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A young child spends weekdays with her grandmother down the street while her parents work. Another attends an unlicensed day care center run by a neighbor. A third is with his stay-at-home dad. A fourth is cared for by a private nanny in the comfort of her own house.

Researchers have long studied how small children grow and learn in formal, high-quality preschool programs, and have found that they develop better language, math, and literacy skills as well as stronger social and emotional connections than those who don’t attend.

Yet little is known about the children who are looked after under informal arrangements involving neighbors, relatives, friends, or nannies, even though these cover 40 percent of children in Massachusetts.

Two Harvard researchers are working to figure that out.

Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) professors Nonie Lesaux and Stephanie Jones , both developmental psychologists, are launching an ambitious study to follow 5,000 children, ages 3 and 4, for four years. The study will track some students before and after their elementary school years, and perhaps into adulthood. The cohort, recruited from 168 communities, is designed to reflect the changing demographics of children across the state.

Through the Early Learning Study at Harvard , Lesaux and Jones aim to update the science around child care by examining the links between children’s development and the characteristics of the educational and care settings where they spend their formative years, be those relatives’ homes or unlicensed daycare centers or, for comparison, local Head Starts and Montessori preschools.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions that parents, communities, policymakers, and school districts are grappling with,” said Lesaux, the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society and the School’s academic dean. “And we don’t have enough specific information to drive 21st-century policy in early education.”

HGSE professors Nonie Lesaux (left) and Stephanie Jones, leaders of the Early Learning Study at Harvard, recently spoke at a seminar on early education and stress.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

“Our body of evidence is outdated. … And what’s missing is the settings described as informal or non-licensed that are offered outside the formal centers. We just don’t know very much about them.” Stephanie Jones

The researchers want to know how those environments affect children’s learning skills and development. Researchers also hope to find out whether children’s learning varies by groupings, and what features of early schooling help support or undermine them.

“Our body of evidence is outdated,” said Jones, a professor of education. “It’s based on studies from the 1960s, primarily. It also focuses primarily on the center-based, licensed, formal early education offerings. And what’s missing is the settings described as informal or non-licensed that are offered outside the formal centers. We just don’t know very much about them.”

Unprecedented scope

In early childhood education, the most influential research includes the Perry Preschool Study , conducted in the mid-1960s at a Michigan preschool, and the Abecedarian Project , conducted in the 1970s in North Carolina. Both studies, which followed children into their adult years, found that the children who received preschool education thrived more than those who did not. The preschool children earned more money, were more law-abiding, were more likely to graduate from high school, and even were healthier.

Conducted by the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Ed School, the new Harvard study is designed to be groundbreaking in scope and unprecedented in reach, said Lesaux.

For the first time, researchers will study informal care settings and link their features to children’s social and emotional development. The researchers plan to connect what they learn about early math, literacy, and language skills with data that reflect today’s populations and current settings. A 2016 study , supported by the U.S. Department of Education, examined the quality of informal preschool settings versus formal settings, but used decade-old data.

Earlier studies showed that children who spend more time in daycare centers make advances in language and cognitive skills, but, depending on the number of hours and the characteristics of the settings, may also develop more behavioral problems than children who spend fewer hours there.

A recent study led by  Dana Charles McCoy  at  HGSE  analyzed 22 studies on early childhood education published between 1960 and 2016 and found that the benefits of early childhood education have lasting effects. The study concluded that those who went to preschool were less likely to be placed in special education classes and be required to repeat a grade, and more likely to graduate from high school.

In the new study, researchers will assess children’s progress in language, early math, and literacy skills, but also their social, emotional, neurophysiological, and cognitive development by examining their interactions with other children and their relationships with adults in their lives. Lesaux and Jones hope the Early Learning Study eventually will have an impact on national educational policy.

“It certainly has the potential to change the national conversation about early education,” said Lesaux. “It will be the first look, statewide, at both children and the variety of early education settings.”

The researchers also hope to learn why some advances from early education persist for children while others fade in the first years of elementary school.

“A lot of the focus of other studies is the fadeout of academic skills,” said Tara Chiatovich, the Zaentz Initiative’s research scientist and the study’s manager. “We want to see what happens with gains in social and emotional development, which may tend to persist over time more than academic skills. We also want to see where those gains are maintained or undermined in the early years of elementary school.”

Research suggests that high-quality early education makes an important difference in children’s lives, but only a minority of them benefit from it. Of the 60 percent enrolled in some form of preschool nationwide, only 20 percent attend what would be considered a high-quality program. The features of high-quality early schooling include small group sizes, low adult-to-child ratios, and caregiver competencies.

“Children only get one start. Pay now or pay later.” Nonie Lesaux

“Many families don’t have access to a high-quality early education experience for their child,” said Jones. “And we know from decades of research that what really impacts outcomes for children is exposure to high quality. It’s meant to level the playing field, and we’re not there yet.”

The 2006 Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found a strong correlation between higher-quality child care and school readiness. Children in high-quality settings were found to have broader vocabularies, coupled with stronger language and early math skills. They also generally were more cooperative than peers in low-quality preschool programs.

High-quality early education is especially important for children from vulnerable populations, said Lesaux and Jones. Stress and adversity affect children’s learning. Research has shown that children from low-income families benefit the most from high-quality early education, and yet the movement toward universal high-quality preschool has been an uphill battle nationally.

“It has been hard to build the political will to fund high-quality preschool experiences,” said Lesaux. “As a country, we’re not in agreement that it’s worth the investment.”

Field worker Yvonne Illich is helping to recruit families to participate in the Early Learning Study. Her pitch? “I tell them they can see how their child is growing and developing.”

Already in the works

The new study has begun a household survey of parents across Massachusetts to recruit children and families. On a recent afternoon, Yvonne Illich, a field worker with Abt Associates, a research firm partnering with Harvard to conduct the study, took a break from knocking on doors in Lexington, one of her designated work areas.

“Parents ask me, ‘What’s in it for my child?,’ ‘What’s in it for my family?’ ” said Illich. “I tell them they can see how their child is growing and developing. Parents want to make sure their children are having the best jump-start in life.”

In addition to launching an academy for professional learning in early childhood education to hone policymakers and practitioners’ expertise, the Zaentz initiative has begun a fellowship program to build a new pipeline of leaders in the field.

Lesaux and Jones hope that the study’s eventual findings will shift the needle in the debate on universal high-quality preschool. With the number of working families growing nationally, child care is a necessity, said Jones, and having more and better options is important.

“We can ignore these opportunities, or we can invest and do something about it by working on quality,” Jones said. “Whether it’s worth it is not the question; it’s how to maximize it.”

By helping to strengthen early education nationally, the study also could help to strengthen families and society in general, said Lesaux.

“In a high-quality preschool, kids are emotionally more regulated, they do better by their behavior, they bring more to interactions with adults, and adults feel good about both working and knowing that their child is safe and healthy,” said Lesaux.

“Children only get one start,” she added. “Pay now or pay later. We don’t need any more data in this country about the effects of a lousy education on the life of an individual and the life of a community and the strength of the society.”

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The Zaentz Professional Learning Academy — part of HGSE’s groundbreaking Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative — gives early educators the knowledge, tactics, and networks they need to support and sustain a flourishing early learning environment for young children. The Certificate in Early Education Leadership (CEEL) is one cornerstone — a visionary, job-embedded, online certificate program that supports the learning and development of early education leaders so they can strengthen their impact and expand their professional reach.

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New research finds that pandemic learning loss impacted whole communities, regardless of student race or income.

Analysis of prior decade shows that learning loss will become permanent if schools and parents do not expand learning time this summer and next year

(May 11, 2023) – Today, The Education Recovery Scorecard , a collaboration with researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University (CEPR) and Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project, released 12 new state reports and a research brief to provide the most comprehensive picture yet of how the pandemic affected student learning. Building on their previous work, their findings reveal how school closures and local conditions exacerbated inequality between communities — and how little time school leaders have to help students catch up.

The research team reviewed data from 8,000 communities in 40 states and Washington, D.C., including 2022 NAEP scores and Spring 2022 assessments, COVID death rates, voting rates and trust in government, patterns of social activity and survey data from Facebook/Meta on family activities and mental health during the pandemic.

They found that where children lived during the pandemic mattered more to their academic progress than their family background, income, or internet speed.  Moreover, after studying instances where test scores rose or fell in the decade before the pandemic, the researchers found that the impacts lingered for years. 

“Children have resumed learning, but largely at the same pace as before the pandemic. There’s no hurrying up teaching fractions or the Pythagorean theorem,” said CEPR faculty director Thomas Kane. “The hardest hit communities—like Richmond, VA, St. Louis, MO, and New Haven, CT, where students fell behind by more than 1.5 years in math—would have to teach 150 percent of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row—just to catch up. That is simply not going to happen without a major increase in instructional time.  Any district that lost more than a year of learning should be required to revisit their recovery plans and add instructional time—summer school, extended school year, tutoring, etc.—so that students are made whole. ”

“It’s not readily visible to parents when their children have fallen behind earlier cohorts, but the data from 7,800 school districts show clearly that this is the case,” said Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality, Stanford Graduate School of Education. “The educational impacts of the pandemic were not only historically large, but were disproportionately visited on communities with many low-income and minority students. Our research shows that schools were far from the only cause of decreased learning—the pandemic affected children through many ways – but they are the institution best suited to remedy the unequal impacts of the pandemic.”

The new research includes:

• A research brief that offers insights into why students in some communities fared worse than others.
• An update to the Education Recovery Scorecard, including data from 12 additional states whose 2022 scores were not available in October. The project now includes a district-level view of the pandemic’s effects in 40 states (plus DC).
• A new interactive map  that highlights examples of inequity between neighboring school districts.

Among the key findings:

• Within the typical school district, the declines in test scores were similar for all groups of students, rich and poor, white, Black, Hispanic. And the extent to which schools were closed appears to have had the same effect on all students in a community, regardless of income or race.
• Test scores declined more in places where the COVID death rate was higher, in communities where adults reported feeling more depression and anxiety during the pandemic, and where daily routines of families were most significantly restricted. This is true even in places where schools closed only very briefly at the start of the pandemic.
• Test score declines were smaller in communities with high voting rates and high Census response rates—indicators of what sociologists call “institutional trust.” Moreover, remote learning was less harmful in such places. Living in a community where more people trusted the government appears to have been an asset to children during the pandemic.
• The average U.S. public school student in grades 3-8 lost the equivalent of a half year of learning in math and a quarter of a year in reading.

The researchers also looked at data from the decade prior to the pandemic to see how students bounced back after significant learning loss due to disruption in their schooling. The evidence shows that schools do not naturally bounce back: Affected students recovered 20-30% of the lost ground in the first year, but then made no further recovery in the subsequent 3-4 years.  

“Schools were not the sole cause of achievement losses,” Kane said. “Nor will they be the sole solution. As enticing as it might be to get back to normal, doing so will just leave the devastating increase in inequality caused by the pandemic in place.   We must create learning opportunities for students outside of the normal school calendar, by adding academic content to summer camps and after-school programs and adding an optional 13th year of schooling.”

The Education Recovery Scorecard is supported by funds from Citadel founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin , Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Walton Family Foundation.

About the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeks to transform education through quality research and evidence. CEPR and its partners believe all students will learn and thrive when education leaders make decisions using facts and findings, rather than untested assumptions. Learn more at cepr.harvard.edu.

Contact: Jeff Frantz, [email protected] , 614-204-7438 (mobile)

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University News | 4.25.2024

Education School Announces Interim Dean

Nonie lesaux will serve as dean during the search for a new one..

Nonie Lesaux | PHOTOGRAPH BY KRIS SNIBBE/HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Thursday morning , the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) announced that Larsen professor of education and human development Nonie Lesaux will serve as interim dean when Dean Bridget Long steps down at the end of the academic year . Lesaux, who studies youth literacy, will serve as HGSE’s dean while the school conducts a formal search for its next dean.

At HGSE, Lesaux co-directs the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative, which researches ideal early learning environments. From 2017-2021, she served as HGSE’s academic dean, and she has previously served on search committees for both the HGSE and the University, including on the search committee that selected Bridget Long .

In an email to HGSE community members announcing Lesaux’s new post, Interim President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning also named the members of the committee who will lead the search for a permanent dean:

• Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, Simon professor in education, management, and organizational behavior
• Emma Dench, Dean of Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• Amy Edmondson, Novartis professor of leadership and management (HBS)
• Andrew Ho, Eliot professor of education
• James Kim, professor of education
• Jeffrey Liebman, Scrivner professor of social policy
• Karen Mapp, professor of practice
• Amanda Pallais, Waggoner professor of economics (FAS)
• Meredith Rowe. Zaentz professor of early learning and development
• Adriana Umaña Taylor, Lawrence-Lightfoot professor of education
• Paola Uccelli, professor of education
• Rick Weissbourd, senior lecturer on education
• Marty West, Academic Dean of HGSE

Comments can be sent to the search committee via email ( [email protected] ), postal mail (Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, Attention: HGSE Dean Search), or online form .

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What Can You Do With a Master’s in Elementary Education?

Master’s programs, no matter the area of study, provide candidates with in-depth skills, knowledge, and experience that undergraduate degrees simply don’t have time for to take on advanced roles and responsibilities and even obtain higher salaries.

Graduate degrees in education are no different, as these programs provide teachers with the advanced knowledge needed to take on administrative leadership roles and cultivate expertise in a specific area of study. In fact, many career educators credit their master’s program for providing the knowledge, skills, and relationships they need to create the education career of their dreams.

More specifically, a master’s degree  in Elementary Education prepares students for careers and positions as expert elementary school teachers.

Below, we’ll discuss what you can expect from an Elementary Education master’s degree and answer the question, ‘What can you do with a master’s in Elementary Education?”

What is a master’s in Elementary Education?

A master’s in Elementary Education degree gives candidates the knowledge they need to successfully teach in elementary classrooms and elementary school subjects such as literacy, mathematics, social studies, and science. This degree also makes sure graduates can successfully manage elementary classrooms (first through sixth grade).

Students gain extensive knowledge about teaching these elementary subjects, and some programs even offer tuition-paid internships , giving students the hands-on experience they need to become effective teachers.

Furthermore, this graduate degree is ideal for those who are interested in sitting for the ETS Praxis II Elementary Education test and the Foundations of Reading Test, both of which are requirements for prospective elementary school teachers in Connecticut.

Students can typically earn their master’s in Elementary Education in two years , though many schools, like University of Bridgeport, offer fast-track options where students can complete their degrees in as few as twelve months.

What classes do you take in an Elementary Education master’s degree program?

Every university’s Elementary Education master’s degree program’s course load and curriculum will vary, so students should research to know what will be expected of them.

Students in these programs take courses that give them knowledge and skills in various subject areas. They will need to develop skills in assessment, child and early adolescent development, curriculum design, practical applications, and teaching methodologies.

More specifically, students can expect to take :

• A minimum of thirty-nine semester hours in general academic courses, including natural sciences, social studies, fine arts, English, mathematics, and foreign language
• At least fifteen hours in Typical and Atypical Development, Psychology of Learning, and Family Studies
• Classes in curriculum building, strategizing, and developing appropriate practices for teaching subject areas to primary-grade students.
• Coursework in the Foundations of Education, such as Philosophy of Education, Comparative Education, or History of Education
• Special education courses

Ready to inspire the next generation? Explore how a Master’s in Elementary Education can elevate your teaching career.

Career opportunities with a master’s in elementary education.

Master’s in Elementary Education degrees are extremely worthwhile . They allow candidates to obtain their certification, become better job candidates, have increased job mobility, and receive advanced pedagogical training.

These benefits also allow graduates to pursue a variety of roles and positions in elementary schools and administration.

Elementary school teacher

Master’s degree holders looking to be elementary school teachers can expect a high starting salary as they’ll have developed specialized expertise in the education of elementary school-aged children.

Elementary school teachers earn an average of $61,690 per year. However, master’s degree holders are likely to earn more than the national average. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest ten percent of elementary school teachers earned more than $101,310.

Elementary school principal

Elementary school principals oversee all school operations, including daily school activities such as:

• Assess and prepare reports on test scores and other student achievement data
• Establish and coordinate security procedures for students, staff, and visitors
• Establish and oversee class schedules
• Develop, implement, and maintain curriculum standards
• Counsel and discipline students
• Manage school activities and staff, including teachers and support personnel
• Manage the school’s budget, order school supplies, and schedule maintenance
• Meet with parents and teachers to discuss student’s progress and behavior
• Observe teachers and evaluate their performance
• Organize professional development programs and workshops for staff

The median annual wage for elementary, middle, and high school principals is $101,320, with the highest ten percent earning more than $158,770.

Instructional coordinator

Instructional coordinators oversee school curricula and teaching standards. They create, implement, and assess curricula on a school- or even district-wide level.

This role provides essential support for secondary educators and has a direct impact on the future of what and how students are taught. As such, most instructional coordinators work in elementary and secondary schools, colleges, professional schools, educational support services, or state and local governments.

The median annual wage for instructional coordinators is $66,490, with the highest 10 percent earning more than $105,210.

Elementary school counselor

School counselors help students develop academic and social skills. They also help students through challenging times, help mediate problems, and address specific concerns or issues.

Working as an elementary school counselor is an excellent option for candidates who do not want to teach a particular subject and want to earn an Elementary Education master’s degree.

The median annual wage for school and career counselors and advisors is $60,140, with the highest ten percent making more than $98,530.

What can you do with an Elementary Education degree from University of Bridgeport?

So, what can you do with an Elementary Education degree?

A lot, it turns out, especially if you seek out a master’s in Elementary Education degree from an accredited, reputable, and diverse school of education program , like ours at University of Bridgeport.

University of Bridgeport is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) and the Connecticut Office of Higher Education. Plus, our School of Education is accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).

If you are ready to further your education and career as an elementary school educator, apply for our master’s in Elementary Education degree today . Or contact us for more information .

We can’t wait to help you in this program and your career!

New Data Reveal How Many Students Are Using AI to Cheat

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AI-fueled cheating—and how to stop students from doing it—has become a major concern for educators.

But how prevalent is it? Newly released data from a popular plagiarism-detection company is shedding some light on the problem.

And it may not be as bad as educators think it is.

Of the more than 200 million writing assignments reviewed by Turnitin’s AI detection tool over the past year, some AI use was detected in about 1 out of 10 assignments, while only 3 out of every 100 assignments were generated mostly by AI.

These numbers have not changed much from when Turnitin released data in August of 2023 about the first three months of the use of its detection tool, said the company’s chief product officer, Annie Chechitelli.

“We hit a steady state, and it hasn’t changed dramatically since then,” she said. “There are students who are leaning on AI too much. But it’s not pervasive. It wasn’t this, ‘the sky is falling.’”

The fact that the number of students using AI to complete their schoolwork hasn’t skyrocketed in the past year dovetails with survey findings from Stanford University that were released in December. Researchers there polled students in 40 different high schools and found that the percentage of students who admitted to cheating has remained flat since the advent of ChatGPT and other readily available generative AI tools. For years before the release of ChatGPT, between 60 and 70 percent of students admitted to cheating, and that remained the same in the 2023 surveys, the researchers said.

Turnitin’s latest data release shows that in 11 percent of assignments run through its AI detection tool that at least 20 percent of each assignment had evidence of AI use in the writing. In 3 percent of the assignments, each assignment was made up of 80 percent or more of AI writing, which tracks closely with what the company was seeing just 3 months after it launched its AI detection tool .

Experts warn against fixating on cheating and plagiarism

However, a separate survey of educators has found that AI detection tools are becoming more popular with teachers, a trend that worries some experts.

The survey of middle and high school teachers by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit focused on technology policy and consumer rights, found that 68 percent have used an AI detection tool, up substantially from the previous year. Teachers also reported in the same survey that students are increasingly getting in trouble for using AI to complete assignments. In the 2023-24 school year, 63 percent of teachers said students had gotten in trouble for being accused of using generative AI in their schoolwork, up from 48 percent last school year.

Despite scant evidence that AI is fueling a wave in cheating, half of teachers reported in the Center for Democracy and Technology survey that generative AI has made them more distrustful that their students are turning in original work.

Some experts warn that fixating on plagiarism and cheating is the wrong focus.

This creates an environment where students are afraid to talk with their teachers about AI tools because they might get in trouble, said Tara Nattrass, the managing director of innovation and strategy at ISTE+ASCD, a nonprofit that offers content and professional development on educational technology and curriculum.

“We need to reframe the conversation and engage with students around the ways in which AI can support them in their learning and the ways in which it may be detrimental to their learning,” she said in an email to Education Week. “We want students to know that activities like using AI to write essays and pass them off as their own is harmful to their learning while using AI to break down difficult topics to strengthen understanding can help them in their learning.”

Shift the focus to teaching AI literacy, crafting better policies

Students said in the Stanford survey that is generally how they think AI should be used: as an aid to understanding concepts rather than a fancy plagiarism tool.

Nattrass said schools should be teaching AI literacy while including students in drafting clear AI guidelines.

Nattrass also recommends against schools using AI detection tools. They are too unreliable to authenticate students’ work, she said, and false positives can be devastating to individual students and breed a larger environment of mistrust. Some research has found that AI detection tools are especially weak at identifying the original writing of English learners from AI-driven prose.

“Students are using AI and will continue to do so with or without educator guidance,” Nattrass said. “Teaching students about safe and ethical AI use is a part of our responsibility to help them become contributing digital citizens.”

AI detection software actually uses AI to function: these tools are trained on large amounts of machine- and human-created writing so that the software can ideally recognize differences between the two.

Turnitin claims that its AI detector is 99 percent accurate at determining whether a document was written with AI, specifically ChatGPT, as long as the document was composed with at least 20 percent of AI writing, according to the company’s website.

Chechitelli pointed out that no detector or test—whether it’s a fire alarm or medical test—is 100 percent accurate.

While she said teachers should not rely solely on AI detectors to determine if a student is using AI to cheat, she makes the case that detection tools can provide teachers with valuable data.

“It is not definitive proof,” she said. “It’s a signal that taken with other signals can be used to start a conversation with a student.”

As educators become more comfortable with generative AI, Chechitelli said she predicts the focus will shift from detection to transparency: how should students cite or communicate the ways they’ve used AI? When should educators encourage students to use AI in assignments? And do schools have clear policies around AI use and what, exactly, constitutes plagiarism or cheating?

“What the feedback we’re hearing now from students is: ‘I’m gonna use it. I would love a little bit more guidance on how and when so I don’t get in trouble,” but still use it to learn, Chechitelli said.

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Best Global Universities for Mechanical Engineering in Russia

These are the top universities in Russia for mechanical engineering, based on their reputation and research in the field. Read the methodology »

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Victor M. Mukhin was born in 1946 in the town of Orsk, Russia. In 1970 he graduated the Technological Institute in Leningrad. Victor M. Mukhin was directed to work to the scientific-industrial organization "Neorganika" (Elektrostal, Moscow region) where he is working during 47 years, at present as the head of the laboratory of carbon sorbents.     Victor M. Mukhin defended a Ph. D. thesis and a doctoral thesis at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (in 1979 and 1997 accordingly). Professor of Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia. Scientific interests: production, investigation and application of active carbons, technological and ecological carbon-adsorptive processes, environmental protection, production of ecologically clean food.   

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