Third Grade Follow-up to the Head Start Impact Study: Final Report

This evaluation studied children who entered the Head Start program in the fall of 2002. The final report presents impacts on children and families through the children’s third grade year, as well as impacts on subgroups of children and families. Researchers examined several developmental areas, including measures of cognitive, social-emotional, language and literacy, and health outcomes. They found that Head Start improved the preschool experience of participating children, but the program had “few impacts on children in kindergarten through 3rd grade.” Researchers concluded, that there was little evidence of systematic differences in children’s elementary school experiences through 3rd grade, between children provided access to Head Start and their counterparts in the control group.