News and Opinions

Telemedicine Could Help Keep Kids in Class

January 17, 2023
Education Week

Schools’ use of telehealth services expanded during the pandemic, and emerging research suggests it could help reduce chronic absenteeism.

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Podcast: Jennifer Lansford on “Why are my parents so annoying?”

January 5, 2023
BBC World Service

Jennifer Lansford helps explain the science behind why children find their parents annoying in a recent episode of BBC’s Crowd Science podcast.  

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By the numbers: How North Carolina’s classrooms have changed since Leandro

December 18, 2022
WRAL

Helen Ladd was cited for her research on public education spending in WRAL’s analysis of North Carolina schools.

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Podcast: Anna Gassman-Pines on Unemployment Insurance Access Disparities

November 15, 2022
Health Affairs

Anna Gassman-Pines joined a recent episode of A Health Podyssey, the Health Affairs podcast to speak about her research on the health disparities experienced by unemployed Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Four Ways Charter Schools Undermine Good Education Policy

November 10, 2022
Forbes

Ladd argues, [public school funding] must be used “productively and efficiently to promote good educational outcomes.” Charters, by design, “operate outside state and local education systems,” to varying degrees depending on which state we’re talking about. Ladd observes that this creates several challenges.

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Economics of Infant Feeding in the U.S.

October 10, 2022
Econofact

The national shortage of baby formula in the U.S. that began in February of 2022 cast an urgent spotlight on the difficulties parents can face in meeting basic nutritional needs of their babies. A narrow focus on the supply of infant formula or the benefits of breastfeeding does not shed light on the full scope of economic tradeoffs families face.

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American Family Policy Is Holding Schools Back

September 28, 2022
The Atlantic

A child’s ability to succeed in the classroom is powerfully influenced by their home environment. Giving parents the support they need could be key to fixing American education.

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How resilience and learning are working hand in hand for our students in districts

September 26, 2022
EdNC

The NC Center for Resilience & Learning is teaching schools and districts how to better help students who have experienced trauma.

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Q&A | Jennifer Lansford, director of Duke’s Center for Child & Family Policy

September 9, 2022
EdNC

EdNC spoke with Lansford about her time at CCFP, her policy goals, and what keeps her up at night.

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Radio Interview with Christina Gibson Davis on Net Worth Poverty

September 7, 2022
WABE

Net Worth Poverty. It’s the other half of the income story that gets overlooked when talking about poverty. Researchers found that family wealth, the value of a family’s assets, such as savings and property, minus debt, is linked to lower cognitive scores and increases in problem and behavior scores in children.

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Understanding the Full Cost of Child Poverty

September 6, 2022
Duke Today

A broader look at family finances can lead to better-designed programs that address child wellbeing.

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Is the Cost of an Elite Preschool Worth It? Experts Weigh In

August 9, 2022
Yahoo! Finance

Research seems to indicate that early childhood education can be a stepping stone to success later on in life. But preschools vary greatly in their philosophies, curricula and quality of teaching staff, so not every school will make the same impact.

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Benefits of Childhood Mental Health Intervention ‘Ripple Across Generations’

July 27, 2022
Duke Research Blog

A childhood intervention program called Fast Track improves family life into the second generation, report researchers.

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Duke Announces Winners of the 2022 DST Spark Seed Grants

July 20, 2022
Duke Today

Sarah Komisarow is among nine early- to mid-career faculty from across Duke campus and the School of Medicine who have been recognized for pursuing new directions and ideas to enhance novel research and scholarship at Duke.

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Babinski and her research team are awarded new funding to support teachers in working with English Learners.

July 15, 2022
IES National Center for Education Research

Babinski and team will design, develop, and test an online professional development program called Bridging English Language Learning and Academics (BELLA) for improving teacher and student outcomes for working with English Learners.

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Getting Tough? The Effects of Discretionary Principal Discipline on Student Outcomes

July 11, 2022
FutureEd

The debate over school discipline often devolves into whether stricter rules create more orderly school environments or produce dire consequences for students. A new report looking at principals’ disciplinary styles suggests that both outcomes could be true.

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Lansford to Lead Center for Child and Family Policy

June 8, 2022
Sanford School of Public Policy

Jennifer Lansford, research professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, will be the new director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy as of July 1, Sanford School Dean Judith Kelley announced today.

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Racial Inequality Research Grants Awarded to Duke Faculty

May 6, 2022
Duke Faculty Advancement

The Office of the Provost has selected 18 projects for funding through The Duke Endowment that engage topics related to the issue of racial inequality. Among those selected include projects led by CCFP’s Anna Gassman-Pines, Beth Gifford and Sarah Komisarow during the 2022-2023 academic year. 

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Letter to the Editor: NC charter school backers fight federal grant rule changes

April 20, 2022
The News & Observer

State and local taxpayers cover the operating costs of charter schools, as well as the negative spillovers that they impose on local school districts. This public funding requires policy makers to pay attention not only to the benefits for enrolled students, but also to the collective or public interests that justify public funding for education.

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Dreaming of a universal early childhood system

April 17, 2022
EdNC

Early childhood experts and community leaders from North Carolina and across the country described the needs of young children and families and how our systems, policies, and government structures could better address those needs.

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A vision ‘as breathtaking and groundbreaking as public school’ for early childhood

April 14, 2022
EdNC

Hosted at Duke University, the gathering, “Building a Universal System for Families with Young Children in North Carolina,” was organized by the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and by The Hunt Institute.

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COVID & Families Across Cultures [Podcast]

April 13, 2022
Policy 360 Podcast

Prior to the pandemic, Jennifer Lansford and her colleagues were conducting in-depth, multi-year research on children and families in nine countries. They are now expanding their research to consider COVID-19 and children and parents’ mental health.

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How Charter Schools Disrupt Good Education Policy [Lecture]

April 12, 2022
Wellesley College

Helen Ladd presents The Diane Silvers Ravitch ’60 Lecture: How Charter Schools Disrupt Good Education Policy at Wellesley.

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Bipartisan Report Calls for Rebalancing U.S. Priorities Towards Children [Podcast]

April 8, 2022
Policy 360 Podcast

A bipartisan report on the challenges and opportunities facing children in America stresses the need to rebalance national investments toward children.

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Bristling at Budget-Busting Buyouts

April 1, 2022
Inside Higher Ed

Questionable spending on contract buyouts for fired coaches at the University of South Carolina has state lawmakers demanding answers. It’s a familiar story at colleges across the country.

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Early Learning Is Key To Global Competitiveness; We Must Invest Now

March 8, 2022
Forbes

Early childhood education (ECE) and its counterpart, childcare, are indispensable in the effort to maximize the percentage of our population that has the necessary education and opportunity to not only function but to succeed and grow and thrive in a global economy.

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Classroom Disruptions

February 28, 2022
The New York Times

There is now a consensus that children learned much less than usual — and that their mental health suffered — when schools were shut for months in 2020 and 2021. But Covid-related school shutdowns did not really end during Omicron. They instead became more subtle, often involving individual schools, classrooms or groups of students, rather than entire districts.

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COVID & Families Across Cultures [Podcast]

February 9, 2022
Sanford School of Public Policy

Jennifer Lansford joins Sanford School Dean Judith Kelley on the Policy 360 podcast to discuss ongoing research in nine countries around the world related to COVID-19 and parents’ and young people’s mental health.

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Bipartisan Group Offers Policy Plan for Rebalancing National Investments Toward Children

February 8, 2022
CCFP News

February 8, 2022 — A bipartisan report released today on the challenges and opportunities facing children in America stresses the need to rebalance national investments toward children. The consensus report, “Rebalancing: Children First,” is released by the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Institution Working Group on Childhood in the United States. More than three years in the…

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Low-income people pay more into lottery-funded scholarships

February 5, 2022
Zipe-Education

As the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots grow, so do the lines of people looking to buy a ticket. That’s good news for state coffers and the public education programs they fund. In many states, a significant share of lottery revenue helps finance public higher education.

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Study links lead in childhood well water to teen delinquency

February 1, 2022
ScienceDaily

Exposure to lead in drinking water from private wells during early childhood is associated with an increased risk of being reported for delinquency during teenage years, according to a new study.

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COVID-19 school closures took a toll on children’s mental health — and made parents more likely to lose their temper

January 18, 2022
MarketWatch

As omicron threatens to lead to more school closures, a new study by researchers at Duke and Columbia looks at the pressures of such closures on families.

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Early childhood education and later educational outcomes

January 6, 2022
Fordham Institute

Much attention has recently focused on early childhood education (ECE), thanks in part to its inclusion in President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. A new study by Robert C. Carr and colleagues investigated how the longitudinal effects of ECE are mediated by the quality of the K–12 schooling that follows.

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Anna Gassman-Pines On Early Impacts Of The Pandemic For Parents In Service Occupations [PODCAST]

December 20, 2021
Institute for Research on Poverty

In this podcast episode Gassman-Pines offers an overview of their findings and discusses how what they learned fits within the larger context of low-wage work in the United States.

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Duke Law Researchers Pry Open the ‘Black Box’ of Plea Bargaining

December 9, 2021
The Crime Report

The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are resolved without a trial. Duke researchers designed and implemented a data collection system that was piloted in prosecution offices in Durham, NC, and Berkshire, MA.

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How Do Low-Income Families Spend Their Money?

November 17, 2021
EconoFact

Our analysis shows that in spite of the safety net programs that support families residing in poverty, those living at or below twice the federal poverty line, devote a substantial share of their monthly expenditures to goods and services necessary for basic shelter, health, and nutrition.

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5 Top Takeaways from the Hunt Institute Webinar: Exploring the Legacy of the Abecedarian Project

November 16, 2021
Early Learning Nation

Researchers continue to explore how to sustain the benefits that early childhood education (ECE) generates.

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Parents’ Behavioral Control vs. Psychological Control

November 15, 2021
Psychology Today

Jennifer Lansford breaks down parents’ behavioral control versus psychological control and why they are important for children’s development.

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Community partnerships push Spartanburg’s Hello Family initiative

November 15, 2021
The Post and Courier

Family Connects International in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

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How Are Kids Handling The Pandemic? We Asked Them.

November 10, 2021
FiveThirtyEight

Are kids and teenagers stressed, depressed and scared? How do they see themselves and their families changed by the pandemic? And how has their behavior changed to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in their daily life?

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