John Fantuzzo is the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the Faculty Director of the Penn Child Research Center. [1] [2]
He is a recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Involvement Award [3] and the National Head Start Research Mentor Award. [1]
Fantuzzo has been a faculty member at Penn since 1988, where he has worked extensively with the School District of Philadelphia's early childhood education programs. [1] Fantuzzo's research and work focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of school- and community-based strategies that benefit low-income children in high-risk urban settings. [4] He has conducted multiple studies, some with the National Head Start Program, that research the effect of community and family violence on school readiness, the influence of social/emotional adjustment problems on educational success, and early childhood education. [1] [5] [6]
Fantuzzo worked on the development of integrated citywide databases for agencies that serve young children, such as the Kids Integrated Data System or KIDS database, a Philadelphia-area database that is one of the only municipal databases of its kind. [7] Fantuzzo is also a principal investigator of EPIC, or Evidence-Based Program for the Integration of Curricula, a Head Start program for disadvantage and at-risk preschoolers. EPIC integrates social, emotional, and cognitive supports with literacy and numeracy education and is being implemented at several preschools in Philadelphia. [8] Fantuzzo also serves on the editorial boards of research journals in education and early childhood, including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Early Childhood Research Quarterly , and School Psychology Review. [1]
In 2009 Fantuzzo presented the Albert M. Greenfield Memorial Lecture, a review of research findings titled "The Educational Well-Being of African American Boys: A Philadelphia Story of Challenges and Possibilities." [1]
Fantuzzo holds a B.A. in psychology from Marietta College (1974), an M.A. in theology from the Fuller Theological Seminary (1976), and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology (1980). In 1990, Fantuzzo received an honorary M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. [1]
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th century in Germany, Bavaria and Alsace to serve children whose parents both worked outside home. The term was coined by German pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel, whose approach globally influenced early-years education. Today, the term is used in many countries to describe a variety of educational institutions and learning spaces for children ranging from two to six years of age, based on a variety of teaching methods.
A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school. It may be publicly or privately operated, and may be subsidized from public funds.
Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equivalent of third grade. ECE is described as an important period in child development.
The Perelman School of Medicine, commonly known as Penn Med, is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1765, the Perelman School of Medicine is the oldest medical school in the United States and one of the seven Ivy League medical schools.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is a large nonprofit association in the United States representing early childhood education teachers, para-educators, center directors, trainers, college educators, families of young children, policy makers, and advocates. NAEYC is focused on improving the well-being of young children, with particular emphasis on the quality of educational and developmental services for children from birth through age 8.
David P. Weikart was an American psychologist and founder of the HighScope Curriculum, an early childhood education program.
Logan Square is a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Bounded by Market Street on the south, Spring Garden Street on the north, Broad Street on the east, and the Schuylkill River on the west, it occupies the northwestern quadrant of Center City. The square for which it is named is one of the five squares central to William Penn's design for Philadelphia. Originally called Northwest Square, it was renamed in honor of James Logan, an 18th-century mayor of Philadelphia.
Andrew Calvin "Andy" Porter, Ph.D. is the former Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and also serves as Penn GSE's George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education. Porter is an educational psychologist and psychometrician who has made significant contributions to education policy and has published widely on educational assessment and accountability, teacher decisions on content and how curriculum policy effects those decisions, opportunities for students to learn and achievement indicators, measuring content and standards alignment, teacher professional development, educational research methodology, and leadership assessment. Porter's current work centers on the VAL-ED project, a research-based evaluation tool that measures the effectiveness of school leaders by providing a detailed assessment of a principal's performance funded by the US Department of Education/IES. Porter also works on two projects funded by the National Science Foundation that focus on the effects of teacher professional development on improving teaching and learning.
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, commonly known as Penn GSE, is an Ivy League top-ranked educational research school in the United States. Formally established as a department in 1893 and a school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1915, Penn GSE has historically had research strengths in teaching and learning, the cultural contexts of education, language education, quantitative research methods, and practitioner inquiry. Pam Grossman is the current dean of Penn GSE; she succeeded Andrew C. Porter in 2015.
Compensatory education offers supplementary programs or services designed to help children at risk of cognitive impairment and low educational achievement succeed.
Susan Neuman is an educator, researcher, and education policy-maker in early childhood and literacy development. In 2013, she became Professor of Early Childhood and Literacy Education, and Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Susan Harriet Fuhrman is an American education policy scholar and served from 2006 as the first female president of Teachers College, Columbia University. Fuhrman earned her doctorate in Political Science and Education from Columbia University. She became very engaged in issues of educational equity and emerged as an authority on school reform. Fuhrman is known for her early and ongoing critical analysis of the standards movement and for her efforts to foster research that provides a scientific basis for effective teaching.
Douglas E. Lynch is an academic administrator and education entrepreneur who has made significant contributions to education innovation and also sparked controversy.
Yasmin B. Kafai is a German American academic who is Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, with a secondary appointment in Computer and Information Sciences at University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. She is a past president of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS), and an executive editor of the Journal of the Learning Sciences.
The College of Education is one of 15 colleges at The Pennsylvania State University, located in University Park, PA. It houses the departments of Curriculum and Instruction, Education Policy Studies, Learning and Performance Systems, and Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education. Almost 2,300 undergraduate students, and nearly 1,000 graduate students are enrolled in its 7 undergraduate and 16 graduate degree programs. The college is housed in four buildings: Chambers, Rackley, Keller, and CEDAR Buildings.
Daniel A. Wagner is the UNESCO Chair in Learning and Literacy, and professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, where his research specializes in learning, literacy, child development, educational technologies, and international educational development. He is founding director (1983) of Penn’s Literacy Research Center and the federally funded National Center on Adult Literacy (1990). In recent years, the center has become the International Literacy Institute (ILI), co-established by UNESCO and the University of Pennsylvania. Wagner is also the director of Penn’s International Educational Development Program (IEDP) and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. He is the author numerous books and articles on learning, literacy, cross-cultural research and methodologies, and is a frequent speaker at major national and international conferences across the world. He has worked as an advisor to, among others, the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, USAID, and DFID. In 2012, Wagner was appointed by Hillary Clinton as a Member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. In the same year, he was named UNESCO Chair in Learning and Literacy. In 2012-2014, he served as Chair of the Brookings Global Research Task Force on Learning. In 2014, he was a recipient of the UNESCO Confucius International Literacy Prize. He has maintained multi-year educational projects in India, South Africa, and Morocco.
Early childhood education in the United States relates to the teaching of children from birth up to the age of eight. The education services are delivered via preschools and kindergartens.
Mark T. Greenberg is the emeritus holder of The Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Research in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development, and founding director of the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the chair of CREATE for Education, a non-profit organization that promotes caring and compassion in education.
Vivian Lynette Gadsden is an American psychologist who is an education researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers the social and cultural factors that affect learning and literacy. She is interested in intergenerational learning within African-American families.
Geraldine McDonald was a New Zealand academic and teacher. She was a pioneer of research into women's education and early childhood education, and advocated for women and girls throughout her life. After an early teaching career, she completed her doctoral thesis on the development of preschool-aged Māori children, and began working for the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Throughout her later career she ran and chaired various organisations including the New Zealand Mental Health Foundation and the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, and was influential in government policy on early childhood education.