Ideas In Action

By Jenna Somers Richard Welsh Racial inequality in school discipline is a major problem across the United States. Black students experience disproportional office disciplinary referrals and out-of-school suspensions, which lead to greater losses in instructional time. Reducing the use of exclusionary discipline is critical for improving academic achievement and educational… Read More

Autumn Kujawa, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt Peabody College, has won the 2023 Award for Distinguished Early Career Contributions to Psychophysiology from the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Read More

By Jenna Somers Phillips-Galloway When doctoral student Basak Çermikli Ayvaz saw an opportunity to secure funding to partner with educators in Turkey to support multilingual and multicultural education, she discussed it with her advisor, Emily Phillips Galloway, assistant professor of literacy education. This led the researchers, both in the… Read More

From left to right: Adela Soliz, Cara DeLoach, Hidahis Mesa By Jenna Somers Community and technical colleges are essential for expanding access to post-secondary education and preparing students to enter the workforce, particularly within their local communities. Unfortunately, these institutions often have limited financial resources to respond to both industry… Read More

Vanderbilt University will host the Impact Evaluation Network of the Latin American and the Caribbean Economic Association for its 16th annual meeting on April 20 and 21. The event will bring together experts on policy impact evaluation to advance knowledge in the field, promote impact evaluation methodologies, increase research… Read More

Researchers in the labs of Laurie Cutting and Bennett Landman recently published a study in Magnetic Resonance Imaging exploring a new tool for imaging the brains of neurofibromatosis type 1 patients and its significance in assessing their symptoms.  Read More

By Jenna Somers Cynthia Osborne The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development recently released Child Care in Crisis: Texas Case Study, a series of four research briefs demonstrating the strained conditions of the child care industry in Texas. While… Read More

By Jenna Somers    Jason Grissom Jason Grissom, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Public Policy and Education, is approaching the end of his one-year term as president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy. AEFP is an organization of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the field… Read More

By Jenna Somers Cynthia Brame, Heather Johnson, Cristina Zepeda Vanderbilt researchers in the College of Arts and Science and Peabody College of education and human development recently received a three-year grant exceeding $280,000 from the National Science Foundation to collaborate on a study aimed at improving equity… Read More

Lauren Malachowski and Kathryn Humphreys When a parent needs to cook dinner or take a shower, often they will place their baby in a bouncy seat, swing, exersaucer, or similar seating device intended to protect the baby and grant a degree of independence to both the parent and infant. For… Read More

Four researchers from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development are among those named to Education Week's 2023 Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, an annual list of education researchers who have demonstrated the greatest influence over educational policy and practice. Read More

The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth’s annual KIDS COUNT State of the Child report features information from the 2022 Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap created by the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development. The State of the Child report… Read More

By Jenna Somers Christopher Candelaria News headlines often give the impression of teacher shortages as national and state level crises, but if policymakers want to ensure classrooms are adequately staffed, they need to examine and address labor market conditions more locally, all the way down to the school level. That’s… Read More

By Jenna Somers The United States Military Academy at West Point once used peer evaluations as a component of first-year student grades and promotion. It does not anymore thanks to the discoveries and recommendations that Riley Post, Ed.D.’21, made in his capstone project as a doctoral student in the… Read More

Carolyn Heinrich was recently elected as a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. The academy works to increase public knowledge about the contributions of social insurance programs to economic security, including programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers’ Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance, as well as… Read More

By Jenna Somers The Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development recently welcomed Emily House, MPP’09, Sherard Robbins, and Rafael Garcia as three new lecturers who began teaching courses this semester. Emily House House is the former executive director… Read More

Duane Watson Duane Watson and Yolanda J. McDonald, two faculty members of Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, recently published articles in Nature and Nature Water, respectively. McDonald’s article is in the inaugural issue of Nature Water, which was published in January. Watson, Frank W. Read More

By Jenna Somers Brent Evans (Vanderbilt) On February 28, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments in two cases challenging the legality of the Biden administration’s student loan debt relief program, which, if it prevailed, would cancel about $400 million in debt for about 16 million… Read More

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently appointed University Distinguished Professor Velma McBride Murry to the National Advisory Mental Health Council. The council advises the current U.S. secretary of health and human services and the director of the National Institute for Mental Health. Read More

Vanderbilt Peabody College Professor Mary Louise Hemmeter has received an $11.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to expand the Pyramid Model for Promoting Social Emotional Competence in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in diverse districts across the country. Read More