Policy Topics

Early learning

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Other reports

Historic Crisis, Historic Opportunity: Using Evidence to Mitigate the Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis on Young Children and Early Care and Education Programs

June 1, 2021
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Christina Weiland, Erica Greenberg, Daphna Bassok, Anna Markowitz, Paola Guerrero Rosada, Grace Luetmer, Rachel Abenavoli, Celia Gomez, Anna Johnson, Brenda Jones-Harden, Michelle Maier, Meghan McCormick, Pamela Morris, Milagros Nores, Deborah Phillips, Catherine Snow
The COVID-19 crisis has brought unprecedented challenges to the high-quality early care and education (ECE) experiences that are essential for young children to thrive. Throughout the pandemic, early childhood policymakers had to quickly make...
Boston RPP briefs

Fast-Response Research to Answer Practice and Policy Questions

April 1, 2021
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Christina Weiland, Jason Sachs, Meghan McCormick, JoAnn Hsueh, Catherine Snow
Research-practice partnerships often face a fundamental tension: well-designed, high-quality research takes time, but practitioners and policy makers need answers to pressing questions as soon as possible. In this article, Jason Sachs, Meghan...
EPI Policy briefs

Effects of COVID-19 on Early Childhood Education Centers

March 1, 2021
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Christina Weiland, Paola Guerrero Rosada, Anne Taylor, Louisa Penfold, Catherine Snow, Jason Sachs, Meghan McCormick
This brief is part of an ongoing study that is tracking implementation of the Boston Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) expansion, including effects of the COVID-19 crisis on UPK community-based centers. We use administrative and interview data to...
Parent walking two children to school with masks on
Boston RPP briefs

Is Skill Type the Key to the PreK Fadeout Puzzle? Differential Associations Between Enrollment in PreK and Constrained and Unconstrained Skills Across Kindergarten

January 9, 2021
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Meghan McCormick, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Mirjana Pralica, Amanda Weissman, Lillie Moffett, Catherine Snow, Jason Sachs
This study examines whether associations between enrollment in public and non-public PreK and children’s (N = 508; Mage = 5.60 years in fall of kindergarten) math and language and literacy outcomes were more likely to be sustained through the spring...
Boston RPP briefs

Costs of the Boston Public Prekindergarten Program

November 11, 2020
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Sarah Kabay, Christina Weiland, Hirokazu Yoshikawa
Though there is an expanding field of research on public prekindergarten, there is a relatively little comprehensive investigation into what public prekindergarten costs. We address some of the absences in the literature by analyzing public-sector...
Boston RPP briefs

Null relations between CLASS scores and gains in children’s language, math, and executive function skills: A replication and extension study

July 23, 2020
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Paola Guerrero Rosada, Christina Weiland, Meghan McCormick, JoAnn Hsueh, Jason Sachs, Catherine Snow, Michelle Maier
General measures of process quality are widely used in the early childhood education (ECE) field. However, the evidence regarding associations between the most widely used process quality measure, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS;...
Boston RPP briefs

Can Center-Based Care Reduce Summer Slowdown Prior to Kindergarten? Exploring Variation by Family Income, Race/Ethnicity, and Dual Language Learner Status

April 25, 2020
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Meghan McCormick, Mirjana Pralica, Paola Guerrero Rosada, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Barbara Condliffe, Jason Sachs, Catherine Snow
This study examines growth in language and math skills during the summer before kindergarten; considers variation by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status; and tests whether summer center-based care sustains preschool...
Boston RPP briefs

Promoting content-enriched alignment across the early grades: A study of policies & practices in the Boston Public Schools

June 3, 2019
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Meghan McCormick, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Michelle Maier, Rama Hagos, Catherine Snow, Nicole Leacock, Laura Schick
As states and districts expand access to publicly funded PreK programs, researchers and policymakers have been grappling with experimental evidence demonstrating that the benefits of PreK on academic skills are not likely to last into early...
Boston RPP briefs

The little kids down the hall: Associations between school climate, pre-k classroom quality, and pre-k children's gains in receptive vocabulary and executive function

February 21, 2019
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Shana Rochester, Christina Weiland, Rebecca Unterman, Meghan McCormick, Lillie Moffett
In recent years, policymakers’ and practitioners’ interest in school climate as a contributor to K-12 student learning and classroom processes has increased, both in the US and internationally. However, researchers have not yet examined the...
Boston RPP briefs

Preschool Curricula and Professional Development Features for Getting to High-Quality Implementation at Scale: A Comparative Review Across Five Trials

January 1, 2018
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Christina Weiland, Meghan McCormick, Shira Mattera, Michelle Maier, Pamela Morris
Experts have heralded domain-specific play-based curricula coupled with regular coaching and training as our “strongest hope” for improving instructional quality in large-scale public preschool programs. Yet, details from different evaluations of...
Boston RPP briefs

The Challenge of Sustaining Preschool Impacts

July 1, 2017
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Meghan McCormick, Joann Hsueh, Christina Weiland, Michael Bangser
Early childhood interventions can be highly cost effective when positive impacts are sustained into adulthood. Yet while many recent preschool interventions have been found to have short-term effects on young children's language, literacy,...
Boston RPP briefs

The Co-Occurring Development of Executive Function Skills and Receptive Vocabulary in Preschool-Aged Children: A Look at the Direction of the Developmental Pathways

December 12, 2013
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Christina Weiland, M. Clara Barata, Hirokazu Yoshikawa
Despite consensus in the developmental literature regarding the role of executive function (EF) skills in supporting the development of language skills during the preschool years, we know relatively little about the associations between EF skills,...
Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership

Impacts of the Boston Pre-K Program Through Early Adulthood Study

July 2022
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Christina Weiland, Rebecca Unterman, Anna Shapiro, Tiffany Wu, Anne Taylor, Thomas Staines, William Corin
The Boston Early Adulthood study is the second phase of an ongoing study, which follows 12,740 children who applied to the Boston Pre-K program between 2007 and 2011. The Boston Pre-K program is somewhat unique in the national landscape as it uses evidence- and play-based language, literacy, and math-focused curriculum, pays teachers on the same scale as their K-12 peers, provides coaching supports to teachers, and is open to children in Boston, regardless of family characteristics.  The first students to experience the program are just reaching early adulthood, allowing our team to estimate...
Young child doing crafts
Early learning

Evaluation of Michigan's Transitional Kindergarten Program

January 2021
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Christina Weiland, Brian Jacob, Anna Shapiro, Tareena Musaddiq, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Jordy Berne
In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), the research team is analyzing administrative education records to describe transitional kindergarten programming in Michigan (i.e. Young Fives) and to examine its impacts on children’s kindergarten readiness and K-3 outcomes. This study also has several connections to the COVID-19 crisis. Program data will be used to describe the progress of cohorts of children more versus less directly affected by COVID-19. Additionally, surveys of families, teachers, and districts on their COVID-19-related experiences and challenges will be...
Young child running down a school hallway
Early learning

Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 on Early Educators and Young Children: Understanding the Issues and Identifying Evidence-based Recovery Responses

March 2021 - June 2021
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Christina Weiland, Erica Greenberg, Daphna Bassok, Anna Markowitz, Paola Guerrero Rosada, Grace Luetmer, Rachel Abenavoli, Celia Gomez, Anna Johnson, Brenda Jones-Harden, Michelle Maier, Meghan McCormick, Pamela Morris, Milagros Nores, Deborah Phillips, Catherine Snow, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija
The COVID-19 crisis upended life for young children, their families, and the early care and education (ECE) programs that serve them. Leaders need a clear understanding of the pandemic’s impact, particularly as the Biden administration makes historic investments in ECE. To meet this need, a team of early childhood experts synthesized findings from 76 high-quality studies, spanning 16 national studies, 45 studies from 31 states, and 15 local studies. The experts then collaborated with ECE policy and practice leaders from multiple states to identify actionable, evidence-backed, and...
Parent walking two children to school with masks on