Thomas van Huizen (Utrecht University)
Ekin Yurdakul
High-quality early childhood education strongly predicts early learning and development, with potentially long-lasting effects into adulthood. A major policy challenge is therefore how to ensure equal access to high-quality early childhood education. This paper examines how complementing preschool staff with pedagogical leaders (coaches) affects the quality of teacher-child interactions and child development, leveraging a nationwide reform in the Netherlands. Using unique data on classroom observations and early childhood development in a difference-in-difference framework, we find that pedagogical leaders improved educational quality in the classrooms, particularly in terms of language modeling, but had no impact on emotional quality. Furthermore, the frequency of small group educational activities with disadvantaged children increased. Consistent with the evidence on preschool quality, the results indicate that language development of disadvantaged children improved. There is no evidence of gains in other development domains. Exploring potential channels, we document that staff exposed to the reform were more likely to experience being observed by and receiving feedback from a coach, while ruling out alternative explanations such as changes in teacher characteristics, staff-child ratio, classroom composition, or other professional development activities.