The Oklahoma Project

Beginning in 2001 researchers at Georgetown University have evaluated the effectiveness of the Tulsa Public Schools pre-K program, which serves four-year-old children, regardless of income. Oklahoma's pre-K program is of special interest to researchers and public officials because it serves a higher percentage of four year olds than any other pre-K program in the United States. Test data from August 2001 and August 2004 have been analyzed and reported (e.g., Science 2008, Journal of Human Resources, Summer 2005, Developmental Psychology, November 2005). The latest test data, from August 2006, includes pre-reading, pre-writing, and pre-math test scores from Tulsa Public Schools pre-K entrants and alumni, as well as test scores from the CAP of Tulsa County Head Start program entrants and alumni. In addition to the test scores, trained observers assessed the classroom quality and time allocation decisions of Tulsa Public Schools pre-K programs and CAP of Tulsa County Head Start programs in the spring of 2006. These data are being linked to teacher characteristics and to test outcomes. Socio-emotional assessments of kindergarten students, pre-K entrants, and Head Start entrants were also conducted, in October 2006.

Faculty

William T. Gormley, Co-Director

William T. Gormley, Jr. is University Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. (CROCUS) at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Bureaucracy and Democracy: Accountability and Performance (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004), with Steven Balla; Organizational Report Cards (Harvard University Press, 1999), with David Weimer; and Everybody's Children: Child Care as a Public Problem (Brookings Institution Press, 1995). His book, Taming the Bureaucracy: Muscles, Prayers, and Other Strategies (Princeton University Press, 1989), won the Louis Brownlow Best Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration.
Since 2001, Dr. Gormley has directed an evaluation of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program, focusing on the effectiveness of the Tulsa Public Schools pre-K program in promoting school readiness. Results of that evaluation have appeared in Science (June, 2008), the Policy Studies Journal (February 2005), the Journal of Human Resources (Summer 2005), and Developmental Psychology (November 2005).
Dr. Gormley helped to found Georgetown University's day care center, Hoya Kids, and has served as a member of the National Commission on Reinventing the NAEYC. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a past president of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association.

Curriculum Vitae

Deborah A. Phillips, Co-Director

Deborah Phillips, Ph.D., is currently Professor of Psychology and Associated Faculty in the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University. She is also Co-Director of the University's Research Center on Children in the U.S. Prior to this, she was the first Executive Director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council's Commission on Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. She also co-edited: From Neurons to Neighborhoods. The Science of Early Child Development and is now a member of the organization that was created to continue the work of Neurons to Neighborhoods: The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (based at Harvard University). Her research focuses on the developmental effects of early childhood programs, including both child care and pre-k settings. Current studies are focusing on how children who vary in temperament are differentially affected by child care experiences and on an evaluation of the Tulsa Oklahoma pre-k program as it affects both cognitive and social-emotional development. As a Congressional Science Fellow of the Society for Research in Child Development, Dr. Phillips served as an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office and on the personal staff of Congressman George Miller. She was a mid-career fellow at Yale University's Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, and Director of the Child Care Information Service of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She has served on numerous task forces and advisory groups, including the Carnegie Corporation's Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children and the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Phillips is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.

Curriculum Vitae

Sandra L. Calvert

Dr. Sandra Calvert, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, is the Director of the Children's Digital Media Center (CDMC), a multi-site interdisciplinary research Center funded by the National Science Foundation. The CDMC (http://cdmc.georgetown.edu) examines the impact of digital entertainment media on children's learning. She is also a member of the Center for Research on the Influences of Children in the United States (CROCUS).
Dr. Calvert is author of numerous empirical studies and book chapters as well as Children's Journeys through the Information Age (McGraw Hill, 1999), and Children in the Digital Age: Influences of Electronic Media on Development (co-editor, Praeger, 2002). She has served on two committees for the National Academies, leading to two committee co-authored books: Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity (The National Academies Press, 2006) and Youth, Pornography, and the Internet (The National Academies Press, 2002).
Dr. Calvert is a fellow of the American Psychological Association. She currently serves on advisory boards for Cable in the Classroom, PBS Kids Next Generation Media, and for the Ready to Learn Initiative at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She provides technical assistance to Congress in the development of the Children and Media Research Advancement Act (CAMRA). She has also consulted for Nickelodeon Online, Sesame Workplace, Blue's Clues, Out of the Blue Enterprises, Noggin, and Sega of America to influence the development of children's television programs, computer and Internet software, and video games.
Dr. Calvert received her doctorate in Developmental and Child Psychology from the University of Kansas.

Curriculum Vitae

Carolyn Hill

Carolyn Hill is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. She is also a Research Affiliate of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. She received her Ph.D. in 2001 from the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Hill's research interests focus on the design and management of publicly-supported programs, particularly those that serve poor or near-poor families. Her dissertation examined whether and why clients of some welfare-to-work offices fared better than clients at other offices. Current projects include analyses of government contracting with nonprofit organizations, collaboration among human service organizations, and how poverty is measured in the U.S. With Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., Hill recently published a book through the CQ Press, Public Management: A Three-Dimensional Approach. Also with Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. and Carolyn Heinrich, Hill published a book through the Georgetown University Press, Improving Governance: A New Logic for Empirical Research. In addition, she has co-authored studies with Howard Bloom and James Riccio on management, organizational characteristics, and performance in welfare-to-work programs. She is also conducting research on the long term effects of the Tulsa Pre-K program.

Curriculum Vitae

Donna Ruane Morrison

Donna Morrison, Associate Professor in the Public Policy Institute, was a Senior Research Associate at Child Trends prior to joining the Georgetown faculty. She is currently completing a NICHD study on how children fare in remarried and cohabiting unions following parental divorce. She has also studied the effects of risk factors to child development and the consequences of teen childbearing for young fathers and mothers. She also participated in an interdisciplinary evaluation of the parenting behavior of young mothers in poverty, known as the New Chance Demonstration project. Her work has appeared in such journals as the American Sociological Review, Demography, and the Journal of Marriage and the Family.

Rebecca Ryan

Dr. Ryan joined the Department of Psychology in August after completing a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies, a position she held since earning a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University. Her research explores the implications of the recent rise in nonmarital childbirth for young children's well-being as well as the relationship between parenting and children's development more generally. Both strains of research explore two fundamental influences on children's early environments: the quality of parent-child interactions and parents' ability to invest time and money in children's environments. Her recent work aims to identify the unique role fathers play in young children's development by assessing the quality and quantity of the time they spend interacting with children and the impact of their absence across family contexts. In addition to comparing parental inputs across married and unwed families, and mothers and fathers, Dr. Ryan studies how public policies can promote parenting quality and material investment within unwed families, such as programs to encourage unwed father involvement and provide child care subsidies. Her broad aim is to link developmental psychology to child and family policy in an effort to enrich both fields.

Jennifer L. Woolard

An assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, Jennifer L. Woolard obtained her Ph.D. in developmental and community psychology from the University of Virginia. She has written on several aspects of adolescent development in the family and legal contexts, including juvenile delinquency, mental health, and intimate violence. Her current research with juvenile defendants addresses police interrogation, the attorney-client relationship, and the role of parents in adolescents' legal decision making, among other topics. She also works with D.C. based Peaceoholics, Inc. to study community change and youth violence prevention. Her work on intimate violence includes research on stalking and attributions about domestic violence, as well as law and policy collaborations with state commissions, domestic violence shelters and sexual assault centers. Dr. Woolard has also published on the prevention of child abuse and neglect, policy regarding female delinquency, mental health needs of juvenile delinquents, and the overlap between child maltreatment and spouse abuse. She has presented her research findings to a wide variety of academic, legal, and policy audiences, and won several awards for undergraduate teaching excellence. Currently, she is a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching, and Service.

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Fellows

Shirley Adelstein is a Ph.D. student in the Government Department. She completed her M.P.P. degree in 2009. She received a B.A. in Individualized Study with a concentration in Social History from New York University in 2006. Her research interests include social and family policy and the politics of social issues pertaining to race, class, and gender.

Katy Willemin is a student in the joint M.P.P./M.B.A. program. She graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in History, and she worked at Abt Associates on evaluations of early childhood education programs before coming to Georgetown and to CROCUS.

Blair Goldstein graduated from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute with an MPP, and is a reasearcher at Resources for the Future. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked as a reporter for newspapers in the southeast before joining the CROCUS team.

Emily Holcombe completed her MPP degree in 2010. She received a B.A. in sociology and policy studies from Rice University in 2006. She is currently a fiscal analyst at the Congressional Budget Office

Angeles Gottheil received her B.A. from Georgetown University in May 2008. She lives in Yorba Linda, California, has two brothers, and loves to travel.

Marie O'Hara completed her MPP in Public Policy at Georgetown in May 2009. She is currently working for Achieve, Inc. in Washington, D.C. on secondary education reform issues, including raising state academic standards, improving assessments, and strengthening accountability to prepare all high school students for college and career-ready work.

Kathryn Newmark completed her MPP in Public Policy at Georgetown in May 2008 and is currently teaching math at the Chavez Prep Middle School in the District of Columbia.

Kate Perper completed her MPP in Public Policy at Georgetown in May 2008 and is currently working as a policy analyst for Child Trends in Washington, D.C.

Samantha A.S. Harvell received an MPP from Georgetown University and recently completed her Ph.D. in Psychology at Georgetown. She will be spending the 2008-09 academic year as an SRCD congressional fellow. Sam received a BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia in 2002. She works on public safety performance issues for the Pew Center on the States.

Dan Cullinan served as the Data Manager for CROCUS from September 2006 through April 2008. He is currently a policy analyst at the Manpower Development Research Corporation in New york City. He received a B.A. from the University of Mary Washington and an M.A. in Economics from Virginia Commonwealth University. His interests include poverty and intergenerational mobility.

Mireya Almazan is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI), who specialized in International Policy and Development. She received a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University. She is especially interested in the application of business methods to improve underperforming public sector initiatives, especially as they pertain to child welfare and poverty alleviation. She is currently a research analyst for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she works on financial services for the poor.

Joy Chen is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI), who specialized in International Policy and Development. She studied sociology at the University of Chicago and is especially interested in international education and development. She is currently working as a tax analyst for New York City's Department of Finance.

Helen Cymrot is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI) in the Education, Family and Social Policy Track. She spent three years teaching high school, most recently at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School in D.C.. During her time a Georgetown, Helen worked on the legislative staff of Senator Mary Landrieu, focusing on health, education, and childrens' issues. She graduated from Brown University in 1999 with a BA in Public Policy and Education. She is currently working for a family business.

Deanna Ford is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI), who specialized in International Policy and Development. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Economics and a certificate in Latin American Studies. She is particularly interested in the implications of early childhood development for economic development internationally. She is currrently the director and co-founder of Nica HOPE, a nonprofit organization that seeks to create sustainable and long-term solutions to entrenched poverty in Central America's poorest country.

Bonnie Gordic is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute specializing in Education, Family and Social Policy. She completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Yale University. Her research interests include: early childhood intervention, poverty and family support programs. She is currently working for Fair Chance, a nonprofit organization.

Leah Hendey is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute with a concentration in the Education, Family and Social Policy. She is currently working as a research associate in the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center. Leah's policy interests are in child and family well-being and urban issues. She grew up in Columbus, Ohio and earned her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Public Policy from the University of Notre Dame in 2003.

Alexis Kaigler graduated from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in Spring 2004 after specializing in the Education, Family, and Social Policy track. She received a Masters of Public Policy degree. She is particularly interested in issues related to children living in poverty. After graduation, Alexis accepted a position with the Department of Health and Human Service's Emerging Leaders Program. She is now working for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.

Brittany McGill graduated from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in Spring 2004 after specializing in the Education, Family and Social Policy track. She received a Masters of Public Policy degree. Her primary policy interests revolve around family and women's issues. Brittany accepted a position with the Department of Health and Human Service's Emerging Leaders Program, and continued to work at the National Survey of Family Growth until 2008. She is is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Maryland focusing on family demography and the intersections of gender, work, and family.

C.J. Park is a graduated from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in 2006 with a concentration in Education, Family and Social Policy. Prior to graduate school, C.J. worked in education advocacy and research in New Jersey. She a particular interest in issues related to education inequality and reform. She completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Economics from Rutgers College. C.J. currently works at SRI International's Center for Education Policy, where she works on a number of projects related to high school reform.

Belen Rodas is a graduate of GPPI, in the Education, Family and Social Policy track. She received a B.A. in Psychology from Amherst College, and a Master's Degree in Social Work, with a specialization in direct practice with children and youth, from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.

Emily Sama Martin is a Spring 2004 graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. She is a 2002 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.A. in Sociology. She is particularly interested in children's and families' issues, and is excited to have an opportunity to work on these important issues with CROCUS. Emily is a Research Analyst at Mathematica Policy Research.

Cynthia Schuster is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in the Education/Social Policy Track. Originally from Sugar Land, Texas, Cynthia earned her BS in Public Policy from the University of Southern California in 2003. Her interests are primarily in the federal role in education policy and in school finance equity. She worked for the RAND Corporation for two years and is currently a research associate at Burr Consulting, where she is responsible for fiscal and economic analyses.

Ria Sengupta Sengupta is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute with a concentration in Domestic and International Education Policy. Her interests are in higher education and education finance. Ria graduated from University of California, Los Angeles in 2002 with a B.A. in Economics and minor in Education. She was a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California for four years and is currently Project Manager of the Expanding College Opportunities initiative at Stanford University.

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Lindsay Warner is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in the Education, Family and Social Policy track, with particular interests in early education and foster care. Since her 2001 graduation from Princeton, Lindsay has worked in Chicago and Boston in child advocacy and education research. She is currently a Senior Federal Policy Associate at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

Berkeley Yorkery is a graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI) in the Public and Nonprofit Management track. Her primary policy interests include child and family issues as well as management issues. She graduated from Duke University with a BA in public policy and psychology in 2001. She is currently a Research and Data Analyst at the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute.