[Photo courtesy of World Bank.] As far as education policies go, few are as widely endorsed as early childhood education (ECE) programs. Policymakers are persuaded by compelling evidence from programs in Michigan—the Perry PreSchool Project —and North Carolina ( the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project ). These studies show that program participants go on to perform better in school, such as better test scores and high school graduation rates. More recent evidence from Michigan...
At the Pitt School of Education (SOE), the Center for Urban Education (CUE) has energized faculty and staff to think more deeply about the role of race, stress, and income in student success. Many of us who focus on early childhood education have taken this emphasis to heart and begun to navigate this new territory in our work. As such, we are beginning to ask CUE-inspired questions in early childhood research and practice in the SOE. For example: “Do children really think about ra...
It is widespread knowledge that the U.S. has an obesity problem. Perhaps most concerning, though, are the rates of obesity affecting the most vulnerable: children. Latino preschool children have the highest rates of obesity compared with children of other racial and ethnic groups. Recent estimates report that 16.7 percent of Latino preschool children are considered obese compared with 3.5 percent of non-Latino white, 11.3 percent of non-Latino black, and 3.4 percent of non-Latino Asian...
In a recent article published in Young Children , we highlighted evidence-based strategies for early childhood educators to strengthen their students’ racial identity. Although the strategies we highlighted emerged from collaborative effort between the Center for Urban Education and Office of Childhood Development , our proximity to both projects challenged us to think more deeply about the implications of our own specific research interests—educators’ identification and responsiven...
The Pathways to Kindergarten Success, or Ready Freddy program, helps prepare students and their families for the transition to kindergarten. In the mid-1980s, a survey was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh that determined that hundreds of faculty members were interested in children, youth, and families. However, they were scattered across the University landscape and often worked in isolation from both their academic colleagues and professionals in the community. Collab...