A Unique Opportunity for Education Policy Makers Jenna Conway (bio) When it comes to solving problems and measuring impact, public education organizations primarily rely on two approaches—using civil service to hire personnel directly or using competitive procurement to hire outside experts on contract. These two approaches can limit such organizations' efforts to gain insights, to incorporate cutting-edge research into policy and practice, and to develop innovative solutions quickly, nimbly and affordably. In this commentary, I discuss how public education organizations can use research-practice partnerships (RPPs), especially partnerships with public higher education institutions, to tackle new, unique, and complicated education problems and thereby help children. Consider how traditional approaches can inadvertently limit public education organizations. In civil service, most jobs are full-time, classified positions with very specific descriptions that are subject to a range of restrictions to protect the rights of employees. It can be hard to gain new insights without procuring outside experts whose rates are significantly higher than most government pay scales. Similarly, public education organizations may have a research director or team, but they usually don't have the capacity to analyze all the available data or measure the impact of everything the organization does. For new initiatives or pilot programs, public education organizations rarely have the internal research or analytical capacity to conduct rigorous, real-time research on interventions as they are implementing them. Instead, they typically rely on outside research. Doing so entails a lengthy grant application or procurement process and requires an extended time period to collect and analyze data and produce findings. Finally, with procurement, a public organization must specify both the problem and proposed solution up front, establish constraints, and require bidders to define precisely what they will do and provide and how much it will cost. This can inhibit an iterative design process where prototypes can be tested and improved. To top it off, the procurement process itself can take a year or more. Procurement may work well for well-established projects and services, but it proves more challenging when a state is [End Page 157] designing a new service, intervention, or tool, especially one that will be used by a large and diverse set of users. In contrast, RPPs, particularly those involving public higher education institutions, offer a unique opportunity for policy makers to expediently and cost-effectively gain expertise, integrate real-time research into their policies and practices, and design and build innovative solutions in an iterative manner that better meets their needs. First, RPPs allow public education organizations to gain cutting-edge expertise without having to hire full-time staff or procure expensive consultants, which may not be economically feasible. When I was assistant superintendent of early childhood for the Louisiana Department of Education, we established a multi-year partnership with Daphna Bassok at the University of Virginia School of Education. In an ambitious transformation of its birth-to-five early childhood system, Louisiana unified its child care, Head Start, and school-based prekindergarten systems. Specifically, over five years, Louisiana established uniform expectations across programs, supported local networks in every community, measured interactions in every classroom, offered incentives for quality improvement at the classroom level, and coordinated enrollment locally to make it easier for families to choose the best option for their children. Louisiana's approach, which was different from that of most other states, entailed significant change for early childhood educators and for the department. Operating from the hypothesis that teacher-child interactions are what matters most for child outcomes, Louisiana rapidly gathered classroom data from thousands of child care, Head Start, and school sites across the state. It would have been hard to hire staff or craft a contract with specific targets when we were unsure what the data would reveal and when no other state or entity had done what we were doing. In exchange for our collaborating on research projects (and the grant proposals that preceded them), helping them safely and securely access appropriate data, and offering their graduate students valuable internship opportunities, UVA helped Louisiana make sense of large volumes of new classroom data, offered insights on how to encourage improvement, designed new approaches to engage families through enrollment, and...

Nutrition is vitally important both during pregnancy and during a child’s early years. Inadequate nutrition during this critical period can harm children’s health and developmental outcomes throughout childhood and into adulthood. Thus, write Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Betsy Thorn, it’s particularly important that young children have adequate nutrition and resources.

About one-fifth of children involved in investigations for abuse or neglect are placed in foster care. Although some return to their families quickly, others may remain in foster care for years without permanent family relationships. In this article, Mark Testa, Kristen Woodruff, Roseana Bess, Jerry Milner, and Maria Woolverton examine the Permanency Innovations Initiative (PII), a federally funded effort that tested innovative programs designed to prevent children from experiencing long stays in foster care and to build evidence for strategies that can be brought to scale in child welfare.

The United States' high incarceration rate gets a lot of attention from scholars, policy makers, and the public. Yet, writes Michelle Phelps, the most common form of criminal justice supervision is not imprisonment but probation—and thats just as true for juveniles as for adults.

Summary Young children who enter school without sufficient social and emotional learning (SEL) skills may have a hard time learning. Yet early childhood educators say they don't get enough training to effectively help children develop such skills. In this article, Megan McClelland, Shauna Tominey, Sara Schmitt, and Robert Duncan examine the theory and science behind early childhood SEL interventions. Reviewing evaluation results, they find that several interventions are promising, though we need to know more about how and why their results vary for different groups of children. Three strategies appear to make interventions more successful, the authors write. First, many effective SEL interventions include training or professional development for early childhood teachers; some also emphasize building teachers' own SEL skills. Second, effective interventions embed direct instruction and practice of targeted skills into daily activities, giving children repeated opportunities to practice SEL skills in different contexts; it's best if these activities grow more complex over time. Third, effective interventions engage children's families, so that kids have a chance to work on their SEL skills both at school and at home. Family components may include teaching adults how to help children build SEL skills or teaching adults themselves how to practice and model such skills. Are early childhood SEL interventions cost-effective? The short answer is that it's too soon to be sure. We won't know how the costs and benefits stack up without further research that follows participants into later childhood and adulthood. In this context, we particularly need to understand how the long-term benefits of shorter, less intensive, and less costly programs compare to the benefits of more intensive and costlier ones. www. futureofchildren. org To be ready to enter school, young children need social and emotional learning (SEL) skills such as getting along with others, paying attention, following directions, and managing emotions. Yet teachers report that many children enter school without these skills, which can make it challenging for them to learn. (1) And early childhood educators often feel that they don't receive enough training to effectively help children develop SEL skills. (2) In response, policymakers and practitioners have focused on SEL, and interventions that promote SEL skills for young children have proliferated. SEL interventions take many approaches, and their very diversity makes it challenging to determine which components and approaches are most effective. To ensure that all children have the skills to thrive, we need to pinpoint what works under what conditions and with what populations. In this article, we examine the science behind SEL interventions. We start by clarifying key terms related to SEL skills and reviewing the approaches used in current early childhood SEL interventions. We discuss the theories that guide these interventions, as well as results from intervention studies, including a look at how results vary for different groups of children. Next we examine intervention characteristics that relate to SEL growth and review the potential financial and societal benefit of SEL interventions. We conclude by discussing the limitations of current SEL interventions and making recommendations for research and policy. Social and Emotional Learning: Key Terms Social and emotional learning (SEL) refers to a broad range of social, emotional, and behavioral skills for children. We highlight three main components of SEL skills: emotional processes, social/interpersonal skills, and cognitive regulation. (3) The first component, emotional processes, encompasses the skills children need to manage their emotions effectively and recognize the emotions of others. Emotional processes include skills such as emotion knowledge (the ability to recognize and label emotions accurately), emotion regulation (managing emotions and controlling how and when we express them), perspective taking, and empathy. …

Summary Teachers are the engine that drives social and emotional learning (SEL) programs and practices in schools and classrooms, and their own social-emotional competence and wellbeing strongly influence their students. Classrooms with warm teacher-child relationships support deep learning and positive social and emotional development among students, writes Kimberly Schonert-Reichl. But when teachers poorly manage the social and emotional demands of teaching, students' academic achievement and behavior both suffer. If we don't accurately understand teachers' own social-emotional wellbeing and how teachers influence students' SEL, says Schonert-Reichl, we can never fully know how to promote SEL in the classroom. How can we boost teachers' social-emotional competence, and how can we help them create the kind of classroom environment that promotes students' SEL? Teachers are certainly at risk for poor social-emotional wellbeing. Research shows that teaching is one of the most stressful occupations; moreover, stress in the classroom is contagious--simply put, stressed-out teachers tend to have stressed-out students. In the past few years, several interventions have specifically sought to improve teachers' social-emotional competence and stress management in school, and Schonert-Reichly reviews the results, many of which are promising. She also shows how teachers' beliefs--about their own teaching efficacy, or about whether they receive adequate support, for example--influence the fidelity with which they implement SEL programs in the classroom. When fidelity is low, SEL programs are less successful. Finally, she examines the extent to which US teacher education programs prepare teacher candidates to promote their own and their students' social-emotional competence, and she argues that we can and should do much more. As the articles in this issue attest, research in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL) has grown dramatically in recent years. We've learned that we can promote students' social and emotional competence, and that doing so increases not only their SEL skills but also their academic achievement. (1) In other words, for our children and youth to achieve their full potential as productive adult citizens, parents, and volunteers in a pluralistic society, educators must focus explicitly on promoting social and emotional competence. Teachers are the engine that drives SEL programs and practices in schools and classrooms. Yet until recently, their role in promoting SEL and their own social and emotional competence and wellbeing have received scant attention. What do we know about teachers and SEL? Do they buy in to integrating SEL in their classrooms? What about their own social and emotional competence and wellbeing? How does teachers' social-emotional competence influence students' SEL, and how can we promote it? How do teachers' beliefs about SEL influence their implementation of SEL programs? And do prospective teachers receive any information about SEL and their own social and emotional competence in their teacher preparation programs? The importance of these questions should not be underestimated. If we don't accurately understand teachers' own wellbeing and how teachers influence students' SEL, we can never fully know whether and how to promote SEL in the classroom. Such knowledge could not only guide theory, it could also give us practical information about how teachers can steer students toward becoming socially skilled and well-rounded individuals, ready to responsibly navigate their personal and professional paths to adulthood. SEL and Teachers: A Framework Extensive research evidence now confirms that SEL skills can be taught and measured, that they promote positive development and reduce problem behaviors, and that they improve students' academic performance, citizenship, and health-related behaviors. (2) Moreover, these skills predict such important life outcomes as completing high school on time, obtaining a college degree, and securing stable employment. …

In this article, Deborah Phillips, Lea Austin, and Marcy Whitebook examine educational preparation, compensation, and professional development among the early childhood workforce. Their central theme is that these features look very different for preschool teachers than they do for the elementary school teaching workforce. Most teachers of kindergarten through third grade can count on clear job requirements, professional development opportunities, workplace supports such as paid planning time, and a transparent and rational salary structure based on qualifications and experience. These teachers often earn a wage that approaches the median income in their communities. For most preschool teachers, Phillips, Austin, and Whitebook write, the situation is very different. Job requirements and qualifications vary wildly from program to program and from state to state. Professional development is both scarce and inconsistent. Compensation often fails to reward educational attainment or training; in fact, many preschool teachers are among the lowest-paid workers in the country. Poor compensation fuels turnover, which means that society loses investments in professional learning, and produces economic insecurity and stress among preschool teachers. The crux of quality in early childhood education lies squarely in the interactions that transpire between teachers and children, the authors write. Thus it’s long past time, they argue, to recognize prekindergarten through third grade as a continuum that requires a seamless system of professional learning and compensation tied to qualifications, including education. To move beyond incremental improvements in the quality of early care and education, they conclude, empirical research, intervention, and policy alike should focus on the preparation, professional development, compensation, and wellbeing of early childhood teachers.

In this article, Cybele Raver and Clancy Blair explore a group of cognitive processes called executive function (EF)—including the flexible control of attention, the ability to hold information through working memory, and the ability to maintain inhibitory control

Starting Early:Introducing the Issue Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (bio), Lisa Markman-Pithers (bio), and Cecilia Elena Rouse (bio) Across the nation, more and more people want to see children receive quality education before kindergarten. Public opinion polls suggest that 70 percent of adults favor such programs, partly because of the irresistible idea that “starting early,” and ensuring that children arrive in school ready to learn, is the best way to generate happy, healthy, and productive adults.1 The notion of starting early resonates. Head Start, the federally funded prekindergarten program for children from low-income homes, was a cornerstone of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Even then it was believed that students can’t fully benefit from an elementary education if they don’t arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. Presidents with views as disparate as those of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have called for strengthening early childhood education in their budgets and State of the Union addresses. One reason for the strong support of early childhood education is the seemingly compelling evidence that exposing children to educational experiences when they’re young can have profound effects on later educational, social, and adult outcomes. In fact, as Lynn Karoly points out in this issue, estimates based on some older pre-K programs suggest that every dollar invested in prekindergarten pays off $3 to $17 in terms of benefits, both to the adult individual and to society. That suggests prekindergarten is one of the most effective investments that we can make in children. Indeed, James Heckman of the University of Chicago, a Nobel laureate in economics, has argued that investments made in early childhood are more beneficial and also more cost-effective than those made in later childhood and adolescence.2 The idea that prekindergarten can enhance later learning and adult success is based on the premise that if pre-K programs provide enriching activities more intensively and more intentionally than parents can, then those programs have the potential to boost children’s learning and skill acquisition. In brief, quality pre-K experiences can teach [End Page 3] children the skills that make it easier for them to learn new skills in early elementary school: that is, skills beget skills. Differences in literacy and cognitive skills between children in low-income families and their better-off counterparts are already apparent by age three, or perhaps even earlier.3 The pre-K education programs initiated in the 1960s and 1970s were designed to reduce those gaps by providing quality pre-K education to disadvantaged children, who were less likely to be ready for school. Few pre-K programs existed in the low-income neighborhoods where most disadvantaged children lived, and parents with little income and education were therefore less likely to send their children to prekindergarten than were parents with more resources. And when disadvantaged parents were able to find a pre-K program, it was likely to be of relatively low quality.4 Based on these observations, we would expect that children from disadvantaged environments would benefit the most from pre-K education; that high-quality programs would deliver the greatest benefits; and that children who received such education would benefit more than those who remained at home, cared for by parents, family, and friends. Comparisons between different pre-K programs, on the other hand, shouldn’t show such a stark contrast. These assumptions imply that not all programs would show equal benefits in empirical evaluations. Scholars have called this heterogeneity in outcomes. Interpreting the research requires attention to many factors—family background, comparison group composition, and programs’ quality and intensity. Scholars have extensively studied the efficacy of pre-K programs, especially those offered to four-year-olds. Of more than 100 evaluations of pre-K programs, the vast majority used random assignment of children to receive the preschool treatment or not.5 Most of these experimental programs served children from low-resource families, in keeping with the premise that these children were less likely to have the skills needed for kindergarten and were therefore most likely to benefit. Consequently, we know the most about how preschool influences children from disadvantaged backgrounds. And because many of these...

Michael Oppenheimer and Jesse Anttila-Hughes begin with a primer on how the greenhouse effect works, how we know that Earth is rapidly getting warmer, and how we know that the recent warming is caused by human activity. They explain the sources of scientific knowledge about climate change as well as the basis for the models scientists use to predict how the climate will behave in the future. Although they acknowledge the large degree of uncertainty that surrounds predictions of what will happen decades or even centuries in the future, they also emphasize the near certainty that climate change has the potential to be extremely harmful to children. Most children around the world will face hotter, more extreme temperatures more frequently. Higher temperatures will directly affect children’s health by increasing the rates of heatstroke, heat exhaustion, and heat-related mortality. Excessive heat is also likely to affect children indirectly by disrupting agricultural systems, driving up prices, and increasing food scarcity. Many of the world’s children may see local demand for water outstrip supply, as shifting precipitation patterns dry out some regions of the world, make other regions wetter, and increase the frequency of both unusually dry periods and unusually severe rains. Mountain glaciers will recede further, significantly reducing storage of winter snows and thus springtime runoff, which has traditionally been used to water fields and recharge reservoirs. Melting ice will also raise sea levels, triggering direct physical threats to children through flooding and erosion and indirect threats through migration and expensive adaptation. Climate change is also expected to make weather-based disasters more frequent and more damaging. This is particularly worrisome for children, not only because of the physical peril disasters pose but also because disasters can have debilitating long-term indirect effects on children. Damage to ecosystems from climate change may also harm children; for example, acidification the world’s oceans will reduce food supplies, and disease-carrying insects will invade new areas in response to changing rains and temperatures. In the face of such dire forecasts, Oppenheimer and Anttila-Hughes argue, climate change forces us to directly confront the value we put on future children’s wellbeing. Fortunately, we have reason for hope as well as for concern: “History,” they write, “has demonstrated time and again that humans can tackle uncertain threats in times of need.”