UNCONSCIOUS BIAS AND EDUCATION

Figure 3 summarizes the core of his argument. It plots the rate of return on investment for
an extra dollar spent on skills programs across the lifetime of an individual who has an initial
(low) common baseline investment at all ages. Given the importance of skill acquisition
early in life, it is unsurprising that the returns to investing in disadvantaged children are also
much larger early in life. Early investment creates the foundation of skills that make later
investment more productive (Cunha et al., 2006). Children who enter school with character
and cognitive skills gain more from formal education so that early intervention makes later
schooling more effective, which in turn percolates throughout the life cycle. As Carneiro
and Heckman (2003) put it, “Skill and ability beget future skill and ability.” If the cognitive
and non-cognitive base has been compromised by early family disadvantage, skill
investments at later ages are much less productive. The longer society waits to intervene in
the life of a disadvantaged child, the more costly it is to remediate and overcome academic
and social disadvantage. Placing greater emphasis on parenting resources directed to the
early years supplements families and makes them active participants in the process of child
development, thereby acting to prevent rather than remediate problems.
Figure 3: Rates of Return to Human Capital Investment
Source: Figure 1A in Cunha et al. (2006)
Empirical evidence from a variety of intervention studies shows that ability gaps in children
from different socio-economic groups can be reduced if remediation is attempted at early
ages. A well-known example is the Perry Preschool Program, which examined the lives of
123 children born into poverty with below average IQ in a city near Detroit, Michigan. From
1962–1967, three and four-year-olds were randomly divided into a program group that
received a high-quality preschool program and a comparison group who received no
preschool program. For two years, the program taught children to plan, execute and
evaluate daily projects in a structured setting, while also providing weekly home visits by
teachers. These children were then systematically followed through to the age of 40 with
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