The Education School will receive $9.5 million in federal money to establish the National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning. The Federal Head Start program funds several centers nationally as part of a larger $40 million grant to improve the efficiency of its 50,000 programs nationwide, aimed at providing early education to preschoolers from low-income families.
The project will be headed by the University of Washington's Norris and Dorothy Haring Center for Applied Research and Training. The University, along with Vanderbilt University, Iowa State University, University of Southern Florida, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign will contribute to its development.
"The five-year endeavor will explore ways to "improve teachers' effectiveness in the classroom," Education School Dean Robert Pianta said. Pianta, along with Education Prof. Bridget Hamre, will serve as lead researchers.
Pianta said the University contributed to a few different grant applications in the competition to receive the funds, which are provided by national Head Start legislation, he said. The Head Start program currently uses the University Education School's Classroom Assessment Scoring System to measure teacher quality in all 50,000 of the nation's Head Start classrooms. The tool observes and assesses teacher interaction with students and how the quality of such interactions improve student learning.
"Part of what's happening legislatively is that there is a real interest in childhood education and making it more effective, particularly making Head Start more effective," Pianta said.
The new center will research effective teaching practices, measure those methods against student learning and develop an effective approach to successfully transition children in the Head Start Program to elementary school "by building connections among all of those involved, including parents, children, teachers, pre-K staff andkindergarten staff," according to a University press release.
A team of early education specialists in the fields of early care and education, early childhood special education and early intervention will collaborate on the five-year program, which will begin Jan. 2 nationwide.
"The evidence is clear that early learning can make a lifetime of difference," said Tom Stritikus, dean of the University of Washington College of Education in the press release. "The center will allow the UW College of Education, together with our collaborators across the country, to bring to scale the best practices that we've collectively learned through years of research. It's a big project for us with a big payoff for the children"
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