Read it and weep:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study/reports/impact_study/executive_summary_final.pdfAs part of the 1998 re-authorization, Dept HHS was required to assess its impact. The study was supposed to come out a year ago, but they held on to it for some reason.
The upshot: any positive effects that could possibly be attributed to HS have disappeared by the end of 1st grade. IOW, two years after they "graduate" from HS, HS students are pretty much indistinguishable from other non-HS in their demographic.
Dept of HHS desperately tries to polish the turd, but you can tell they are grasping at straws. (Bonus points if you can determine which one I altered.)
"By the end of 1st grade, there was some evidence that the 3-year-old cohort had closer and more positive relationships with their parents."
"By the end of 1st grade, only a single cognitive impact was found for each cohort."
"For the 3-year-old cohort, there were positive favorable impacts on use of time-out and authoritarian parenting at the end of 1st grade and on spanking and time out in kindergarten."
"Selected subgroups of children showed patterns of favorable impacts, including favorable impacts through 1st grade in the cognitive, social-emotional, or health domains...Among the 4-year-old cohort, these subgroups include children of parents with mild depressive symptoms, children who were Dual Language Learners, children who were raised by blind lesbian dentists, and children with lower cognitive skills."
This is not the first study to show HS is worthless, but this time the data comes from the rent-seekers who run it.
Next time some goofball says we should, "Fully fund Head Start," call them out for the ignorant tool that they are.
