Christina Weiland

When time is relative: Pre-K classroom time use is measure sensitive Time use measures are used to characterize children’s instructional experiences in pre-kindergarten (Pre-K). Although time use is an actionable aspect…

How much time do Pre-K students spend learning different things? TLDR: It depends on how you measure it.

With @weilanch.bsky.social, Meghan McCormick, and Catherine Snow, we compared two classroom time-use instruments using the same classroom videos.

Read open access here: shorturl.at/LPnai

Michigan’s solution to child care costs could go national. Advocates say it’s not enough. An effort to expand a Michigan child care pilot program nationally faces two common hurdles: affordability and access.

@weilanch.bsky.social comments on Michigan’s Tri-Share program. When discussing solving financial difficulties of paying for child care, Weiland says, “Tri-Share is never going to solve the problem.” Read her full thoughts here: https://myumi.ch/P3X2y

Congrats!! Say hi when you’re in town.

We’re hiring a Research Coordinator! Please share.

Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia… An exuberant, hilarious, and profound memoir by a mailm…

Read this book and you’ll wanna pay a lot more for USPS: www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

Important, clever paper by MI-based team.
@weilanch.bsky.social

Basically, most kids flagged for 3rd-grade retention in MI weren’t retained. But did get add’l supports—as did kids near the retention point.

Those supports spurred academic gains, raising doubts about retention impacts elsewhere.

Early Grade Retention Harms Adult Earnings (Forthcoming Article) - This paper provides new causal evidence on the effects of grade retention on educational attainment, behavioral outcomes, and labor market performance by analyzing Texas’s read...

Forthcoming in AEJ: Applied Economics: "Early Grade Retention Harms Adult Earnings" by Jiee Zhong. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

📢 New postdoc opportunity at Annenberg!

The Annenberg Institute is seeking a postdoctoral research associate for a 2‐year appointment to join a diverse community of scholars committed to educational equity and improvement!

More info here: annenberg.brown.edu/opportunitie...

Early education programs improve children’s readiness for kindergarten. Learn more about the elements that ensure high-quality ECE in Christina Weiland (@weilanch.bsky.social) and Paola Guerrero Rosada's (@paolaguerreror.bsky.social) chapter, Quality in ECE: livehandbook.org/early-educat...

The Fall Edition of the EPI Newsletter is here! mailchi.mp/umich.edu/ed...

Stay up to date with the latest in education policy research, events, & publications.

In this issue, you'll find:
📚 Research shaping education policy
📝 Publications and news
🤝 Research partnership updates

Welcome @edpolicyford.bsky.social to Bluesky!! Give a follow for research and happenings from our fantastic UMich faculty and students.

Ughh… the Child Care and Early Education Research Connections website and library will no longer be available after Sept. 30. Pull what you need!

researchconnections.org

If there is an effort to back it up underway, I’d love to know.

From Inside Philanthropy: Will Philanthropy Ever Pay Attention to Appalachia — Appalachia Funders Network New Research Highlights Disparities

Philanthropic dollars aren’t remotely equally distributed. This is huge!

www.appalachiafunders.org/news-resourc....

Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith supporting Clay County music program Clay County students received a special message from an enduring rock star this week.Chad Smith, the heartbeat of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, shared a video with

Incredibly cool… Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is supporting the music program in my rural WV county:

wchstv.com/news/local/r...

📢 #EdWorkingPapers: How can we measure student behavior at scale?

@tiffanyxwu.bsky.social, @weilanch.bsky.social, @mattadiemer.bsky.social, Rebecca Unterman, @annakshapiro.bsky.social, & Thomas Staines use PCA and factor analysis to build behavior composites from admin data.

📄 bit.ly/4ofre5b

Today is the final day of work for many dedicated, talented employees at the Institute of Education Sciences. I am thankful for their service, and I hope that they find new roles that continue their mission of supporting education research that serves as a public good.

Child playing with building blocks.

Researchers examine the impacts of transitional kindergarten, a publicly funded learning option that bridges prekindergarten and kindergarten, helping guide state programming and offering more information on the complicated early learning landscape.

➡️ bit.ly/3Sfrp1t

Big shout out to this amazing team, led by @weilanch.bsky.social

Want more details but don’t have time to read the paper? See thread from
@tiffanyxwu.bsky.social

A screenshot of the abstract of the working paper

Figure 1: School Enrollment Pathways for Lottery Winners and Control Group Students through 8th Grade. This figure represents school enrollment pathways across different school types (BPS, BPS Exam School, non-BPS district school, charter school, and other) for both lottery winners and the control group. The thickness of the lines represents the percentage of lottery winners/control group students that are enrolled in each type of school. Blue lines show the pathways taken by lottery winners, and BPS-specific school categories are highlighted in the light blue boxes. BPS = Boston Public Schools.

🤔 What kind of Pre-K experience sets students up for long-term success?

Our new working paper offers important new evidence to help answer this question!

🔗 edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai25-1194.pdf

And 🧵👇

Using data from Michigan, we find that third grade retention for struggling readers may be a much less important component of the benefits of literacy reforms than previously understood.

(Thx, @annenberginstitute.bsky.social, for the dissemination bump!)

Does school funding actually improve outcomes? 🤔Join our first-ever #EdWorkingPapers webinar Wed 5/21 at 2pm ET with @emilyrauscher.bsky.social and @chriscandelaria.com to find out. buff.ly/TW1oFhu #research #schoolfunding

🧵 But since Head Start's inception, there have been disagreements about whether or not the program "works." So let's review what we know from rigorous research on Head Start's effectiveness, and let's start with what it means for the program to work. 🧵 1/n

How federal investments in education research help students succeed Researchers discuss how federally funded research projects have helped identify and scale programs that improved student outcomes.

How federal investments in education research help students succeed www.brookings.edu/articles/how...

Pre-K students walking on a path/bridge up and right to represent their path to kindergarten. Path transitions into dotted line to signify a disconnect

We asked 1,368 public school-based pre-K teachers across the country about the materials they use, their instructional resources and planning time, and how their programs align with elementary grades. Read more in my new co-authored report: www.rand.org/t/rra3279-3

Head Start is turning 60. Will the federal child care program make it to 61? Providers operating on ‘razor-thin margins’ worry about the possibility of deep cuts

Hours after we published this story on our site we received news that staffers in five of Head Start's 10 regional offices were put on leave. We're trying to track the on-the-ground implications -- please email me at samuels@hechingerreport.org or Signal cas.37

hechingerreport.org/head-start-i...

Head Start, which serves over 800K children and their families all over the country, was hit hard today by the HHS layoffs.

<1% of HS’s annual funding is spent on federal staff.

nhsa.org/press_releas...

Georgetown has put together resources for federal workers who may be facing a transition in jobs. These include various seminars and workshops, as well as tuition scholarships providing a discount on many master's programs and certificates. Please spread the word to anybody who might benefit.

Count Me In? Identifying Factors That Predict Centers’ Application to Boston’s Mixed-Delivery Universal Pre-K Program Universal prekindergarten (UPK) programs often expand through mixed-delivery systems by offering seats in public schools and community-based centers (CBOs). Although this approach aims to meet varied ...

As universal prekindergarten (UPK) expands, understanding which community-based organizations (CBOs) apply—and why—matters for equity and access. With @weilanch.bsky.social, Meghan McCormick, Catherine Snow.

Read more:

edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1151

#ECE #UPK #EquitableECE
#EduSky
#WomaninQuant

If you have research dependent on these data here is my suggestion
1/N

Big picture:

Create a dataset of cell means (cells must be big enough to pass disclosure)

- load these cell means into many, many tables & put through review

-These cell means can then be used in OLS - which runs on means

In a devastating week for Ed research, #AEFP2025 is a balm to the soul. That goes double for the fantastic presentations by junior scholars.

Today's UMich contributions, spanning early childhood, K-12, and higher ed: