Virginia’s Federal Preschool Development Grant Birth-5

  • Research Project

What We Do

In December 2018, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) received a federal Preschool Development Birth through Five Initial Grant Award (PDG B-5). In partnership with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF) and researchers at UVA, VDOE began a set of efforts to improve early childhood opportunities at scale. In January 2020, VDOE received a three-year PDG B-5 Renewal Award to continue this work.

The SEE-Partnerships team at UVA leads three main research activities to evaluate and inform Virginia’s PDG B-5 efforts. First, we regularly field large-scale workforce surveys of early educators in family child care homes, child care centers, Head Start, and pre-k programs participating in the PDG. Second, we administer surveys of parents and guardians to learn about families’ experiences in accessing ECE programs for their children.

Finally, we are currently evaluating Virginia’s Recognition Program for early educators. We are conducting the first ever randomized controlled trial measuring the impacts of financial supports for early educators on reducing turnover.

SEE-Partnerships

For more information, visit the full SEE-Partnerships website.

Project Team

Daphna Bassok

Daphna Bassok

  • Professor of Education and Public Policy
  • Associate Director, EdPolicyWorks
Hannah Denker

Hannah Denker

  • Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Molly Michie

Molly Michie

  • Research Specialist

Kennedy Weisner

  • Early Childhood Education - Research Specialist

Project News

Related Centers

  • VPPC
  • Research Lab

Virginia Policy Partnership Collaborative

The Virginia Policy Partnership Collaborative is an effort aimed at connecting researchers and students at the University of Virginia with education policymakers to address pressing education problems in the Commonwealth through careful research. 

  • EPW
  • Research Center

EdPolicyWorks

EdPolicyWorks is a joint collaboration between the School of Education and Human Development and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy that seeks to bring together researchers from across the University of Virginia and the State to focus on important questions of educational policy and the competitiveness of labor in an era of globalization. 

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