Tuesday, December 16, 2014 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Amy Claessens, Harris School, University of Chicago

Amy Claessens is an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include child development, early childhood experiences, and early mathematics development. Studies using data from the late 1990s indicate that most of the mathematics content that kindergarteners were exposed to covered topics they had already mastered. We replicate and extend upon prior research using two nationally representative cohorts of kindergarteners. We find that teachers still report spending most of their time on content students already know, although we also observe an increase in time spent on more advanced content between the 1998-99 and 2010-11 school years. We find that time on advanced content is positively associated with student learning, while time on basic content has a negative effect.

claessens_umn_2014.pdf

Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

ndrew Karch, Department of Political Science, UMN

Andrew Karch is Arleen C. Carlson Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on the political determinants of contemporary public policy choices in the United States, with a special emphasis on federalism and state politics. 
 
This presentation will be based on his most recent book, Early Start: Preschool Politics in the United States, which was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2013 and was named a Choice outstanding academic title for that year. He will look at the historical trajectory of American early childhood education policy, explaining how its current decentralization and fragmentation is the consequence of a chain of reactions to political decisions that date to the early 1970s. It will also discuss what this historical trajectory implies for contemporary efforts to effect policy change.

hcrc_brown-bag_1202015.pdf

Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Sarah Cusick & Maria Kroupina, Pediatrics, UMN

Dr. Sarah Cusick is an Assistant Professor in Global Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on international maternal and child nutrition, the interaction between nutritional deficiencies and infectious disease, and the effect of these interactions on child health and long-term cognitive development.

Dr. Maria Kroupina is an Assistant Professor in Global Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on nutrition and recently arrived international adoptees as well as neurobehavioral correlates of early deprivation and stress in young children.

hcrc-iron-deficiency-021715_2.pdf

Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Susie Nanney, School of Public Health, UMN

Dr. Susie Nanney is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health at the Medical School, UMN. Her research interests include promoting healthy food access, especially in community settings serving low income children and families. In Dr. Nanney's presentation, Relationships between School Breakfast, Hunger & Test Scores among Rural Minnesota High School Students, she will share preliminary results of a group randomized intervention trial with 16 rural Minnesota high schools to improve access to the School Breakfast Program.

hcrc-nanney-bk-study-hunger-grades032415.pdf

Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Arthur Reynolds and CPC Team, HHH and CEHD, UMN

Arthur Reynolds, HCRC Co-Director, and members of the Midwest Child-Parent Center Expansion team will be sharing early findings from the first two years of the program. As a Prek-3rd grade reform model, CPC currently serves over 5,000 children in 26 sites in 4 school districts (Saint Paul, Chicago, Evanston, and Normal) with planned expansions to additional sites in 2015-2016. The Midwest CPC Expansion is supported by an Investing in Innovations (i3) grant from the U. S. Department of Education with matching contributions from local and national philanthropic partners. The goals of the project are to (a) improve children's school readiness and achievement, (b) strengthen parent involvement and engagement, and (c) develop a sustainability plan with district partners.

hcrc_brown_bag_april_2015.pdf

Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Javaeria Qureshi, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Chicago, Department of Economics

Javaeria Qureshi is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests lie in the economics of education and labor. In current research, she is investigating sibling spillovers in learning production, the intra-household allocation of human capital investments, and the effect of Medicaid coverage on academic achievement. Dr. Qureshi specializes in applied econometrics and impact evaluation, and has consulted for the Development Research Group at the World Bank.

The study Dr. Qureshi will be focusing on for this presentation documents sibling spillover effects on child test score achievement using administrative school records from North Carolina. Dr. Qureshi utilizes the assignment of the older or younger sibling to an experienced teacher as a potentially exogenous shock to measure spillovers on child test scores. While teacher experience is a known determinant of student achievement, this study shows that teacher experience also affects the achievement of a child's younger siblings. These findings suggest that we are underestimating the importance of education inputs because they affect students' achievement as well as that of their siblings.

hcrc-qureshi.pdf

Thursday, October 8, 2015 - 8:00am to Friday, October 9, 2015 - 5:00pm

Federal Reserve Bank of MinneapolisSustaining Early Childhood Gains

Presenter Bios [PDF]

Conference summary: Sustaining early childhood education gains [off site] 
Rob Grunewald, Community Dividend, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

AGENDA, DAY 1: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015

Continental Breakfast

Sign-in and Continental Breakfast 8:00–8:30

Introduction

Welcome  8:30–8:45

Art Rolnick, Co-director, Human Capital Research Collaborative

Opening Remarks 8:45–9:00

Karen Hanson, Provost, University of Minnesota 

Narayana Kocherlakota, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Overview: Strategies for Increasing and Sustaining Early Gains 9:00–9:30

Arthur Reynolds, Co-director, Human Capital Research Collaborative [Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Section One: Program Length and Age of Entry

Synthesis of Preschool Dosage: Unpacking How Quantity, Quality and Content Impacts Child Outcomes 9:30–10:00

Barbara Wasik, Temple University [Paper, Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Program and Continuity in Young Children’s Educational Experiences 10:00–10:30

Deborah Stipek, Stanford University [Paper, Presentation]

Break 10:30–10:45

Same Program, Different Outcomes:  Understanding Differential Effects from Access to Free, High-Quality Early Care 10:45–11:15

Aaron Sojourner, University of Minnesota [Paper, Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Discussion (led by Sharon and Craig Ramey) 11:15–11:35

Lunch and Luncheon Remarks 11:35–12:45

Libby Doggett, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education

Section Two: Program Quality

Teacher Influences, Teacher Effects, and Program Effectiveness in Early Childhood Education 12:45–1:15

Greg Camilli, Rutgers University [Paper, Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Boosting School Readiness with Preschool Curricula 1:15–1:45

Greg Duncan, University of California, Irvine [Paper, Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Family Engagement Is a Public Good: Past, Present, and Future 1:45–2:15

Heather Weiss, Harvard University [Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Discussion (lead off by Helen Blank) 2:15–2:35

Break 2:35–3:00

Section Three: Preschool to Third-Grade Continuity

Midwest Child-Parent Center Preschool to Third-Grade Program: Year 1 Findings from Chicago 3:00–3:30

Arthur Reynolds, University of Minnesota [Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

State Policies that Support Children's Literacy through a Coordinated and Connected PreK-3rd Grade Education 3:30–4:00

Laura Bornfreund and Abbie Lieberman, New America Foundation [Paper,Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com] 

Discussion (led by Barbara Bowman) 4:00–4:20

General Discussion 4:20–5:00

Reception

Refreshments and Networking 5:00–5:45

Dinner

Reflections of Enhancing Children’s Outcomes since “Eager to Learn” 5:45–7:45

Barbara Bowman, Erikson Institute

AGENDA, DAY 2: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

Continental Breakfast

Networking and Continental Breakfast 8:00–8:30

Section 4: School Quality Across Contexts

Maintaining the Impacts of Head Start on Children's Long-Term Development: Follow-up to the Follow-up of the Head Start Impact Study 8:30–9:00

Andrew Mashburn, Portland State University [Abstract, Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Reframing Policy and Practice Deliberations: Twelve Hallmarks of Strategies to Sustain Early Childhood Gains 9:00–9:30

Sharon and Craig Ramey, Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute [Paper,Handout] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Lessons on Sustaining Early Gains from Life-Course Longitudinal Studies 9:30–10:15

Larry Schweinhart [Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Frances Campbell, UNC Chapel Hill [Presentation] [Video, off site to YouTube.com]

Arthur Reynolds, University of Minnesota [Presentation]

Discussion (led by Arthur Reynolds) 10:15–10:30

Break 10:30–10:45

Section 5: Putting into Practice: National and Regional Perspectives

Opening Remarks 10:45–12:15

Libby Doggett, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education

Panel Discussion moderated by Libby Doggett

Marci Young, Vice-President, US Network Impact, United Way Worldwide

Kate Wolford, President, McKnight Foundation

Sara Vecchiotti, Chief Program Officer, Foundation for Child Development

Rip Rapson, President and CEO, Kresge Foundation

[Video of Panel Discussion, off site to YouTube.com]

Closing Remarks 12:15–12:30

Lunch and Final Discussion 12:30–1:30

Thank you to Target Foundation for supporting the conference.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Art Rolnick, Arthur Reynolds, Judy Temple, Aaron Sojourner, Human Capital Research Collaborative

This Brown Bag Seminar featured Human Capital Research Collaborative faculty sharing an overview of HCRC research and outreach in the early childhood field. Faculty presenters included:

Judy Temple, Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, sharing information on the Early Childhood Policy Certificate and Prevention Science Minor. 

Arthur Reynolds, Professor, Institute of Child Development, and Co-director of HCRC, giving an overview of the recent 2015 HCRC Fall National Invitational Conference on Sustaining Early Childhood Gains. Aaron Sojourner, Assistant Professor, Carlson School of Management, presenting on a new project, Reminders 4 Readiness, using texting as a means for reaching parents with messages to promote child well-being. 

Art Rolnick, Senior Fellow, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Co-director of HCRC, sharing a collaboration with Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) promoting child well-being through community engagement and parental supports for families in North Minneapolis.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Sarah Cusick, Assistant Professor, Global Pediatrics, UMN

Dr. Cusick is an Assistant Professor in Global Pediatrics within the Department of Pediatrics in the Medical School, University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on international maternal and child nutrition, the interaction between nutritional deficiencies and infectious disease, and the effect of these interactions on child health and long-term cognitive development. Dr. Cusick's presentation will focus on recent preliminary findings of a randomized clinical trial in Ugandan children with iron deficiency and severe malaria that tested two treatment models on long-term iron status and neurobehavioral development.

cusick_brown_bag_nov_2015.pdf

Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Caroline Krafft, Assistant Professor, St. Catherine University, Department of Economics

Caroline Krafft is an assistant professor of economics at St. Catherine University. Her research focuses on human development in the Middle East and North Africa. She received her Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota and her master’s degree in public policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

In Morocco, where issues of inequality and poverty are high on the national agenda, a community development program, the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), targeted high-poverty areas for additional investments. This study examines whether, in addition to reducing poverty, such programs can also promote human development, specifically early childhood development (ECD). Using panel data on communities just above and below the cutoff for INDH inclusion in rural areas, we apply regression discontinuity and fixed effect models to identify the impact of the program on economic outcomes and ECD.

krafft-morocco-study-12-15-15.pdf