded properly, does indeed
provide a step in the right direction, toward a more effective
approach of increasing capital investment in the students of
America. This is, therefore, a robust alternative to the
accountability approach, investing in the future by providing
individuals the chance to maximize their human capital through a
college education. In this specific case, the alternative to the
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accountability approach requires increased spending to subsidize
access to higher education.
Case Study II: Head Start
Overview
An effective education policy must promote investment in
human capital at every level of achievement. Although expanding
for all individuals in the United States the access to a college
education may ascend the highest of all virtue, its impact will
remain inhibited unless all children, including those from poorer
socio-economic backgrounds, develop readiness for school
(Haskins, 2008: 11). Furthermore, researchers suggest that a
child’s lack of preparedness manifests itself in both significant
and persistent disparities regarding cognitive development going
forward (Calman, et al., 2005: 17). However, despite the
apparently critical nature of early education, state governments
focused on budget cutbacks persist in slashing allocations for
educational development (Calman, et al., 2005: 1).
This belies the long-term benefit of quality early childhood
education. Longitudinal studies of the 1963 High/Scope Perry 25
Preschool Program in Michigan reveal that adults who had been
enrolled in the preschool program as children were more likely at
the age of 40 to have graduated from high school (65% to 45%),
and to have found gainful employment (76% to 62%), and to earn
higher incomes ($20,800 to $15,300) than their counterparts who
did not participate (Calman, et al., 2005: 12). Although these
data were derived from a sample size of one program that catered
to 123 individuals, this case exemplified to the Federal
Government the need for investment in childhood education.
Eighteen months later, the Federal Government created the Head
Start preschool program.
Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty initiative introduced the
Head Start program in 1965 to raise the primary school readiness
of low-income children (Puma, el al, 2010: 2). The middle of the
1960s proved to be a time of immense economic expansion in the
United States; legislators thus felt it the feeling “it was
immoral to allow [poverty] to persist amidst affluence,” setting
the stage for federal action (Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 39). The
program has “the ambitious mandate” of improving scholastic and
developmental outcomes for and meeting the cognitive, health, and26
social needs of lower-income children (Puma, et al., 2010:
xxxvii). Contemporary research reveals the necessity of the
program and its mandate. Despite their plasticity, children who
enter school “behind” their peers will likely stay cognitively,
developmentally, and emotionally behind their peers –these
difference both crystalize and persist (Calman, et al., 2005:
12). And several studies cite a robust return to this
investment, ranging from $4 to $7 accruing to public benefit for
every dollar spent on early childhood education (Calman, et al.,
2005: 16). This section reviews the Head Start program as an
education policy, noting the short-term goals and immediate
results of the program, as it expands access to higher education.
The longer-term cost-benefit analysis shows the program’s
effectiveness at investing in its participants’ human capital –
it depicts that these short-term investments do not prove
ephemeral, that the program is indeed effective. As such, this
case will demonstrate the power of the federal government to
craft effective education policy that expands access to education
opportunities.
Providing Access to Basics27
Head Start, in 2007, spent $7000 for the benefit of lower-
income preschool-aged children in the United States (Ludwig and
Phillips, 2007: 13). To qualify for the program, children must
come from families that are below the poverty line. From 1965 to
2003, 22 million children enrolled in the program (Puma et al.,
2010: 5). Comparatively, the program spends approximately twice
the amount per child for more than double the children, than does
the Pell Grant initiative as discussed earlier; though, an
examination of the mission of the Head Start program since its
inception shows it to be much more expansive of a program
(Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 40). Whereas the Pell Grant system
attempts to subsidize higher education and provide access to
human capital investment for lower-income students, the
initiatives in Head Start actively and dynamically combat poverty
and the barriers that impede human capital investment over time
(Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 42). Policy instruments have ventured to
provide health screenings and meals, accommodate students with
disabilities, and hire teachers with advanced degrees in
education were thought to allow children to “break out” of a
cycle of poverty (Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 43). This whole-child
28
focus minimizes and mitigates against factors that may distract
the child from work in the future, such as illness and
malnutrition. In this sense, the program allows children and
teachers to focus on academic enrichment and growth in human
capital.
In the short-term, the results of this enrichment are
significant. This evidence suggests that Head Start’s spending
increases access to education and opportunities for human capital
enrichment. Head Start provides to disadvantaged children better
educational services, from better-trained teachers to smaller
classroom sizes (Puma, et al., 2010: 318). Peer children who
participated in the program, as compared to those who did not,
scored an average 0.25 standard deviation higher score on
vocabulary tests within the Head Start group (Ludwig and
Phillips, 2007: 16). The program thus places children on a
higher academic track as compared to their peers, evidenced by
the higher test scores. Although, unsurprisingly, the Head Start
graduates attended schools with disproportionately higher levels
of poverty, the children appear to be less prone to hyperactivity
and have increased literacy and social skills (Puma, et al., 29
2010: 318). Finally, parents of children enrolled in Head Start
programs take a more active, and arguably productive, role in the
education of their children – the program correlates with an
increase in how often parents read to their children and a
decrease in spanking as a discipline tool (Puma, et al., 2010:
320). Thus, the program deters behaviors counter-productive to
accessing education, such as absenteeism among parents and apathy
among children. As an investment, it opens doors to lower-income
children previously thought to be locked. More than that of the
accountability approach, which ironically targets the same at-
risk population, the Head Start program illustrates in another
instance that spending results in an expansion of access to
education, which thus proves a fruitful investment in human
capital.
The Long-Term Effects of Head Start
Head Start in the short-run expands access of education to
lower-income students by providing supplementary opportunities to
break from the cycle of poverty. From minimizing the number of
disruptions to education to increasing the involvement of
30
parents, Head Start undoubtedly provides children opportunities
in the short-term that, without the resource, likely would not
exist. However, many wonder of the long-term effectiveness of a
program that provides education to a disadvantaged population
(Ludwig and Philips, 2007: 3). To gauge the effectiveness of
Head Start, this case now surveys the long-term benefits of the
program.
The benefits of Head Start participation as an investment in
human capital prove surprisingly clear. Significant evidence
suggests that Head Start participation actually correlates to a
higher likelihood of college enrollment. Caucasian students who
attended a Head Start preschool, as compared to siblings who
attended another alternative preschool, are 22% more likely to
complete high school and 19% more likely to attend some college
(Ludwig and Phillips, 2007: 8). Furthermore, increased funding
for the program itself correlates to a 15% higher likelihood of
college attendance of the program’s beneficiaries (Ludwig and
Phillips, 2007: 10). As it follows, if, in the long-term,
students who attended Head Start preschools have a higher rate of
31
enrollment into college, which, itself, increases human capital,
then Head Start effectively raises human capital.
The social benefits, too, demonstrate the remarkable effect
of Head Start. Other analyses have determined each additional
dollar spent on Head Start correlates to decreases in child
mortality and increases in educational attainment (Puma, et al.,
2010: 241). This seems to adhere to the broad, ambitious
mission of the program to ensure the mental, physical, and
emotional health of its participants as part of the schooling.
Thus, unsurprisingly, the likelihood of a Head Start student
experiencing childhood obesity also decreases with participation
in the program (Ludwig and Phillips, 2007: 11). Overall, the
increased access to capital enrichment is withstanding; the funds
spent on the Head Start program generate effective outcomes both
socially and with regards to educational attainment. Although
the system is by no means runs perfectly, this paper does not
propose any policy recommendations as to Head Start as it did
with the Pell Grant case; unlike what this paper previously
covered, the Head Start program demonstrates the power and
32
effectiveness of government spending to grant access to
education.
Conclusion
Inequities in educational attainment manifest themselves in
inequities in income; these persist and can potentially truncate
life trajectories. This paper attempts to bring clarity to the
jigsaw puzzle that is the United States education policy. The
dominant forces in recent policy favored an accountability
methodology in education, stressing an imposition of standards on
public schools, advocating for cutting costs, and reforming so-
called failing schools. Dissected in a literature review, the
policy initiated out of this mindset to education reform,
however, does not consider the very real repercussions of
impinging on schools’ abilities to make decisions and using
funding-based sanctions to remedy so-called ‘failure.’ Focusing
on increasing the accountability of schools fails to invest in
the human capital of students.
This paper, thus, has argued for an ideal that increases
access to education through investment in human capital. Two
33
programs – the Pell Grant and Head Start – demonstrate that
investment in education at the post-secondary and preschool
stages increase access to educational opportunities that can lead
to human capital enrichment. Whereas the Pell Grant is not as
effective as it could be in expanding this access due to a
limitation of funds, a review of Head Start, which applies twice
as many funds to double the recipients, reveals the fruit of
successful investment in human capital. To move forward, this
paper stresses the need for continued investment in education, at
both the higher and earlier levels. Doing so will clarify that
the pieces of the US education policy puzzle come together to fit
most effectively within the paradigm that expands access.
34
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