Michael Gottfried of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education will give the free lecture “Children with Disabilities in Full-Day Kindergarten: Effects & Policy Implications” on Wednesday, October 12 from 1-2 pm in 4018 Education Building on the UC Santa Barbara campus. The event kicks off the yearlong “Policy Goes to School” Lecture Series at UC Santa Barbara that will examine areas where current academic research sheds light on policy dilemmas in education. This talk is free and open to the public; light snacks provided.
Gottfried is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education. His talk will explore the problematic issue that almost nothing is known about full-day versus part-day kindergarten experiences for children with disabilities. Gottfried decided to analyze how absence rates vary for children with disabilities in both types of kindergarten programs using both national data and causal-inferential models. He discovered that children with disabilities in full-day kindergarten had more absences, especially girls and higher-income children. His talk will then explore the policy implications of these findings, namely that early educational programs affect high-risk populations, and we need to know how and for whom.
This lecture is presented by the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and supported by the UCSB Committee on Education Policy. Dr. Gottfried’s research was funded by the Foundation for Child Development.
Michael Gottfried’s research focuses on absenteeism, schooling context, and STEM with an interest in disabilities running through all of these areas. He has served as PI on grants focusing on schooling context and outcomes specifically for elementary school students (NSF, AERA/NSF, NIH/NICHD R03, Foundation for Child Development, Stuart Foundation, Spencer Foundation). He has published work in the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Teachers College Record, Education Finance and Policy, American Journal of Education, Elementary School Journal, among others. In 2016, he released a co-edited book on educational policy with Harvard Education Press. Gotffried is on the Editorial Board of American Educational Research Journal and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. He holds a PhD and MA in Applied Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Economics from Stanford University.
The “Policy Goes to School” Lecture Series 2016-2017 will explore the theme “Addressing Under-Researched Areas of Education Policy.” In addition to the October 2016 lecture by Dr. Gottfried, the series will include Professor Ethan Hutt of the University Maryland College Park lecturing on Education Policy and History in January 2017 and Brooks Bowden of North Carolina State University lecturing on Education Policy and Cost-Benefit Analyses in May 2017.