The Foundation for Child Development Introduces The NYC Early Childhood Research Network
While plenty of attention has been paid to the effectiveness of early care and education programs, little research guides implementing these programs and informing their operation. Seeking to close this gap, the Foundation for Child Development (the Foundation) has released its latest report “New York City Early Childhood Research Network: A Model for Integrating Research, Policy, and Practice,” highlighting the New York City (NYC) Early Childhood Research Network (the Network).
With NYC’s implementation of universal full-day prekindergarten, the Foundation saw an opportunity to create the Network and convene researchers and policymakers around a mission to focus on the early care and education workforce in the context of continuous quality improvement efforts, program implementation, and the scale-up of high-quality early childhood education programs across the city.
Since the initiative’s launch in 2014, the Network has gathered NYC agencies, researchers, and policymakers to set mutual goals, define metrics and protocols, and share their perspectives and experiences. “Until now, educators, researchers, and policymakers have operated in silos. The Network aims to bring them together on the same page and offer a model for jointly identifying priorities to produce better outcomes for our youngest learners,” said Jacqueline Jones, President and CEO of the Foundation...