ED381247 PS023074
Title: Early Childhood Programs: Parent Education and Income Best
Predict Participation. Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Children,
Family, Drugs and Alcoholism, Committee on Labor and Human Resources,
U.S. Senate.
Author Affiliation: General Accounting Office, Washington, DC. Health,
Education, and Human Services Div.(BBB31516)
Pages: 36
Publication Date: December 1994
Report No: GAO/HEHS-95-47
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC02 Plus Postage.
Availability: U.S. General Accounting Office, P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg,
MD 20884 (first copy, free; additional copies are $2 each; 100 or
more mailed to a single address discounted 25%).
Language: English
Document Type: Legal/Legislative/Regulatory materials (090)
Geographic Source: U.S.; District of Columbia
Journal Announcement: RIEAUG1995
Government Level: Federal
This report
examined the participation of at-risk children in preschool programs,
after controlling for selected individual, family, and geographic
characteristics. A multivariate statistical technique, a logistic
regression, was applied to data from the 1990 Decennial Census.
This allowed an analysis of the relative effects of each of the
following variables on preschool participation: income, education
status of most educated parent, race, immigrant status, linguistic-isolation
status, employment status of parent, family type, the urbanicity
of residence, and state of residence. With Head Start funds reaching
less than half of the eligible 3- and 4-year-olds, children living
in low-income families were 16 to 20 percent less likely to attend
preschool than their middle-income counterparts, even after controlling
for ethnicity, family type, immigrant status, parent education,
and other family characteristics. By contrast, children in higher-income
families were 25 to 50 percent more likely to go to preschool than
children from middle-income families. The education level of children's
parents has a large influence on participation; the higher the level
of education of the parent(s), the more likely that the child would
participate in preschool. The report also found that Black and Native
American children were more likely than white children to attend
preschool, after controlling for individual, family, and geographic
characteristics. Three appendices contain the objectives, scope,
and methodology of the study, data points for report figures, and
General Accounting Office (GAO) contacts and staff acknowledgements.
(MDM)
Descriptors: *At Risk Persons; Educational Attainment; *Enrollment;
*Family Income; Individual Differences; Low Income Groups; *Parent
Background; Predictor Variables; *Preschool Education; Racial Differences;
Regional Characteristics; Social Differences; *Socioeconomic Influences
