{"id":67268,"date":"2023-03-28T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=67268"},"modified":"2023-08-09T15:31:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T19:31:58","slug":"advancing-equity-in-early-childhood-education","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/news\/articles\/2023\/advancing-equity-in-early-childhood-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin news-block-editorial-leadin is-style-emphasis-on-text has-media has-box has-media-focus-left-top has-secondary-theme\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2048\" height=\"1454\" src=\"\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Kyle Cook Leaning against a brick wall on Boston sidewalk\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-845x600.jpg 845w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1500x1065.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-768x545.jpg 768w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1536x1091.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1163x826.jpg 1163w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-485x344.jpg 485w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-745x529.jpg 745w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-961x682.jpg 961w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1454x1032.jpg 1454w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1861x1321.jpg 1861w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-969x688.jpg 969w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1490x1058.jpg 1490w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1921x1364.jpg 1921w, https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/files\/2023\/03\/IMG_9999-2-1409x1000.jpg 1409w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">Centers, institutes &amp; labs<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAdvancing Equity in Early Childhood Education\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar js-block-editorial-metabar news-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">March 28, 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/news\/authors\/finn-gardiner\/\">Finn Gardiner<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p>An expert in early childhood education policy and practice,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/profile\/kyle-demeo-cook\/\">Kyle DeMeo Cook<\/a>&nbsp;has years of experience studying early education programs across the country. Cook, a senior research scientist at the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu-ceed.org\/\">Center on the Ecology of Early Development<\/a>&nbsp;(CEED) is the project director of the Multnomah County Preschool for All Research &amp; Evaluation Partnership, which investigates the implementation of a universal prekindergarten program in an Oregon county.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We talked to Cook, who joined CEED in 2022, about her work and how it will benefit early childhood education.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a news-block-editorial-q-and-a has-secondary-theme\"><div class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title\"><h2 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title-heading\">Q<span>&amp;<\/span>A<\/h2><h4 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-title-subheading\"><\/h4><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Question:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>You have extensive experience doing research on early childhood policy, early education and childcare, and so on. What brought you to BU to do this research?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">DeMeo Cook:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">CEED is doing really interesting work in early childhood policy with a focus on equity, and that\u2019s what drew me to join CEED and BU. I\u2019m the project director for an exciting&nbsp;project\u2014the Multnomah County Preschool for All Research &amp; Evaluation Partnership\u2014and am working closely with the principal investigator,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wheelock\/profile\/stephanie-curenton\">Stephanie Curenton<\/a>. We\u2019re working with a county in Oregon that\u2019s starting a new&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.multco.us\/preschool\">universal free preschool program<\/a>, called Preschool for All, for all three- and four-year-olds in the county.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Question:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>What are some of your research interests and how do they inform your current work at CEED?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">DeMeo Cook:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">I\u2019m interested in early childhood education because it has the potential to set children and families up for success in school and in life. We have decades and decades of research about the importance of early learning experiences for children and their families, and the supports they need in the early years. Some of my work goes as far back as infancy and the toddler years, and thinking about supports really young, all the way up to the transition to kindergarten and the early years of elementary school.<br><br>I\u2019ve worked with school districts and local communities, as well as states, on PreK research and evaluations. For example, I worked with Somerville Public Schools in Massachusetts to better understand how families make decisions around early education and care in the community. I\u2019ve also done some research with the state of Vermont as they\u2019ve been rolling out their universal preschool program in their state, too. That informs the work that I\u2019m doing in Multnomah County now for CEED.&nbsp;<br><br><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Question:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>What other experiences have you had that connect to your work today?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">DeMeo Cook:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">Before I worked in research, I worked in policy advocacy with a focus on grassroots support for early childhood education policies across the state of Massachusetts.<br><br>I had thought I\u2019d be a teacher before I realized that working from a systems level was where my interests were. I started as an elementary education major in college and worked as a teaching assistant in an early education program throughout college. I have stayed connected to the classroom level by serving as a volunteer and board member for early education programs.&nbsp;<br><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-question\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">Question:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\"><strong>How does your work advance equity and inclusion, including racial justice and socioeconomic justice?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-answer\"><span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-name\">DeMeo Cook:<\/span> <span class=\"wp-block-editorial-q-and-a-content\">A lot of my research has been thinking broadly about access to preschool and early learning opportunities\u2014making sure there\u2019s equitable access and that families can access the resources and learning opportunities that they need within their communities. That\u2019s a universal perspective. I\u2019ve also done work to support families with low incomes, especially families that attend Head Start. I have a whole set of work on the transition to kindergarten from Head Start. I also have work on the experiences of families who are in the two-generation Early Head Start program\u2014which focuses on infants and toddlers. We need to have universal equitable access, but we also need to support the unique needs of specific children and families.<br><br>CEED is very focused on equitable access to these experiences from a racial-equity perspective, making sure that families and children are getting equitable experiences during the early years. That was a big draw for me as far as coming to CEED, to get an opportunity to really think about these early experiences and opportunities and make sure an equity perspective is embedded in all the work we do.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An expert in early childhood education policy and practice,&nbsp;Kyle DeMeo Cook&nbsp;has years of experience studying early education programs across the country. Cook, a senior research scientist at the&nbsp;Center on the Ecology of Early Development&nbsp;(CEED) is the project director of the Multnomah County Preschool for All Research &amp; Evaluation Partnership, which investigates the implementation of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9274,"featured_media":67698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"Centers, institutes & labs","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[6818],"bu-publication":[6614],"magazine-article-category":[],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[6661,6753,6648,6647,6646],"news-topic":[6789],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67268"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70548,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67268\/revisions\/70548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=67268"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-kayla.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=67268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}