Children in preschools receive higher-quality care than those in home-based care, study finds
These were pretty striking quality differences across these early childhood settings, said Susanna Loeb, an author of the study and Barnett Family Professor of Education at Stanford University. But what we really wanted to know was if these large differences in quality impacted children’s school readiness.
Symposium on Equality of Opportunity and Education
Equality of opportunity is an ideal that finds a place in almost all theories of a just society. This ideal is also prevalent in our own political discourse, especially in debates about education policy. Given the myriad and significant dimensions of individual and collective well-being that flow from education – including health and access to health care, rewarding employment, income, leisure time, and civic participation – equality of opportunity matters deeply in the education realm.
CEPA faculty score high marks on the 2016 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings
The 2016 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings were released this week and CEPA faculty scores high marks on the list. Of the 200 education scholars ranked, 10 faculty made the list: Eric Hanushek (14), Michael W. Kirst (22), Martin Carnoy (28), Caroline Hoxby (49), Susanna Loeb (62), Sean Reardon (84), Thomas Dee (100), Edward H. Haertel (169), Mitchell Stevens (179), Eric Bettinger (181).
How Texting Can Actually Improve Your Writing Skills
When they looked at existing early literacy programs, Loeb and York found that in addition to the scheduling challenges of getting to an in-person workshop, parents struggled to retain the amount of information provided in “one fell swoop,” as York puts it. So they set out to “use technology to address the access issue and take a new approach by breaking down the complexities of parenting,” York explains. “It became clear very quickly that text messaging was the ideal technology.”
Giving Parents, and Teachers, the Right Information
The first strategy centers on parents, and has already received attention in Education Week and elsewhere for its efficacy, low cost, and digital-age currency. It's a program called Ready4K! that uses text messaging to deliver tips to the parents of preschoolers, suggesting fun and easy ways that they can support their children's early literacy development at home.
Tearing Down the Confederate Flag Is Just a Start
A Stanford University randomized trial examined a simple, inexpensive program called Ready4K!, which simply sent three text messages a week to parents to encourage them to read to their preschoolers — and it was astonishingly successful. Parents read more to children, who then experienced learning gains — and this was particularly true of black and Hispanic children. And because this was text messaging, the cost was less than $1 a family for the whole school year.
Stanford researchers receive grant for study of K12 online learning
Researchers at Stanford University Graduate School of Education will share in a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to launch a three-year study of virtual schooling in Florida.
The study will explore how virtual schooling options affect students’ course progression, academic achievement and teacher effectiveness. Virtual schools have expanded rapidly in many states including Florida.
The Sooner The Better: Early Childhood Education, A Key To Life-Long Success
“The sooner the better” is the perfect tag line for early childhood education. There is no magic bullet to ensure a lifetime of self-fulfillment in personal and career terms. But rigorous research shows that high-quality early childhood education is an extraordinarily powerful means to promote continued success in school, in the workplace, and also in social and civic realms.
It may seem surprising, but the experiences of children in their early years have disproportionately large impacts relative to experiences during their school years and beyond. If children lag in those early years, chances are that they will never catch up. Remediation of deficiencies in learning of all types is far more difficult and expensive than learning early on. The good news is that high-quality programs focused on early childhood years can have powerful long-term impacts for all racial and economic groups across the country.
Professor Susanna Loeb at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, in collaboration with Daphna Bassok, wrote an extensive review covering studies on early childhood education and achievement gaps based on it. The White House issued a report last December that also summarizes research from a wide variety of studies, and includes proposed actions to meet national needs in this arena.