Preschool Television Viewing and Adolescent Test Scores Historical Evidence from the Coleman Study

We use heterogeneity in the timing of television’s introduction to di¤erent local markets to identify the e¤ect of preschool television exposure on standardized test scores during adolescence. Our preferred point estimate indicates that an additional year of preschool television exposure raises average adolescent test scores by about .02 standard deviations. We are able to reject negative e¤ects larger than about .03 standard deviations per year of television exposure. For reading and general knowledge scores, the positive e¤ects we …nd are marginally statistically signi…cant, and these e¤ects are largest for children from households where English is not the primary language, for children whose mothers have less than a high school education, and for non-white children. JEL classi…cation: I21, J13, J24