Eliminating Achievement Gaps at Kindergarten Entry: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
Oct 25, 2013
The primary goal of Andy’s work is to identify, develop, and test new approaches to promote children’s school readiness. He worked on evaluation studies of Georgia’s universal pre-k program, the Virginia Quality Rating and Improvement System, the MyTeachingPartner pre-k teacher professional development program, and the Head Start Impact Study. He was an investigator on three federally-funded experimental studies testing the impacts of early interventions, including the Read it Again-Pre-K Curricular Supplement, the Minds in Motion fine motor skills program, and the WINGS social and emotional learning after-school program. He is currently involved in studies of the Multnomah County (Oregon) Early Kindergarten Transition Program, mindfulness training for early childhood educators (Gates Foundation), and mindfulness training for middle school teachers (WT Grant and Spencer Foundations). Andy is also interested in educational measurement, with a recent focus on observational methods to improve the reliability and validity of measures of preschool quality.
Andy is a Professor in Applied Developmental Psychology at Portland State University. He received a Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Georgia State University, a MS in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a BS in Psychology and Biology from the University of Alabama. Prior to coming to PSU, he was a Senior Research Scientist and Assistant Director of Research Methods at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the University of Virginia.