Nearly all school-age children in the United States attend kindergarten, and approximately three-quarters of kindergarten students are in full-day classrooms. While there have been dramatic increases in provision of and participation in full-day kindergarten, there is little evidence on the impact and cost-effectiveness of such programs and policies, particularly as compared to other types of investments in early childhood.

While existing studies of teacher retention have attempted to isolate economic and organizational factors that predict teacher turnover, this paper etends the research base by incorporating measures of principal leadership and person-job (P-J) fit. Using data from roughly 3000 teachers from the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey and the 2012-13 Teacher Follow-up Survey, we explore how leadership and P-J fit are associated with teachers’ mobility.

The importance of leadership in schools is substantiated, and we know that effective leaders call upon certain practices to influence student achievement. What remains less clear is how the professional backgrounds of educators may influence effective leader practice.

This study examines whether parents’ overall satisfaction with their child’s early childhood education (ECE) program is correlated with a broad set of program characteristics, including (a) observational assessments of teacher-child interactions; (b) structural features of the program, such as teacher education and class size; (c) practical and convenience factors (e.g., hours, cost); and (d) a measure of average classroom learning gains. It then describes associations between parents’ evaluation of specific program characteristics and externally collected measures of those features.

We use the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and other sources to examine how cognitive performance near the end of secondary schooling relates to labour market outcomes through age fifty. Our preferred estimates control for individual and family backgrounds, non-cognitive attributes, and survey years. 

The University of Virginia today announced the appointment of Ian H. Solomon as the next dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, effective Sept. 1. Solomon, currently CEO of SolomonGlobal LLC, is an educator, policymaker, diplomat and businessman with more than 20 years of experience in more than 40 countries.

More UVA graduates than ever received degrees over the weekend, and they’re not alone. New research from Batten alum Kyaw Khine at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service shows that advanced degrees in the U.S. are on the rise.

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has said one of his missions is that UVA “opens wide the door to opportunity for first-generation, low and middle-income students.” A group of students embraced that spirit even before Ryan joined the University last year and this past semester, opened their arms to local first-generation students with a day of programing tailor-made for them by current first-gen students at UVA.

The Batten School announced the appointment of Professor Jay Shimshack as associate dean for academic affairs. Shimshack succeeds Professor Craig Volden, who will conclude his distinguished four-year term as associate dean at the end of June and transition to the role of interim dean of the Batten School until Dean-elect Ian Solomon’s arrival on Sept. 1.