Dissemination

NCCF News Archive 2005

Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D. Is Guest Editor of PDK International

Sharon Lynn Kagan, co-director of NCCF, together with Vivien Stewart, vice president for education at the Asia Society, served as guest editors for the latest Phi Delta Kappan International magazine, "Education In a Global Era." (Nov. 2005 - Vol. 87 - Number 3). This special issue of PDK features prominent thinkers discussing learning in an era of globalization, with a particular focus on early care and education. To view the table of the contents, click here.

Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D. Awarded the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education

First Woman Educator to Receive the Nation's Top Three Education Awards

Update: Photo of Dr. Kagan Accepting Award from Harold W. McGraw III.

September 27, 2005 (New York, NY) – Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D., Associate Dean for Policy and Research at Teachers College, Columbia University, will receive the 2005 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education, one of three recipients of this year's prize. This prestigious award, to be presented tonight in New York City, is given to leaders in education, policy, and culture, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to their respective fields and to society as a whole.

Dr. Kagan is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy at Teachers College, where she co-directs the National Center for Children and Families, a non-profit research organization. She is also professor adjunct at the Yale Child Study Center. Her ground-breaking work in the field of Early Care and Education has been recognized nationally and internationally; in the past year, Dr. Kagan has been awarded the James Bryant Conant Award by the Education Commission of the States; the Distinguished Service Award by the Council of Chief State School Officers; and most recently, the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. She joins a very select number of educators who have received these three national honors, among the highest recognitions in education. Dr. Kagan is the first woman to receive all three; past recipients include former U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel Bell, former U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell, and Theodore Sizer, Chairman Emeritus of the Coalition of Essential Schools and professor of education at Brown University. She shares tonight's honors with Barbara Bowman, co-founder of the Erikson Institute, and Ellen Moir, executive director of the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dr. Kagan is a frequent consultant to the White House, Congress, the National Governor's Association, the U.S. Department of Education and Health and Human Services, and numerous states, foundations, corporations, and professional associations. She currently serves on over 40 national boards or panels, and is the past-President of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and past Co-Chair of the National Education Goals Panel on Goal One. Additionally, she is a prolific author, having written over 200 publications including the authorship or editorship of 12 volumes and the guest editorship of numerous journals.

For more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Alison Hill, Administrative Associate
National Center for Children and Families
Teachers College, Columbia University
Phone: 212-678-8255
Fax: 212-678-3160
E-mail: ahill@tc.columbia.edu

Kristie Kauerz Authors 50-State Study on Kindergarten Policies

"Full Day Kindergarten: A Study of State Policies in the United States," written NCCF Graduate Fellow Kristie Kauerz has been published by the Education Commission of the States. The study was sponsored by Foundation for Child Development.

SPSSI Awards Rebecca C. Fauth Social Issues Dissertation Prize

Rebecca C. Fauth, NCCF research affiliate, was awarded First Prize, Social Issues Dissertation from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). Her dissertation, "Welcome to the Neighborhood? Long-Term Impacts of Moving to Low-Poverty Neighbor- hoods on Poor Childrens' and Adolescents' Outcomes," focused on a seven-year follow-up of The Yonkers Project. That project studied the effects of the 1985 court-ordered desegregation program in Yonkers, NY. Dr. Fauth was a graduate fellow at NCCF and is currently based at The Work Foundation in London, U.K.

Dr. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn Published in NHSA-Dialog: Commentary on High/Scope Perry Preschool Findings

NCCF co-director Dr. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn shares her views on recent findings from the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study, looking at the long-term effects of providing quality early care and education (ECE) to at-risk children. In "Cause for Celebration? Sustained Effects of Early Childhood Education," Dr. Brooks-Gunn discusses the range of factors - including teacher quality and outreach to parents - that have contributed to High/Scope Perry's success, and its significance. The article is published in the most recent issue of NHSA Dialog (8, No. 1, pp. 1-4, 2005), a Research-to-Practice Journal for the Early Intervention Field. To learn more about NHSA Dialog, please click:
http://www.nhsa.org/publications/dialogue/index.htm

Research Affiliate Holly Foster Awarded by American Sociological Association

NCCF research affiliate Holly Foster and co-author John Hagan have received the American Sociological Association's Mental Health Section Best Publication Award for “S/He's a Rebel: Toward a Sequential Stress Theory of Delinquency and Gendered Pathways to Disadvantage in Emerging Adulthood” (Social Forces, 2003, 82:53-86). Dr. Foster, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University, was a postdoctoral fellow at NCCF from 2002-2003. Congratulations!

NCCF Research Team Awarded Seed Grant

NCCF Co-Director Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, together with NCCF researchers Anne Martin and Rebecca Ryan, have been awarded a “seed grant” from Columbia University's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy to develop a revised coding scheme pertaining to the Maternal Description of Child, in which mothers' open-ended descriptions of their children are audiotaped and coded. This “seed” money will be used to test new coding scales and prepare training materials for coders. The research team plans to seek funds outside the University for coding all tapes and conducting data analysis, as part of a longer-range effort to examine whether the association between family structure and early child outcomes can be explained, in part, by mothers' emotions towards their children as expressed during the speech sample.

Kagan Receives ECS Award for Contributions to Education

Update: Photo of Dr. Kagan receiving the Conant Award on July 14, 2005

DENVER – Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D., a visionary leader for improving the care and education of young children, will be recognized for her outstanding contributions to American education on Thursday, July 14, in Denver, CO. The James Bryant Conant Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the education community, will be presented to Kagan during a banquet given in her honor by the Education Commission of the States (ECS). The Conant award is named for ECS' co-founder.

Kagan is an associate dean for policy at Teachers College, the graduate school of education at Columbia University. At Teachers College, she is The Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, and she is co-director of the National Center for Children and Families. She has been instrumental in defining and building early childhood care and education as a critically important public policy field, and as the foundation for a lifetime of education and learning. Throughout her career, she has coupled research and policy to increase public understanding of, and investment in, programs and services that support young children and their families.

“Dr. Kagan is a highly valued advisor and contributor to ECS, and I am delighted she is receiving the recognition she so deserves,” said ECS president Piedad Robertson. “Her pioneering efforts to strengthen and improve child care and early learning in America will have a lasting influence on state education policy and the educational development of our nation's children.”

In the early 1990s, as co-chairman of the National Education Goals Panel on Goal One (“All children in America will start school ready to learn”), Kagan helped to concept-tualize a comprehensive definition of “school readiness,” encompassing a broad range of abilities, skills and supports that young children need to be ready to succeed in school and in life. Kagan's work helped to integrate research in developmental psychology, physiology, literacy and social-emotional development.

In addition, Kagan, more than any other person, has defined what a system of early childhood education should include. Her work has contributed to bringing together diverse stakeholders in the early childhood field – child care, Head Start, school-based prekindergarten and family child care and support. It also has helped put early childhood education on a par with K-12 and postsecondary education in terms of requiring a foundation of high-quality services, including finance structures, governance, teacher quality, leadership and standards.

More recently, her work has focused on defining how standards and accountability systems can be used in early childhood settings – both nationally and internationally – to better understand what young children should know and be able to do; to help programs improve their services; and to hold policymakers accountable for ensuring every child and family is supported and nurtured.

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, 2004-06 ECS Chairman, will present the award to Kagan as part of the 2005 ECS National Forum on Education Policy, to be held in July 12-15 in Denver. The forum will feature sessions on topics ranging from redesigning high schools to strengthening workforce development. Speakers and participants include governors, legislators, state and district superintendents, education researchers, higher education officials, and business and philanthropic leaders.

For more information on the Forum, see http://www.ecs.org/nf2005 , or contact: Cathy Walker, ECS: 303-299-3609; e-mail: cwalker@ecs.org, or
Alison Hill, NCCF: 212-678-8255 or ahill@tc.columbia.edu

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn Presented with Public Policy Award

NCCF Co-Director Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Ph.D., was presented with the Distinguished Contributions to the Public Policy for Children Award by the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), during its 2005 conference in Atlanta, GA

"Evaluations to Watch" Published by The Harvard Family Research Project

How can videotaping parent-child interactions at home help Head Start researchers evaluate the program's effectiveness? In Evaluations to Watch, NCCF's Rebecca Ryan, Christy Brady-Smith, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn describe the use of videotapes in the national evaluation of Early Head Start. (Published in Evaluation Exchange, part of the Harvard Family Research Project.)

Sharon Lynn Kagan Appointed Director of the Office of Policy Development and Education and Associate Dean for Policy At Teachers College, Columbia University

Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D., Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy at Teachers College, was named Director of the Office of Policy and Research, and Associate Dean for Policy at TC. The primary responsibilities of this new Office at the College will be research generation, policy recommendation and dissemination, and colleague mentoring activities. Announcing this appointment, TC Dean Darlyne Bailey stated, ”Professor Kagan is uniquely positioned to undertake this role, in large part because of her continued work as Co-Director (with Professor Jeanne Brooks-Gunn) of the National Center for Children and Families, through which the impact of her research and policy activities have been recognized nationally and internationally.”