Raising teacher education levels in Head Start: Exploring programmatic changes between 1999 and 2011

•The percentage of Head Start teachers with a degree more than doubled between 1998 and 2011.•Increases in teacher education are associated with increases in child–teacher ratios and turnover.•Increases in teacher education are also associated with drops in the racial match between children and staff members.•The rise in teacher education is not linked to drops in comprehensive services, and in some cases increases in teacher education are associated positively with service provision.

Between 1999 and 2011, the percentage of Head Start teachers nationwide with an Associate's Degree or higher more than doubled from 38 to 85%. Over the same period, the percentage of teachers with a BA also rose rapidly from 23 to 52%. This paper uses within-program fixed-effects models and a 13-year panel of administrative data on all Head Start programs in the United States to explore whether programs that experienced increases in teacher education experienced changes with respect to comprehensive service provision, staffing choices and the racial composition of the staff. I find no evidence that programs that raised their teachers’ education levels sacrificed health or social services. However, programs with gains in teacher education did see some increases in child–teacher ratios, turnover, and racial divergence between children and staff, which may be associated negatively with young children's development.