Behavioral Policy Interventions to Address Education Inequality

Abstract

Children from low-income families arrive at kindergarten already behind academically, do not overcome these gaps during the school years, and are much less likely to attend and graduate from college. Many programs aim to help these children before they enter formal schooling, as well as during their kindergarten through 12th grade years and on the road to and through college; too often, though, the services go underutilized In recent years, behavioral scientists have designed interventions meant to increase participation in such programs. Rigorous experiments have shown that a number of these approaches work well, enabling students to perform better academically and reach higher levels of education. Here, we propose four more interventions that federal agencies should test.