Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research recently examined whether financial incentives can increase parental involvement in children’s education and subsequently raise cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. The analysts conducted a randomized field experiment during the 2011–12 school year in Chicago Heights, a low-performing urban school district where 90 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunch. The 257 parent participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a treatment group in which parents were paid immediately; a second treatment group in which parents were paid via deposits into a trust fund that could only be accessed when their children enrolled in college; and a control group that received no payment. Parents in both treatment groups could earn up to $7,000 per year for their attendance at parent academy sessions (eighteen sessions, each lasting ninety minutes, that taught parents how to help children build cognitive and non-cognitive skills), proof of parental homework completion, and the performance of their child on benchmark assessments.
To measure cognitive outcomes, the analysts averaged results along the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Woodcock Johnson III Test of Achievement; to measure non-cognitive outcomes, they averaged results from the Blair and Willoughby Measures of Executive Function and the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment. These assessments were given to students at the beginning of the program and the end of each semester.
The effect of the financial incentive on children’s cognitive test scores was statistically insignificant. The incentive’s impact on non-cognitive skills, however, was larger and statistically significant—approximately .203 standard deviations. Interestingly, in both cognitive and non-cognitive measures, the two treatment groups yielded identical results.
The researchers broke the results down based on race and pre-treatment test scores. Hispanic children (48 percent of the sample) and white children (8 percent of the sample) showed large and significant increases in both cognitive and non-cognitive domains. Black children, on the other hand, demonstrated a negative but statistically insignificant impact on both cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions. The researchers explored several hypotheses for these differences, including the extent of engagement, demographics, English language proficiency, and pre-treatment scores, but they could find no “convincing explanations” for the differences between racial groups.
Overall, the results seem to raise more questions than answers. Is $7,000 per year for parental incentives cost-effective? Do the cognitive and non-cognitive gains persist, or do the effects wear off after a few years? And why are there such large differences between racial groups? While parental involvement is undoubtedly critical, particularly for young children, the question of how to genuinely engage parents—particularly those from disadvantaged circumstances—remains very much an open one.
SOURCE: Roland G. Fryer, Jr., Steven D. Levitt, and John A. List, “Parental Incentives and Early Childhood Achievement: A Field Experiment in Chicago Heights,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 21477 (August 2015).
